Supreme Court Rules against the NFL

[wolverine]

Now with todays supreme court ruling vs the NFL does Miggle get to bring back the NFL teams?????

[Tomkat]

From what I read, if I understand it correctly, each team acts as it's own business. The NFL cannot dictate what each team does. I haven't read much yet, but that's what I got out of what I did read.

[detroitchild]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

From what I read, if I understand it correctly, each team acts as it's own business. The NFL cannot dictate what each team does. I haven't read much yet, but that's what I got out of what I did read.

That's what I got as well. I'm no legal beagle but I think instead of the NFL coming after people each team would be responsible for monitoring their images/likeness being used. Chances are nothing will change though. They'll still pick on us little guys.

[WEIRDWOLF]

Is there a link to the ruling? I missed the news.

[5-13 Studios]

here's a link: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,6069384.story


I heard of this on NPR today. It seems that one of the old manufacturers of fitted caps took the NFL to court. Apparently the NFL took all of the merchandising away from vendors, and funneled it all through Reebok, and suggesting a much higher price for merchandise. This little mom and pop shop actually had the stones to take them to court, and lost. The small court claimed that the NFL was 1 single entity, and all of the teams were not individual businesses. The mom and pop appealed to the Supreme Court, the NFL agreed to this thinking that if they won in the Supreme Court appeal, there would be precident for them to do this with ALL NFL merchandise, video games, magazines, fantasy football, etc... They had the backing of all other large sporting entities, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, etc... who were all thinking the same thing. But, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the league consists of 32 individual businesses, all under the NFL umbrella. The case is now going back to a smaller court to rule whether they are guilty of monopolizing, or if they were just trying to run efficient business practices.
I don't know if Miggle could or would be able to pursue a license with the NFL again. I don't know if they would be able to pursue it like the college teams, where individual teams would be licensed rather than the whole group. Regardless, this is a pretty big deal.

[WEIRDWOLF]

One for the little guy. Hats off to American Needle!
In answer to Wolverines original question, it looks to me that Miggle or any company would have to pursue each teams rights just like they do in dealing with colleges. Either way, don't look for any NFL teams any time soon. It will still be an expensive venture!