Document Type
Article
Abstract
This Note argues that baseball should be put on the same playing field as other professional sports leagues. It explores the legal anomaly of baseball’s antitrust exemption and argues that either the Supreme Court or Congress should remove the exemption to subject Major League Baseball to federal antitrust laws to increase competition in professional baseball and improve conditions in the minor leagues. The article traces the history of baseball’s hundred-year-old antitrust exemption and details how the federal courts and Congress have treated it, including recent attempts by Congress to repeal baseball’s exemption. It then compares baseball to other professional and college sports that do not have the exemption, underscoring the irrationality of maintaining baseball’s protected monopoly. The specific anticompetitive effects of reduced competition in baseball are then detailed, illustrating the economic consequences of maintaining this rule. The solution, the article suggests, is for the Court to overrule its outdated rule or for Congress to take definitive action to remove the baseball exception.
Recommended Citation
Joey Martinez, Antitrust Law in Professional Sports: How Major League Baseball has Continued Being the Exception to the Rule, 17 ConLawNOW 189 (2026)