Franchise Ownership Structure

Back in 1958, a man by the name of Walter O'Malley moved his professional baseball team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Although Walter didn’t know it yet, this move would affect the professional sports league in two significant ways. First, it expanded the market for professional sports to cities on the west coast in states like California, and Washington. Second, the relocation also altered the relationship between sports franchise and their communities.

There are rules and regulation for everything. The DMV requires certain forms of identification for your driver’s license and the IRS requires you to file your income tax in a certain way to avoid penalty. It is no different when we are talking about the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). NCAA has strict regulation on its players and its member schools that must abide by. Although NCAA regulates pretty much everything through its 427-page manual, some rules were difficult if not impossible to enforce. In the case of Oliver v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, the conflict emerges as Andy Oliver questioned NCAA’s power to regulate in the face of court.

The issue of the case was that the eligibility of a NCAA player was in violation of antitrust laws. Maurice Clarett did not want to wat the mandated three years after your last year in high school to declare for the NFL. The court found that the rule was not immune from antitrust laws and that the teams and players have a collective bargaining agreement that helps support the NFL claim.

By their very nature, sports leagues are cartels that exclude competition from other companies. You cannot start a baseball team and hope to play the Yankees unless you can get Major League Baseball (the cartel) to grant you a franchise. The antitrust laws prohibit cartels, but professional sports are the only private business in the United States that is largely exempt from those laws. Ever since a 1922 court decision (Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League et al.), baseball has been totally exempt. No other sport enjoys such a blanket exemption from antitrust, but all professional team sports have a labor exemption and, since the

Intercollegiate sports have been around since the 1850s to promote athletes to play for the love of the game and not for income. Recently, two different decisions have endangered this tradition: the decision by the National Labor Relations Board to recognize the Northwestern University football team as employees of the university and a federal judge’s decision regarding payment to football and men’s basketball players. Both decisions favor the idea of paying NCAA athletes because their games generate massive income; from ticket sales, merchandising, and TV and marketing contracts, that benefit the university, but not the athletes themselves (Majerol). Nonetheless, NCAA athletes should not be paid because of the problems that would arise from

Another case was Jeremy Bloom against the NCAA and their amateur ruling. Jeremy Bloom was a highly touted athlete with a scholarship offer from the University of Colorado and his skiing skills landed him on the 2002 Olympic Winter games and the U.S. National and World Cup Championship in mogul skiing within the same year (Freedman, 2003). Bloom also had a series of modeling and entertainment contracts. However the NCAA presented Bloom with a dilemma, if he wanted to play football, he had to cancel his outside contracts. Bloom tried submit a case where he could receive his football scholarship and still benefit from his skiing success. Nonetheless the NCAA amateur model didn’t support Blooms case. According to Freedman (2003) “The NCAA has ruled in Bloom’s case that since he doesn’t receive a salary, his endorsement deals and prize money violate the provision that he can’t make money based on his athletic ability”. Bloom was hard-pressed about giving up his endorsement. He wanted to play football but the only way to pay for his skiing career was through endorsements in which he had many including Oakley, Under Armor among others. The courts final ruling was to uphold the NCAA ruling even though the judge was “expressing his disappointment with the NCAA” (Freedman, 2003). This is another discouraging illustration of the NCAA being covetous. Prospering off

(Solomon 1) In the NCAA there are many laws that prevent the athletes from doing certain things. These laws are called the “Laws of Amateurism”. In general, amateurism requirements do not allow salary for participating in athletics, or prize money above actual or necessary expenses (NCAA Center). However Judge Claudia Wilken partially granted class action status in a lawsuit concerning the use of college athletes' names and likenesses. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled the plaintiffs, including former and current Division I men's basketball players and Football Bowl Subdivision players, will be allowed to challenge the NCAA's current restrictions on what athletes might receive in exchange for playing sports. The ruling sets up the prospect of a fundamental change in scholarship rules and the concept of amateurism (Berkowitz 3). This would help athletes to be able to fight for the compensated pay.

Leading the Salt Lake City area started with a challenge. Due to a hostile takeover winning over this territory was imperative. Since moral was down these franchise owners needed motivation. Trust and building an understanding that the company wanted this area to succeed were just several variables to cover during the first year. Due to the reality of the group's religious affiliation, the size of the Utah territory, the gender composition of the group, and the potency of a democratic leadership style ended up being a win-win for all. While having a strong sense of a charismatic leader as well provided the ability in winning over the franchisees of the company with this motivational leadership style.

In the beginning of the 1950’s baseball had spread all over the US, more western cities got teams. Until the 1970’s baseball teams basically owned their players because of such strict contracts, but since then the rules have changed to where the players are free, but within certain limits. The results have been bidding wars and star players who are paid millions of dollars a year to play. Disagreements between the players and the owners have even stopped baseball at times.

During the summer of 2013 one of the biggest outrages in all sports, not just the collegiate division, was the story of Texas A&M’s golden boy Johnny Manziel. At the beginning of the football season Manziel shocked fans around the country with his remarkable abilities; abilities that would later make him the youngest Heisman winner at the time. However, a couple of months later no one would be talking about his talent or his Heisman, but the allegations surrounded around Manziel selling his signature on eBay for money. The NCAA strictly bans collegiate athletes to benefit in any way when it comes to their name and the revenue that comes with it. This shined light on one of the major controversies in college sports; the dispute of whether it is right to allow student athletes to benefit off their names. The NCAA ought to allow collegiate athletes the ability to profit off the use of their name because by allowing players to receive revenues it would ease the negative effects of playing collegiate sports for the student athletes.

Ed O’Bannon, a previous UCLA basketball player filed a case looking to sue the NCAA for licensing players without consent. The NCAA marks their players as amateurs, therefore, they do not allow paying players. However after the ruling, the NCAA was found to be violating antitrust laws, which could potentially change the model of the system (Maese). Judge Claudia Wilken ruled an injunction that schools in the NCAA would be allowed to provide players a trust fund in order to compensate players for using their names in broadcasting, merchandise or imaging. In 2016, this trust fund will allow universities to conduct bidding wars for future recruits (Strauss, Tracy). This of course, would be able to be capped at a certain mark and would not be payable until after the departure of a student athlete’s time at a college or the end of their eligibility (Berkowitz) This court case could potentially change the way college sports are run.

The Major League today consists of 30 teams that represent cities throughout the United States and Canada. In the early years of the MLB was most known for its baseball wars, legal disputes, bidding of players, threats between leagues and broken contracts. Throughout the years baseball has been associated with union avoidance and hostility over pay establishments, benefits and work rules. (Auerbach, 2016) Players have been subject to a restrictive system through which a player

Oliver’s case was interesting: “He sued the NCAA, arguing—with close-to-irrefutable logic—that the no-agent rule violates a player's right to counsel. (Many agents and representatives are, in fact, lawyers.) An Ohio judge agreed. He struck down the NCAA bylaw, and ordered the NCAA to reinstate Oliver” (Mahler, 2014). The basis of the court ruling appears to be based more on the lawfulness aspect of the ethical model.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decides that the NCAA’s payment rules do not allow college athletes to obtain the money they deserve. The court also ruled that the antitrust law states that the NCAA allows the school to only pay for the athlete’s tuition. A New Orleans business reporter did an article over a basketball player, named Ed O’Bannon, who believed that he was being robbed of money that he rightfully deserved. In 2009, O’Bannon, who played basketball for the University in California at Los Angeles, sued the National Collegiate American Association for using his name and image on television and in video games. A group of other students joined O’Bannon in trying to fight the NCAA. They challenged that the amateurism rules were not fair to athletes because other people were profiting off of their name and actions. The NCAA then stated that the players signed a waiver stating the NCAA would be allowed to use the player’s name and image. O’Bannon’s legal team then argued that the players are forced to sign that waiver in order to play college sports (“Federal Appeals”).

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