## Facts

- Robert E. Boris, a former University of Arizona football player, left school in 1982 without graduating and later retained agents, ending his NCAA eligibility.
- The United States Football League (USFL) began play in 1983 and operated a draft-based player-acquisition system.
- The USFL eligibility rule limited draft eligibility to players who (1) exhausted college eligibility, (2) reached five years from initial college enrollment, or (3) graduated.
- Under the eligibility rule, Boris could not enter the USFL until at least the January 1985 draft.
- The USFL territorial-schools rule gave a member club exclusive draft rights to up to five newly eligible players from designated local colleges.
- The Arizona Wranglers held territorial rights over University of Arizona players, including Boris, meaning other USFL clubs could not sign him absent a waiver or trade of those rights.
- In February and May 1983, Boris’s agents contacted USFL teams seeking a contract or tryout, but no team signed him.
- The Wranglers allegedly refused to waive or transfer their territorial rights in Boris (at least through November 1983), leaving him unable to sign with any USFL team for at least two seasons.

## Issues

1. Whether the USFL eligibility rule, as applied to Boris, constituted an unlawful group boycott or unreasonable restraint of trade under Sherman Act § 1.
2. Whether the territorial-schools rule granting the Wranglers exclusive rights to Boris constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade under Sherman Act § 1.
3. Whether Boris was entitled to partial summary judgment on these § 1 claims.

## Decision

- The court denied Boris’s motion for partial summary judgment.
- The court declined to treat the challenged rules as per se unlawful under a “group boycott” theory.
- The court held that the legality of the eligibility and territorial rules required rule-of-reason analysis and could not be resolved as a matter of law on the existing record.
- The court found material factual disputes concerning the rules’ competitive effects and asserted justifications, requiring further factual development.

## Legal Principles

- Jointly adopted and enforced league rules can satisfy Sherman Act § 1’s concerted-action requirement when implemented by a league and its member clubs.
- Eligibility and player-allocation rules with plausible competitive objectives are generally evaluated under the rule of reason rather than condemned per se.
- Summary judgment is inappropriate where the restraint’s competitive harms and procompetitive justifications turn on disputed facts and market context.
- Under rule-of-reason analysis, courts consider both anticompetitive effects (including exclusion of a class of players from employment opportunities) and asserted justifications (such as competitive balance, orderly player distribution, and cost/quality rationales).

## Conclusion

The court refused to declare the USFL’s eligibility and territorial assignment rules unlawful on partial summary judgment, holding that their Sherman Act § 1 validity depended on a fact-intensive rule-of-reason inquiry into competitive effects and justifications.


Boris v. United States Football League, 1984-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 66,012 (C.D. Cal. 1984)