## Facts

- After the World Football League collapsed, the Mid-South Grizzlies (a joint venture formed to operate a professional football team in Memphis, Tennessee) sought admission to the National Football League (NFL) as an expansion franchise.
- In 1975, the Grizzlies submitted an expansion application and paid the standard application fee required by the NFL’s constitution and by-laws; the fee was returned.
- The Grizzlies appeared before the NFL Expansion Committee in December 1975; the committee indicated it would recommend against further expansion at that time.
- The NFL had recently expanded (including Seattle and Tampa Bay) and cited reasons for not expanding, including maintaining an even number of teams and uncertainty associated with labor relations.
- The NFL never granted the Grizzlies a franchise for Memphis.
- The Grizzlies sued the NFL, its member clubs, and the commissioner seeking treble damages under Clayton Act § 4, alleging that refusal to admit them excluded them from the NFL’s league structure and associated revenues.
- The district court granted summary judgment for defendants; the Grizzlies appealed, arguing discovery was incomplete and material facts were disputed.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred by granting summary judgment before completion of additional discovery and despite alleged factual disputes.
2. Whether the NFL’s collective refusal to grant an expansion franchise in Memphis constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade (Sherman Act § 1), including a “group boycott.”
3. Whether the refusal to expand to Memphis was exclusionary conduct that unlawfully acquired or maintained monopoly power (Sherman Act § 2).
4. Whether 15 U.S.C. § 1291 implied an enforceable policy requiring expansion that could support liability or relief.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the NFL, its member clubs, and the commissioner.
- The court held the plaintiffs did not satisfy Rule 56(f) (now Rule 56(d)) requirements to defer summary judgment because they failed to provide an adequate, specific affidavit showing why additional discovery was essential to oppose the motion.
- Assuming for analysis that the NFL possessed monopoly power in major-league professional football, the court held the challenged refusal to place a team in an unoccupied NFL market (Memphis) was not exclusionary conduct that maintained monopoly power.
- The court rejected the § 1 theory that the refusal was an unlawful boycott; the league’s expansion decision was treated as internal joint-venture governance evaluated under the rule of reason and not shown to harm competition.
- The court concluded the plaintiffs’ alleged injury—being denied entry and thus denied a share of monopoly returns—did not constitute the type of antitrust injury the Clayton Act remedies.
- The court read § 1291 narrowly as a limited exemption related to television arrangements and the AFL–NFL merger, not as a mandate to expand or a basis for a private right to force admission.

## Legal Principles

- Monopoly power alone does not violate Sherman Act § 2; liability requires willful acquisition or maintenance of that power through exclusionary conduct rather than success due to product quality, business judgment, or similar causes.
- A professional sports league’s decision not to expand into a city without an existing league team, without proof of harm to market-wide competition, is not itself unlawful monopolization or an unreasonable restraint of trade.
- Antitrust laws protect competition, not a disappointed applicant’s desire to obtain membership and share in supracompetitive returns; denial of admission, standing alone, is not sufficient antitrust injury for Clayton Act § 4 damages.
- Coordinated decisions inherent in operating a sports league joint venture (including number and location of franchises) are generally analyzed under the rule of reason, not treated as per se unlawful “group boycotts,” absent a showing of anticompetitive market effects.
- A party seeking more discovery to oppose summary judgment must identify, by affidavit and with specificity, the facts sought and why they are essential; speculative or generalized requests do not bar summary judgment.
- 15 U.S.C. § 1291 provides a limited antitrust exemption for specified professional football broadcasting and merger-related arrangements and does not impose a continuing legal duty to increase the number of teams or confer a right to obtain a franchise.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that the NFL’s refusal to grant an expansion franchise to the Mid-South Grizzlies for Memphis, even assuming the NFL possessed monopoly power, did not violate Sherman Act §§ 1 or 2 because the plaintiffs showed no exclusionary conduct or unreasonable restraint harming competition, and their claimed injury was only exclusion from sharing in league profits; summary judgment was properly entered despite requests for additional discovery.


Mid-South Grizzlies v. Nat’l Football League, 720 F.2d 772 (3d Cir. 1983)