## Facts

- The United States sued the National Football League (NFL) and its member clubs under § 1 of the Sherman Act, challenging league by-laws restricting radio and television broadcasts of games.
- NFL clubs individually negotiated broadcast and telecast contracts, but Article X of the NFL by-laws imposed coordinated territorial limits on where games could be broadcast or telecast.
- Article X generally barred a club from causing a game to be broadcast or telecast by a station within 75 miles of another club’s “League City” on the day that other club was playing at home or broadcasting/telecasting its own away game back into its home territory, unless the home club consented.
- In practice, clubs almost never granted consent, producing a near-blanket blackout of “outside games” within each club’s home territory.
- Because most games were played on Sundays and clubs commonly broadcast or telecast away games back into their own territories, the rule effectively prevented live broadcasts or telecasts of most outside games in most home territories.
- The by-laws were agreed to and binding on all member clubs, operating as a collective agreement among competing teams affecting the distribution of game broadcasts.

## Issues

1. Whether Article X constituted a “contract, combination, or conspiracy” in restraint of trade affecting interstate commerce under § 1 of the Sherman Act.
2. Whether the broadcast/telecast restrictions were unreasonable restraints of trade under the rule of reason.
3. If any restraints were unlawful, what injunctive relief was appropriate.

## Decision

- The court held that the NFL by-laws were a collective agreement among member clubs and therefore a “contract” within the meaning of the Sherman Act.
- The court declined to treat the broadcast restrictions as unlawful per se and instead applied a rule-of-reason analysis.
- The court found that some coordinated limits were reasonably related to protecting live attendance and the league’s economic viability.
- The court granted the government’s request for injunctive relief only in part, enjoining enforcement of restrictions that exceeded what was reasonably necessary, while allowing core home-territory protections to remain.

## Legal Principles

- League by-laws binding on member competitors can constitute a “contract” or “combination” under § 1 of the Sherman Act.
- Broadcast and telecast arrangements involving interstate transmission can fall within “trade or commerce among the several states” for Sherman Act purposes.
- Horizontal restraints in professional sports broadcasting are evaluated under the rule of reason when the product (league competition) requires some coordination.
- A restraint may be lawful if reasonably necessary to protect legitimate objectives such as preserving live-game attendance, but unlawful to the extent it imposes broader competitive limits than necessary.
- Antitrust injunctive relief may be tailored to prohibit only the excessive applications of a restraint while permitting limited, justified restrictions to remain.

## Conclusion

The court treated Article X as a concerted restraint within § 1 but upheld limited home-territory broadcast protections as reasonable under the rule of reason and enjoined broader restrictions that unnecessarily suppressed competition in the market for game broadcasts and telecasts.


United States v. Nat'l Football League, 116 F. Supp. 319 (E.D. Pa. 1953)