(05-10-2020 05:43 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 01:39 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 10:21 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 10:00 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(05-10-2020 09:48 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I dont think the battle would be fought over leaving. The battle would likely be over the exclusion of those that wish to join the new organization. Like I said, based on what I can tell, these cases tend to hinge on how the argument is framed and how one defines "the market" in the specific situation being litigated.

That doesn't resonate with me. Heck using that logic, you or I could start a pro basketball team, then demand the NBA admits us on the grounds that they are the only viable market for pro basketball or something else that would probably get laughed out of court. There just isn't any right for a Memphis or BYU or San Diego State to play football against Alabama or Notre Dame.

As to your other post - I think the motivation of the CFA in 1982 was similar to what you say the P5 motivation would be now, to maximize their revenue because they are higher-value schools/conferences and don't want to split/share revenue with lower value schools. Nothing wrong with that. It leaves the G5 conferences free to negotiate their own deals with advertisters, bowls, anyone based on their market value.

Thats pro sports. Different model. The NBA is literally one company who's actual business is selling franchises and marketing the entertainment product those franchises produce.

There really is no reasonably good comparison for college sports in the real world of business. In business, if you arrange a group of companies and openly agree as a group not to do business with other companies---you are wide open to being sued for anti-trust violations. Thats what is being proposed---yet its simply the exercise of voluntary association and not really different from what we see in the FBS vs D2 world. This is why Ive always said applying business law to the NCAA amateur athletics never really made sense to me---but thats exactly what has been done in every case since the 1984 Oklahoma case to the current Alston case. In virtually every case the "what we have always done" position has either lost or been forced to modify the way it operates. Thus, I dont find it unreasonable to think its possible the G5 could conjure up a case at least as good as the USFL had against the NFL.

I don't see how the USFL situation is relevant. The NFL was found guilty of specific predatory practices such as enticing USFL owners with NFL franchises if they did things to harm the USFL, conducting supplemental drafts of USFL players, and expanding rosters so as to sign more USFL players. It wasn't the mere existence of the NFL as a separate league consisting of the most popular pro football teams that was the problem.

I've said all along that if a breakaway P5 engaged in predatory actions, like threatening TV networks or advertisers, etc. with retaliation if they signed deals with NCAA/G5 entities, then the P5 league would be vulnerable to anti-trust.

But it's hard to fathom how just breaking away - like the CFA did from the NCAA TV deal in 1983 - could be related to anti-trust. There's no law that says you have to compete with schools you don't want to compete with. The NCAA/G5 would have their own organization with plenty of schools to compete against. The P5 couldn't stop that, or if they did try to, that would be anti-trust. But the G5 schools don't have an inherent right to piggy-back off the brand value created by P5 schools.

The Big 12 doesn't let USF join, Memphis doesn't schedule games with Division 3 or NAIA schools, the list goes on. Heck, using your logic, any school could start a football program then demand entry into the P5 organization, just because ... Makes zero sense to me.

Correct. Its ok if a P5 school does not want to schedule a G5 school. Simply dont schedule them. The option for any individual school to not schedule a G5 is not necessarily the same thing as an agreement between 65 individual schools to not to play G5 schools and barring them from competing within the organization. Maybe that distinction doesnt matter to the courts--maybe it does.

With respect to the Big12 comment---Now your being silly. The Big-12 doesnt have to add USF---but they might have an issue if they actually bar their teams from from playing USF. Memphis doesnt schedule games with NIAI schools, but the NCAA or the AAC does not mandate that they dont.

You seem to be doing a "bait and switch" here or at least a conflation. When using terms like "not competing against", I thought we were talking about organizational membership, meaning a P5 league not admitting a G5 league in to their organization, not "individually", like a rule banning particular P5 schools from playing games against G5 schools. E.g., you said:

"I dont think the battle would be fought over leaving. The battle would likely be over the exclusion of those that wish to join the new organization."

I agree, if say a P5 league adopted a rule banning its members from scheduling NCAA/G5 schools for games, that could very well be regarded as an anti-trust action. But, the legal victim here might not be the G5 school, it would be the P5 school that would be subject to sanctions by the P5 league for playing a G5 school. The complaint would take the form of say Alabama, which wants to play a game vs Memphis, being told by the P5 league that if you do that, we will punish you in some way, suing its own P5 league for anti-trust. Memphis wouldn't have any standing as they wouldn't be the one being subject to constraints. IIRC, NCAA and NAIA teams do play each other, and we could expect the same in terms of the new P5 league teams playing games against NCAA/G5 (or FCS, etc.) teams.

But that's a different kettle of fish from what you said above, which is a claim that the new P5 league would have to have a mechanism for allowing NCAA/G5 schools or conferences to join. There seems to be zero anti-trust implications in not having that at all. Again, that would be tantamount to saying that P5 schools have to share their brand value, etc. with G5 schools and conferences. That has no basis.

And you seem to admit as much above, when you agree that the Big 12 doesn't have to admit USF, it just can't ban Big 12 teams from scheduling USF. But it has no obligation to admit USF to the Big 12, allow USF to compete for Big 12 titles, share in Big 12 revenues, etc. And *that* is the big issue here of course, that is what G5 conferences would want to do, the individual-scheduling issue is of minor concern by comparison.

But if there was just some confusion here about what I was saying about "compete", then to clarify, I agree that a ban by the new P5 league against its teams scheduling individual "OOC" or "OOL" (out of league) games vs G5 teams would likely be very problematic in an anti-trust sense, so I wouldn't expect any such rules to exist, just like the NAIA and NCAA do not ban their teams from scheduling games vs each other.