| jidar |
10-20-2005 03:07 PM |
Wow, we're probably up shit creek here.
This has happened before and they didn't cave, look at this crap: http://www.voluntarytrade.org/newsit...php?storyid=12
Quote:
Arlington, VA, September 10, 2004—In order to avoid potential liability under a 1966 amendment to the antitrust laws, the National Football League will not nationally televise a rescheduled game between the Tennessee Titans and the Miami Dolphins, said Skip Oliva, president of Citizens for Voluntary Trade, during an interview tonight on Fox Sports Radio’s “Game Time with Steve Czaban.”
The Dolphins-Titans game, originally scheduled for this Sunday, was rescheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. due to the projected path of Hurricane Ivan. While the game will be telecast by CBS in South Florida and four Tennessee markets, it will not be available on cable, broadcast, or satellite to the rest of the nation.
Oliva said the NFL imposed the blackout to avoid possible antitrust sanctions. Although contracts between television networks and professional sports leagues are immune from antitrust scrutiny under a 1961 congressional exemption, a superseding 1966 law withdrew immunity for any professional football game telecast on Friday night or Saturday if any high school or college football game was being played within 75 miles of the broadcast station that same day.
The 1966 rule was part of a law exempting the NFL’s merger with the American Football League from antitrust review. Oliva said the National Collegiate Athletic Association lobbied Congress for the Friday-Saturday ban in order to prevent the NFL from telecasting games at the same time most college and high school football games were being played.
According to Oliva, the NFL could telecast the Saturday game nationally, but doing so would open the league up to an antitrust lawsuit from any college or high school that has a game scheduled that day.
* * *
Title 15, United States Code.
Section 1291-Exemption from antitrust laws of agreements covering the telecasting of sports contests and the combining of professional football leagues
The antitrust laws, as defined in section 1 of the Act of October 15, 1914, as amended (38 Stat. 730) (15 U.S.C. 12), or in the Federal Trade Commission Act, as amended (38 Stat. 717) (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.), shall not apply to any joint agreement by or among persons engaging in or conducting the organized professional team sports of football, baseball, basketball, or hockey, by which any league of clubs participating in professional football, baseball, basketball, or hockey contests sells or otherwise transfers all or any part of the rights of such league's member clubs in the sponsored telecasting of the games of football, baseball, basketball, or hockey, as the case may be, engaged in or conducted by such clubs. In addition, such laws shall not apply to a joint agreement by which the member clubs of two or more professional football leagues, which are exempt from income tax under section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. 501(c)(6)), combine their operations in expanded single league so exempt from income tax, if such agreement increases rather than decreases the number of professional football clubs so operating, and the provisions of which are directly relevant thereto
Section 1293-Intercollegiate and interscholastic football contest limitations
The first sentence of section 1291 of this title shall not apply to any joint agreement described in such section which permits the telecasting of all or a substantial part of any professional football game on any Friday after six o'clock postmeridian or on any Saturday during the period beginning on the second Friday in September and ending on the second Saturday in December in any year from any telecasting station located within seventy-five miles of the game site of any intercollegiate or interscholastic football contest scheduled to be played on such a date if -
(1) such intercollegiate football contest is between institutions of higher learning both of which confer degrees upon students following completion of sufficient credit hours to equal a four-year course, or
(2) in the case of an interscholastic football contest, such contest is between secondary schools, both of which are accredited or certified under the laws of the State or States in which they are situated and offer courses continuing through the twelfth grade of the standard school curriculum, or the equivalent, and
(3) such intercollegiate or interscholastic football contest and such game site were announced through publication in a newspaper of general circulation prior to August 1 of such year as being regularly scheduled for such day and place.
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