Minimum Age Restrictions in Professional Sports
After his dismissal from Ohio state following his freshman season, Maurice Clarette challenged the NFL‘s Draft eligibility rule under antitrust law. The court ruled in favor of Clarett, but the decision was overturned. He was later drafted, but never played a down. Unfortunately, Clarett may be best known for his legal troubles since the end of his football career.
gible, as he felt he would have been reSo why is this case in court? Is it cruited to play professionally without the not plainly obvious that this is a direct minimum age restriction. violation of the Sherman Act? Now you might be thinking: Think about the nature of the ―but wait, the antitrust laws have to do ―product‖ described above: a football with trade. How does this whole situation game. In order for this product to exist at qualify as trade?‖ Consider each football all, some agreements must exist between team as a company buying raw materials the ―companies‖ that make it. Teams to create a product. The product, in this must agree on rules for how the game is case, is a football game. Continuing this to be played and to determine who wins. line of thought, imagine that each player Even more fundamental than the rules of is a company selling their labor as one of any sports game, the teams must agree to the raw materials that go into creating the meet in order to compete; in other words, product. Thus, the ―sellers‖ in the market you cannot have a game with only one are the players themselves and the team. There must be agreements in order ―buyers‖ are the teams. The facts of Because the players in the big four sports the case leagues are unionized, the leagues must taithen boil lor their practices to be legal with regard to down to the antitrust laws and American labor law teams coming together which allows for concerted economic beand forming havior as long as it is in the context of a colan agreelective bargaining agent (e.g. a union). ment to boycott the purchase of a good, which violates the language in the to create the product. Such was the logic Sherman Act almost perfectly. This is that the Supreme Court followed in its clearly an agreement in restraint of trade opinion in NCAA v. Board of Regents. and thus in crystal clear violation of the 468 U.S. 85 (1984), the opinion that set antitrust laws. the precedent that all agreements within a league that have some sort of impact on 8
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trade must be examined for a ―procompetitive justification.‖ According to case law to date, this is the only defense that will hold up in court. Leagues must prove that whatever agreements they make actually encourage competition, not hinder it; the agreements must be ―pro-competitive.‖ All agreements necessary for the existence of the product itself fall within this category. In the same opinion, the Supreme Court determined that all cases involving agreements within leagues would have to undergo a deeper analysis to decide whether or not the agreement was procompetitive. This was only one of the arguments presented to the court in the case of Clarett v. NFL. One other argument is the one that most people wrongfully believe is the justification for a minimum age hiring restriction within a sports league – the fact that the demands of the sport, be it in the game itself or due to the strenuous training regiment, could have adverse effects on the future health and wellbeing of the player. Hypothetically, imagine a coach seeing a 300 pound fifteen year old and thinking he could use that person on his defensive line. If that player were to be hit incorrectly during practice or in a game, his future health would be compromised. Under the United States antitrust laws, a coach could technically hire that player. Why does this potentially