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 <img src="https://imageproxy.lbkrs.com/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/607c9d5e62267c559cef7c10/960x0.jpg/query-Zml0PXNjYWxl" alt="Portrait of Curt Flood" original-src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/607c9d5e62267c559cef7c10/960x0.jpg?fit=scale"/> 
 
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 The Curt Flood Act of 1998, which was named in honor of the former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder ... [+] who challenged Baseball's reserve system, was intended to explain the present extent of Baseball's antitrust exemption. 
 
 Bettmann Archive 
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Last week, three Republican senators who opposed Major League Baseball’s decision to move its All-Star Game out of Atlanta, GA, released proposed legislation to strip Baseball of its historic antitrust exemption. Although this bill — which was proposed by Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — will not force MLB to play its All-Star game in a state that has passed a purported voter suppression law, the bill could still affect the operations of Major League Baseball in at least five meaningful ways. 
 
First, without an antitrust exemption, Major League Baseball would not likely be allowed to continue its efforts to contract minor league baseball teams. Indeed, it was the Major League Baseball’s collective efforts to acquire and contract Federal League baseball teams just over 100 years ago that gave rise to the first antitrust lawsuit involving Baseball — Federal Baseball Club v. National League. It was in that case where U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes held that the business of baseball was outside the scope of the Sherman Act based on a now outdated definition of “interstate commerce.” Later, the U.S. Supreme Court maintained an exemption for Baseball even despite acknowledging that Baseball met the modern definition of “interstate commerce.” 
Second, taking away Baseball’s antitrust exemption also would likely prevent Major League Baseball teams from collectively assigning their trademark rights to a central league office for purposes of granting exclusive league-wide licenses for apparel manufacturing. Indeed, this very form of collective action by teams in a sports league was found to be subject to antitrust challenge, absent a special antitrust exemption, in the seminal 2010 Supreme Court decision of American Needle v. Nat’l Football League. 
 
Third, the loss of Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption would call into doubt the ability of Major League Baseball teams to collective individual team’s statistical data for purposes of centralized selling or licensing data to gambling enterprises. Indeed, recent efforts by certain sports leagues to centrally license exclusive rights to use their statistics to third-party gambling operators bears a strong economic resemblance to sports leagues’ longstanding efforts to centralize and license individual-team trademark rights. Thus, although not yet tested under antitrust laws, league-wide data practices are likely to face a similar legal outcome. 
 
Fourth, without an antitrust exemption, Major League Baseball would become more susceptible to antitrust challenges if it seeks to prevent member teams from moving to a more desirable home territories. Thus, without Baseball’s antitrust exemption, it becomes more likely that the sport could see the Miami Marlins become the Manhattan Marlins or the Oakland Athletics become the San Francisco Athletics. It also would become more likely that a team in one of the poorer economic markets would attempt to move to a burgeoning sports city like Las Vegas rather than waiting to allow the league to collectively sell an expansion franchise to such a market. 
 
Finally, Baseball’s historic antitrust exemption arguably allows for Major League Baseball teams to collectively boycott managers and coaches, even thought the Curt Flood Act of 1998 specifically leaves open the possibility for a boycotted player, outside the scope of a labor relationship, to bring an antitrust challenges. Thus, if a current Baseball team-owner wants to sell his team to a former player who was alleged to have used performance enhancing substances such as Alex Rodriguez or if one of Baseball’s 30 team-owner decides it wants to hire a manager involved in the recent Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, lifting MLB’s antitrust exemption would make it more difficult for the league to stop this from happening. 
Some, if not all, of these outcomes may benefit individual MLB team, players, fans and consumers. However, none of these are outcomes that Major League Baseball collectively desires. Thus, one would expect the Major League Baseball owners to actively lobby against this proposed bill. This includes even those MLB owners with far right political tendencies. 
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Marc Edelman (Marc@MarcEdelman.com) is a Professor of Law at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, Sports Ethics Director of the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity, and the founder of Edelman Law. He is the author of many published articles on sports and antitrust law including “Monopolizing Sports Data.” 
 
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Last week, three Republican senators released proposed legislation to strip Major League Baseball of its historic antitrust exemption. Although this bill will not force MLB to play its All-Star game in Georgia as they hope, the bill could affect operations of MLB in at least five meaningful ways.

5 Reasons Why Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption Still Matters To League Owners