Even if you have a lot of other priorities for instance, sports, extracurricular activities, etc., still you need to complete a senior project to graduate successfully
Sports & Ent.
L.J. Whenever, in the interest of European economic and social
integration, EC law overrules the governance of sport by associations
and federations, it must be acknowledged that the pyramid of sports
organisations is at least potentially challenged. (1) Comparing the models
highlights core values, sharpens analysis, and yields new insights.
A few preliminary observations may be useful in defining the
models. [section] 12 et seq. In part, this may be attributable to decisions of the
European Court of Justice and other applications of EC law, (44) but,
overall, increased economic regulation of the clubs should have the
effect of minimizing commercial disparities among the clubs. (69) Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty, much like Articles
1 and 2 of the Sherman Act upon which the European provisions were
based, prohibit anti-competitive agreements and market dominance. Means: The Models Themselves
To what extent do the basic features of the two models,
respectively, conform to reality in this era of globalization and
commercialization? To what extent are the models similar despite the
apparent differences between their respective features? In seeking
answers to these questions, it will be helpful to note several
characteristics of sport as it actually operates on both sides of the
Atlantic, in terms of the six basic features of the European Sports
Model.
a. J. Pol. Mon., Sept. Stoel Professor of Law, Willamette University College
of Law. (5 cool A Moroccan national, Abdel Majid
Oulmers, was badly injured in the course of a mandatory release
competition to play on the Moroccan national team. Conclusion
"Globalization and commercialism are not just American
inventions." (71) These trends continue on both sides of the
Atlantic, (72) accelerating a convergence of the European and North
American Sports Models in many respects and on all levels of
competition. These
provisions therefore constitute the main vehicles for challenges to
arrangements that set up exclusive broadcast and distribution rights.
Article 81(3), however, gives the Commission the power to allow
exemptions from anti-trust challenges if doing so could be expected to
improve production or distribution in the interest of regional economic
integration while benefiting consumers, so long as otherwise prohibited
arrangements include only restrictions that are indispensable to the
attainment of acceptable objectives and do not afford the possibility of
substantially eliminating competition. L. (30)
The North American Sports Model implies that membership in the
league is essentially a gift from other members of the league, although
membership normally entails the payment of a substantial fee. For example,
the European Commission's consultation document noted that sport in
the United States is not a pastime and way of contributing to society,
as it is said to be in Europe, but only a business "operated mainly
by professionals". Most importantly, the Court decided that the law applies to
employment issues involving MLB (but not minor league) baseball players,
thereby giving those players rights comparable to those of other
professional athletes.
ii) Broadcasting Rights
Television and media rights engage a complex of collective league
rights and individual club rights. The White Paper is structured
around three themes: the societal role of sport, its economic dimension
and its organisation in Europe.
With respect to the European Sports Model, the White Paper adopts
the concept of the specificity of sport, id. The Role of Schools and Colleges
The fundamental role of schools and colleges in the organisation of
sport, and the characteristic combination of sport with academic
education, is another fundamental feature of the North American Sports
Model, (26) indeed, an essential building block of both non-professional
and professional sports. Indeed, many English
football fans often cheer for Brazilian and Argentinian teams in their
World Cup matches with French and Italian teams rather than for their
fellow Europeans. Sci. If, however, the rights actually belong to the
league, such laws do not apply. Despite
criticism by later courts and invitations for Congress to modify the
statute to change this rule, the exemption remained absolute until 1998
when Congress, in response to an incident involving a pitcher, Curt
Flood, nearly 30 years earlier, extended the anti-trust law partially to
baseball. At the top of the
pyramid are the European federations, again, one for each sport, such as
the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), with one member from
each country. Players anticipating a transfer
to another team may negotiate a salary with their current team cap-free.
Thus, soft caps encourage players to remain with their teams. The intangibles
of a sports franchise can be good or bad, but sports is definitely a
powerful medium. Third, opportunities for exploitation of new
media, such as internet broadcasts, are to be marketed separately in
response to the Commission's concern that the so-called
"bundling" of those rights with the television broadcast
rights would inhibit the development of the new media.
V. (31)
D. 19 (1997).
(10) On the benefits of this system, generally see Parrish &
Miettenen, supra note 3, at 207.
(11) Football Association, National League System Regulations
(2006); see also Roger G. In sum, although competitive balance
remains a shared goal of both sports models, there are clearly
limitations on its achievement and questions about its importance.
Finally, the two models seek to insulate sport as much as possible
from political and harmful economic manipulation. The injury resulted
in demonstrable losses to the club during Oulmer's prolonged period
of recovery from his injury. (2)
Second, a functional analysis and evaluation of the European Sports
Model inevitably must take account of the legal constraints,
particularly European Union law. Both models are largely policy
constructs, and the North American Sports Model may simply be that which
the European Model is not. 2004) and serves as President of the International Association of
Sports Law (IASL).
. A sports franchise is a
powerful tool that a city can use to improve the quality of life of its
citizens.
Id. For the
most part, it largely restates what is seen to be a creeping
Americanization of sport, a view that is sometimes inspired by European
nativism, antagonism toward American culture, or misunderstanding of it.
(21)
This so-called creeping Americanization is closely identified with
commercialism, but has other distinctive characteristics. In any
event, even if a single-entity approach were found to be tenable for a
professional league, its disadvantages of inhibiting the autonomy of
teams may outweigh its benefits.
Historically, the anti-trust law has applied comprehensively to all
sports organisations except Major League Baseball (MLB). However, the clubs could not agree on how to share
revenue gained from additional sales, whether negotiated
individually or collectively. (4) It was the first to
acknowledge the economic and social roles of sport in the process of
European integration. Free agency has been qualified, however, by
reserve clauses in particular. In his Foreword to the book, Stephen
Weatherill, id. It rejected the G-14
demand for damages but decided to refer two questions to the ECJ: (1)
whether the club's obligation to release players without
compensation, as FIFA mandated, violated freedom-of-movement and
antitrust competition provisions of the EC treaty; and (2) whether
FIFA's binding determinations of a coordinated match calendar,
which is an essential foundation of the pyramid construction of European
sports, complied with those provisions. (32)
E. The purposes of this system are primarily to give small-or
medium-sized clubs a better chance to reward merit and generally to
enhance competition. I. That
kind of division certainly does not bespeak an optimal outgrowth of
grassroots in an important community.
D. 52 (2001).
(13) See Commission of the European Communities, Commission Staff
Working Document, The EU and Sport: Background and Context, Accompanying
Document to the White Paper on Sport 14, SEC (2007) 935.
(14) See Consultation Document, supra note 5, at 2.
(15) John Wunderli, Squeeze Play: The Game of Owners, Cities,
Leagues and Congress, in Sports Law & Regulation 13, 24 (1999).
Thus, a professional sports team should be a tool to be used to improve
the quality of life of the members of the community. "Under the common law, the home
team has a fundamental right to telecast its own game. In North America, however, a robust
system of non-professional competition among schools and colleges
remains an alternative fixture of the sports culture.
d. at 81.
(72) See, e.g., Stephen Weatherill, Is the Pyramid Compatible with
EC Law?, Int'l Sports L.J. 13948/00 of Dec. These exemptions, however, have not always been applied
consistently.
IV. Sports
& Econ. When his new team failed to pay a required
transfer fee to the former team, thereby preventing the transfer, Bosman
brought legal action against the team and the Belgian football
association. For such fans, having some
assurance of a championship may be more important than watching exciting
matches. Specific Legal Issues
So far, we have seen that despite the contrasting features of the
European and North American Sports Models, they converge in sharing
fundamental commonalities and structural characteristics in practice,
but they continue to be divergent institutionally and in certain
specific practices. 1996).
(40) Weatherill, supra note 38, at 76.
(41) The hard cap, employed by the National Football League (NFL),
specifically and absolutely limits the total amount that a team may pay
its players, whereas a soft cap, as employed by the National Basketball
Association (NBA), likewise sets a limit on compensation but allows
exceptions, for example, to enable a team to resign its own veteran free
agent without a salary cap limitation. The result was a revised selling arrangement approved by the
Commission in 2003 with several essential elements. National Identity
The European Commission has described sport in Europe as "one
of the last national passions. These developments should
certainly accrue to the benefit of players even as they threaten to
undermine the carefully crafted vertical integration of the European
sports pyramid. For a discussion of judicial and other developments in
the EU regulation of sports after Bosman, see Roberto Branco Martins,
The Kolpak Case: Bosman Times 10?, 2004-1/2 Int'l Sports L.J. Ross, Player Restraints and Competition Law
Throughout the World, 15 Marq. They are
responsible for overseeing the work of the regional federations,
organising competition among clubs from different regions, staging
national championships, and regulating sports activity. 2, 1997, 1997 O.J. National Identities, International Competitions, and Negative
Aspects
In terms of professional sports, the remaining three features of
the European Sports Model are considerably less important in North
America, primarily because the North American Sports Model encompasses
only two countries, the United States and Canada. See also
Weatherill, supra note 1, passim.
(22) Consultation Document, supra note 5, at 4.
(23) Id. (C80) 1.
Both of these treaties amended the Treaty of the European Economic
Community [hereinafter EC Treaty].
(5) European Commission, Directorate-General X, The European Model
of Sport (1999) [hereinafter Consultation Document]; Richard Parrish,
Sports Law and Policy in the European Union (2003); Weatherill, supra
note 1. Later, in preparation for a 1999 Conference on
Sport in Olympia, Greece, the European Commission expanded on this
declaration by publishing a detailed consultation document entitled
"The European Sports Model." (5) The same year, the Commission
published the Helsinki Report on Sport (6) in response to which the
European Council published a definitive statement, the 2000 Nice
Declaration on Sport. The Canadian
structure is similar to that of the United States, though not identical
with it, and a few Canadian teams and players in binational professional
leagues are thereby subject to the same rules as United States teams and
players.
(3) For a thorough, highly informative exploration of this topic,
see Richard Parrish & Samuli Miettinen, The Sporting Exception in
European Union Law (200 cool . Granada 74 SAD. The entire Declaration 29 appears in this text
at infra note 18. Pyramid Structure
In the closed, horizontally integrated system of the North American
Sports Model, a kind of pyramid structure, though not the same or as
formally organised as that of the European Sports Model, is nevertheless
apparent. Regulation Under Anti-Trust/Competition Laws
a. To be sure, as one moves up the sports pyramid, it
is apparent that community playing fields abruptly change to commercial
ventures, but that is true in both Europe and North America.
In Europe, "much professional sport is rapidly distancing
itself from the social and educational context of recreational
sport". L. at 73.
(27) But see Halgreen, id. In the interest of
balancing among teams, the poorest performers from the previous season
have the first right to pick rookies, thereby helping allocate new
talent in the league in reverse proportion to performance. [section] 1 et seq. In Meca-Medina & Majcen v Comm'n of the
Eur. Specifically, the
European Commission's Consultative Document recognized that the
formation of national identities often inspires ultra-nationalism,
racism, intolerance, and hooliganism related to sports events. The purpose,
again, is to encourage balance among teams by limiting the ability of
the wealthiest teams to pick off the choicest cherries in the league. L. Ultimately,
however, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down the player
transfer system under Article 39 of the EC Treaty, which provides for
freedom of movement among Member States. Rev. The major leagues are generally
considered to be "hermetic," meaning that new teams are seldom
admitted to a league and there is no annual promotion or relegation
between junior leagues and senior leagues. In recent years, the relocation to Washington,
D.C. 26, 2007.
(32) See generally Weatherill, supra note 1.
(33) See text at infra notes 54-58.
(34) See Stephen F. sports leagues. & Prac. To some extent,
this is true, but mostly in the short-run. That is due to several factors: the profound role of the
schools and colleges in training and recruiting professional players,
the annual drafts for recruiting new players, and the importance of
semi-professional teams and leagues in thousands of communities.
Moreover, the closed system generates lasting long-term loyalties to
particular teams as well as close cultural identifications with them.
These community-based loyalties help ensure what amounts to an informal,
semi-integrated pyramid of sports organisation. Thus, inspired by the objective of regional
integration, a unique effort continues in Europe to distinguish pure
sporting activity from sporting-related activity subject to economic
regulation.
Specific legal issues of professional sports highlight both the
continuing divergence and emerging convergence between the two models.
For example, the following comparative summary of anti-trust
(competition) regulations, with specific reference to broadcasting
rights, is instructive. In North America, however, restraints on teams and players
are important, especially contractual restraints, the draft system for
player recruitment, salary caps, luxury and payroll taxes, and revenue
sharing. Also, European sports will likely continue moving
toward a collective bargaining system and an exemption from EC
competition law for labour agreements. You would know who is going
to die in the end. Expansion
and contraction of teams is controlled solely by cooptation. Bosman, (54) remains the cause
celebre. Probs. As
sketched out in the literature, (24) it has, like the European Sports
Model, six principal characteristics:
A. Sports L. Communities, (56) two swimmers claimed that the anti-doping rules
of the Olympic Movement, as specified by the international swimming
federation (FINA), violated provisions of the EC Treaty that protect
freedom of movement and void collusive arrangements among organisations.
The ECJ determined that EC law generally applies to sports-related
issues, just as it would to other issues with economic implications.
Thus, to avoid the prohibitions of the EC Treaty, contested sporting
rules must be limited to sporting necessities. 183 (2006); L. These rules require clubs to
release players for so-called "international duty" on national
teams and insure them against the risk of injury in FIFA-sponsored or
recognized international matches without compensation from FIFA, even
when players are injured in the course of such "mandatory
release" competition. Schiera, Balancing Act: Will the
European Commission Allow European Football to Reestablish the
Competitive Balance That it Helped Destroy?, 32 Brook. Thus, any rights
sales by a club-run league constitutes an agreement among competing
clubs to jointly sell valuable rights, which is subject under anti-trust
law to the rule of reason analysis. (60)
1. An Extensive System of Team and Player Restraints
The European Sports Model has not relied on team and player
restraints to enhance competitive balance among clubs. For example, the perennial
issue among NCAA schools in North America of allocating funds between
money-making and money-spending sports is becoming significant in Europe
as the more monolithic, single-sport structure of its organisational
pyramid falls apart. In the dispute itself,
however, the ECJ ruled that EC law did not apply. They organise European championships in each sport, based
on the rules of international sports federations (IFs), such as the
Federation Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA) in
football/soccer. (In North America almost all licensing is collective, unlike
the European practice. United States
The structure of professional sports leagues in the United States
is defined primarily through a combination of labour law and anti-trust
law: "The common ground for attack is found in application of the
antitrust law." (61) Most claims arising in this area suggest
violations of the Sherman Act, (62) stemming from collusion between
owners of separate teams. (49) The commercial marketing of sports now
permeates European football/soccer. And apart from occasional
exceptions, such as the consecutive NBA-dominated "dream
teams" at the Olympic Games, nor do teams release players to
compete in national team competitions. The state of play in the European legal
tournament is reflected in four cases, three that have been decided by
the European Court of Justice and one by the Court of Arbitration for
Sport.
1. All teams are owned by the league, with
investors/operators having very limited control over the actual decision
making. Unfortunately
for the league, however, United States courts have not been very
receptive to classifying professional sports leagues as single entities.
The Supreme Court decision of 1984 in Copperweld v Independence
Tube Corp. Ent. The former "Rozelle Rule" of the National
Football League (NFL), for example, represented the use of reserve
clauses as a basis for imposing transfer fees on teams acquiring players
from other teams, often with the intent and effect of locking players
into service with single teams for their entire careers. See also Treaty of Nice, Feb. For
example, contrary to the monopolistic national structures of
football/soccer in Europe, several competing organisations stage
championship boxing matches there as well as elsewhere. 1-04135. Generally, the professional
leagues maintain competitive balance. Finally, the CAS arbitrator ruled that the similarity of
the newly formed club's name, Granada 74 SAD, with that of another
club, Granada 74 CP, was immaterial insofar as the LFP had duly
registered the name of Granada 74 SAD. Id. Rev. The agreement applies only to
transfers during the course of a player's contract.
2. The league transfers derivative rights in the
naked market opportunity, a property interest, to enable the member
clubs to gain economic rewards by enhancing the inherent value of
the business opportunity through team marketing and other
operations. See Alan
M. Commercialization of Sport
The composition of the closed leagues that comprise the North
American Sports Model is based not on promotion and relegation of teams,
but rather on a combination of owner preferences, usually for commercial
reasons, and approval by the joint ventures of established teams. (2000).
(37) Matthew J. Weston, Sports Law: Cases and Materials 231 (2006).
(31) WR News, Edition 3, Jan. (63) Thus the collusion
is "internal" and beyond the reach of the Sherman Act. On the other
hand, the North American Sports Model is said to distinguish sharply
between "amateur" and "professional" sports, each
with its own unintegrated structures. The union's initiative prompted David Stern, the NBA
Commissioner, to acknowledge the players' complaints. The extent to which EC regulatory law extends to
sports has profound implications for the integrity of European sports
law. 2731 (1984).
(65) 284 F.3d 47 (1st Cir. (23) Despite the questionability of such
generalizations about the sports culture in North America, the model
merits consideration as a creditable representation of reality. L.J. Indeed, "the traditional structures of European
sports will most likely continue to create problems simply because they
are by nature based on the importance of nationality and thus contain an
inherent element of potential discrimination". Without understanding the role of the
schools and colleges as building blocks, however, the division between
"amateur" and "professional" sports appears to be
more pronounced than it really is.
C. The
product is sometimes described as little more than packaged
entertainment. (35) Although restraints on a market such as
that of the sports industry may violate U.S. These playoffs not only add
to the excitement of competition each year but also offer an equitable
second chance to some clubs, particularly late bloomers and
non-champions. Second, contracts for broadcast
rights may not exceed a period of three years, at which time a new bid
process is to be initiated. A primary function of this pyramid structure is to
facilitate an equitable distribution of revenue among the constituent
sports clubs so as to encourage mass participation and competitive
balance among clubs.
B. The commitment to national identity,
therefore, is one of the features of sport in Europe." (17)
Declaration 29 on Sport, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, articulated
this principle as follows:
The Conference emphasises the social significance of sport, in
particular its role in forging identity and bringing people
together. at 12.
(9) Sport for All, Sports Info. The European Sports Model
What, then, do we mean exactly by the European Sports Model? In
1997 the Treaty of Amsterdam, which amended the Treaty Establishing the
European Economic Community, attached several single-paragraph
declarations, including Declaration 29 on Sport. A Closed System of Competition
The structure of sports organisation in North America involves a
closed system of competition. (14) While there may be some funding and other
involvement at the grassroots from the regional and national
federations, the clubs bear most of the responsibility for developing
players and putting together teams.
The role of sports is idealized in Europe as a vital means for
communities to bind their citizens together, from the grassroots to the
top professional level. (4 cool In no small measure, this has resulted from foreign
acquisition of elite clubs. Although the European Sports Model
has been the subject of many writings, in-depth comparisons between it
and the North American model are infrequent. Grassroots Involvement.
Another feature of the European Sports Model is a strong commitment
to voluntary, grassroots leadership. There are also important variations
among the structures of national football/soccer organisations within
Europe. Fox, The Competition Law of the
European Union (2002).
(70) Ross & Szymanski, supra note 67, at 239.
(71) Id. in
comparison to Europe." Id. (20)
III. Moreover, the framing of related
issues has been quite different.
The distinctive framework within which several important issues
have been addressed within the European Community involves a dichotomy
between pure sporting activity and sporting-related activity subject to
economic regulation. The more the models stay the same, the more they change.
(1) A major exception is Lars Halgreen, European Sports Law: A
Comparative Analysis of the European and American Models of Sport
(2004). Ends
In practice, are the two sports models descriptive? If so, are the
current organisational structures on the two sides of the Atlantic
continuing to diverge or are they converging? Let us begin to answer
this question by noting some commonalities between the two models as
means to accomplish certain ends, not as ends in themselves. In 2007 FIFA and UEFA asked the Court of
Arbitration for Sport to enjoin the Spanish Football Federation from
allowing a new club, Granada 74 SAD, to compete in the second division
of Spanish football. Whitney, Winning Games Versus Winning
Championships: The Economics of Fan Interest and Team Performance, 26
Econ. at 5.
(24) See especially Halgreen, supra note 1, at 7.
(25) Id.
(26) "This direct interrelationship between the education
system and professional sports leagues is quite unique for the U.S. International Competitions
The European Commission, acknowledging a psychological need for
people to confront one another, promotes sports competition as an
alternative to conflict, if not bloodshed, and as a safeguard of
cultural diversity. Promotion and Relegation
In Europe's open system of promotion and relegation, clubs may
move up or down from year to year depending largely on their win-loss
records. 49 (2004).
(35) Halgreen, supra note 1, at 79.
(36) 15 U.S.C. What, then, are the main anti-trust
ramifications of the organisational structure for professional sports in
North America?
i) Joint Venture/Horizontal Integration Structure Whenever a
professional league is classified as a joint venture of separate and
independent teams, such collusion is open to attack under the Sherman
Act. Also, the establishment
of open competition in sports, involving non-professionals and
professionals alike, has further blurred the distinction between amateur
and professional sports in North America.
b. at 77.
(29) See, e.g., Hollywood Baseball a**'n v Commissioner, 42
T.C. Try Golf
to Unify Europe, Christ. Promotion and relegation of teams in the lower tiers is
also merit-driven, but clubs must affirmatively request promotion upward
if they qualify. Ordinarily, if they elected not to
exercise the right of first refusal, the Rozelle Rule still applied and
the NFL Commissioner could himself impose a transfer fee on the former
team.
A second type of player restraint in North America is the draft
system. On the same basis, the ECJ also
struck down a provision that, in the interest of national identity, had
strictly limited the number of players from other EC Member States who
could become members of a team. It is also
feared that a decision in favor of the petitioners will all but end the
coordination of professional, non-professional, and national team
competition in European sports. In particular, the EC framework is materially
different insofar as it understandably puts overwhelming emphasis on
issues of economic import. The variations in practices among the
several North American professional leagues as well as the
much-neglected similarities between features of the European Sports
Model and the actual characteristics of sports organisation in North
America further call into question both the reality of a North American
Sports Model and the extent to which its features actually differ
materially from those of its European sibling.
Traditionalists may lament the changes that are occurring rapidly
in the organisation of European sports, such as the creeping
Americanization, as it has been dubbed, of English football. A variety
of factors, such as robust players' unions, the annual
players' drafts, salary caps (both hard and soft (41)), and revenue
sharing of broadcast revenue, seek to promote equality.
In European football/soccer, however, a traditional reluctance to
adopt such restraints has led to competitive imbalances.
Well-established, large-market clubs dominate the sport, (42) and newly
formed consortia of elite clubs, especially the G-14, (43) reinforce the
imbalances. 1
(2004); Karen Jordan, Forming a Single Entity: A Recipe for Success for
New Professional Sports Leagues, 3 Vand. McCurdy, C. However, in defense, the leagues have asserted that they do not
constitute cartels but rather a single entity. v National League of Professional
Baseball Clubs, (66) the Supreme Court famously ruled that organised
baseball did not fall within the scope of anti-trust law. In Charleroi v FIFA, (57) a Belgian football/soccer
club, the Royal Charleroi Sporting F.C., joined by the G-14 group of
elite clubs, challenged rules of the FIFA. Rights to broadcast matches that
have not been so acquired by a certain deadline revert to the clubs,
giving them the ability to exploit the residual rights within their
respective media markets and thereby increase the likelihood of events
being televised to their fan base. Int'l L.
& Disp. The Commissioners of each professional league assign
priority numbers to teams to determine the order in which they may
select from the rosters of available new players. Ross & Stefan Szymanski, Antitrust and
Inefficient Joint Ventures: Why Sports Leagues Should Look More Like
McDonald's and Less Like the United Nations, 16 Marq. (2 cool Indeed, membership in a league is an
essential and definitive requirement for a team. Free
agency restrictions vary from league to league and often change with new
collective bargaining agreements. Because of this relationship, based on
national rivalries, international competition unfortunately involves the
"inherent element of potential discrimination" that too often
takes the form of spectator violence and hooliganism, all of which
constitute the "negative aspects" of the European Sports
Model. As we have seen, this
grassroots foundation is essential in the training and recruitment of
professional players. A sports team can
be a very effective educational and communicative tool. Second, both systems seek to find the right balance between
the necessary values of cooperation and competition. To be sure,
the process of recomposition or reconstitution of team membership in
leagues is not established by formal rules, as in the European Sports
Model, nor is it routine, and the process is very gradual. 213, 229 (2006).
(6 cool 15 U.S.C. Parrish & Miettinen,
supra note 3, at 43, observe as follows:
The White Paper was not designed to act as the basis for
legislative proposals but to state the Commission's current policy
position on sport. Even if that identification is generally
valid, the community is not always coterminous with a particular
municipality. 97. Gritt Osmann, Das Europaische Sportmodell, Spurt, 6/1999, at
228; 2/2000, at 58. The essential question for analysis
of legal issues surrounding sale and distribution of television and
other media rights for professional sports is: Who owns the rights in
the first instance? If the rights are viewed as belonging to the teams,
then the collective selling of them is subject to review under antitrust
or competition laws. (7) Neither of these latter two documents
specifically reiterates the features of the European Sports Model
although they both confirm values closely associated with the model.
Then, in 2007, the Commission issued a White Paper on Sport ( cool that
puts several features of the model in the larger context of sport as an
economic and social phenomenon of fundamental importance to human
welfare.
The European Commission's Consultation Document identified six
specific features that continue to form the core of the European Sports
Model:
A. We have already seen that their general organisational
structures diverge, in theory if not in practice. (22) On the other hand, the same document
concluded that the negative features of the European Sports Model
ultra-nationalism, racism, intolerance, and hooliganism--"are
unknown in the U.S.". 287, 289 (2006) (corporate raider
Malcolm Glazer's purchase of Manchester United); John Cassidy, The
Red Devil, New Yorker, Feb. (34)
Contractual restraints are best understood against a background of
free agency by which players may be released or otherwise freed of
contractual obligations. For example,there are important variations among the several major professionalleagues within North America, between Canadian and U.S. The FA itself
is the exclusive, recognized national federation in English football and
is therefore a member of UEFA.
The specific rules and criteria for the process of promotion andrelegation are defined by the national federations, such as the FA inEngland, but they all seek to reward merit and promote equality ofopportunity and balance competition among teams. (45) Thus, the principles of equality and uncertainty of
outcome (46) not only may be frustrated but may actually run contrary to
the preferences of sports fans. 7,
2007.
(60) Another important set of issues, involving the licensing of
sports merchandise, lies beyond the scope of this study but merits
mention. (11)
Overall, the European Commission "has taken the position that
the pyramid structure of sport, along with promotion and relegation, are
important aspects of the culture of sport in Europe, and that
preservation of [such cultural] institutions (and presumably after such
cultural aspects of sports) is an important interest that should be
considered in determining whether the rules and policies of leagues and
governing bodies are lawful under EU law, including competition
law". (3 cool Opposing teams should be roughly
equal on a given day. They are responsible
for organising competition among the constituent clubs in a particular
sport. EC law applies, but does not (necessarily) condemn.
On the "specificity of sport," see also Ian Blackshaw,
The 'Specificity of Sport' and the EU White Paper on Sport:
Some Comments, Int'l Sports L.J. Other sports have their own distinctive structures. The discourse of such investment ventures
does not smack of communitarianism but rather of commerce. at vii, observes as follows:
In my view the correct way to understand the so-called
"sporting exception" in EC law is simply to regard it as the
space allowed to sports governing bodies to show that their rules, which
in principle fall within the EC Treaty where they have economic effects,
represent an essential means to protect and promote the special
character of sport. Instead, it was the same entity with a different owner,
name, and location. See Roberts, supra note 12.).
(61) Yasser et al., supra note 30.
(62) 15 U.S.C. anti-trust law, two
exemptions remove restraints on labour from this general policy. Only
the NFL, however, sells the collective exclusive rights to every game.
The other major leagues sell exclusive television rights for some games,
but games not sold by the league may be sold by the teams playing in the
games.
b. Indeed, throughout the world, "port is
central enough to the experience of the vast majority of people to be a
useful tool to break down the barriers which divide citizens." (15)
It is unclear, however, how to define a genuine sports community above
the level of highly localized, essentially neighborhood competition.
Consequently, it is unclear whether the vaunted grassroots involvement
ever comes close to achieving the ideal of communitarianism championed
by the European Sports Model. Some Asian and Caribbean
organisational structures, for example, are distinctive.
The North American model is likewise diversified. The first of these cases, Union Royale Belge des
Societes de Football a**'n v. 17, 2004, at 1.
(52) Halgreen, supra note 1, at 396.
(53) See, e.g., Ola Olatawura, The "Theatre of
Dreams"?-Manchester United, FC Globalization, and International
Sports Law, 16 Marq. See also Stephen Weatherill, Resisting the Pressures of
"Americanization": The Influence of European Community Law on
the "European Sports Model," 8 Willamette J. Professor Nafziger is the author of International Sports Law (2d
ed. These drafts
largely define the access of teams to the pool of new players and
exclusive contracting of them.
The third type of player restraint is the salary cap, which sets a
limit on the maximum amount a team can pay its players. While this test suggested new
hope for the single-entity defense, courts have been reluctant to accept
it so as to relieve the leagues of anti-trust regulation.
Recently, Major League Soccer (MLS), the newest professional sports
league in North America, was deliberately structured so that it would
resemble a single entity. 169 (2002).
(12) Gary Roberts, The Legality of the Exclusive Collective Sale of
Intellectual Property Rights by Sports Leagues, 3 Va. 155, 178 (2005).
(43) For a description of this consortium, see text at 2(b), infra.
(44) See infra notes 54-58. The North American Sports Model
In general, the European Sports Model reflects an open system of
national competitions in which individual clubs, organised
comprehensively from the grassroots to the top professional tier in a
pyramid structure, move up or down in status generally based on merit at
the end of a season. at 13, but advances the
rather unhelpful, noncommittal view that a definition of a unified model
generally defies adequate definition. It has been said, quite aptly, that
although in Europe there are no leagues without teams, in the United
States there are no teams without leagues.
[It] is the league, not the teams, that generates the fundamental
market opportunity to produce professional sports games within the
league territories. Negative Aspects
The last of the six features of the European Sports Model candidly
acknowledges the negative aspects of competition, particularly as a
byproduct of efforts to forge national identities. [section][section] 1291-1294 (2000).
(69) See generally Eleanor M. Of increasing
significance, however, has been the framework of external regulation.
Although both European and North American systems are subject to similar
legal constraints, particularly anti-trust/competition law, some
constraints are more distinctive of one system than the other, for
example labour and collective bargaining law as a fundamental element in
North American professional sports. (2000).
(63) See Nathanial Grow, There's No "I" in
"League": Professional Leagues and the Single Entity Defense,
105 Mich. Any sale that demonstrably raises
prices, reduces viewership, or renders output unresponsive to consumer
demand would be unlawful." (67)
The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, (6 cool however, created an
exemption from anti-trust regulation for the collective selling by
professional leagues of the rights to broadcast professional baseball,
hockey, basketball, and football games. structures, andbetween those structures and others elsewhere in North America, such asin Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. (10) A dynamic, hierarchical system therefore
operates at all levels of the pyramid. For example, it is estimated that 39% of the
population in Austria belongs to a sports club. Even the well-endowed New York
Yankees in Major League Baseball lose games and pennant races. The precise definition
of an amateur varies, from the NCAA's strict prohibitions on
professional contracts to the inclusive eligibility rules of the Amateur
Sports Act and the Olympic Movement that have little to do with
compensation of athletes.
The important point is that the distinction between amateur and
professional sports which Europeans attribute to North American sports
is fundamental in highlighting their commitment to an open, integrated
structure of competition. There is case-by-case
scrutiny. Introduction
Comparative legal commentary on the organisational structure of
sports, particularly of professional sports, is substantial and growing.
One of the main themes in Europe has been the relationship between a
rather pristine European Sports Model, as it has been called, and the
growing commercialization of sport. In addition, thepromotion-and-relegation system performs an ethical function bymandating relegation to a lower tier of any team that has engaged inspecified questionable practices.
Thus, for example, English football clubs finishing in the last
four places of the National Football Conference at the top are relegated
to either of two second-tier leagues for the following season. (55)
In response to serious issues that emerged from the Bosman
decision, FIFA and the UEFA reached an agreement with the European
Commission in 2001 that provides for a revenue-redistribution mechanism
between teams in compliance with EC law. Although procedures vary from one professional league to
another, an annual draft generally serves as the primary mechanism for
recruiting players. While competing with each other on the field, teams
work together off the field in order to promote their mutual economic
interests. The
"statutory exemption" is an express statement in the Clayton
Act (36) that labour is not a commodity or article of commerce, thereby
removing labour agreements from the reach of anti-trust law. The G-14 arrangement, though still unauthorized, has so far
succeeded in puncturing the promotion-and-relegation-driven hierarchy of
the European pyramid structure.
c. at 72 ("The very strong sports
tradition among U.S. Comparison: Continuing Divergence or Gradual Convergence?
A. Dominance by a single team, in the opinion of the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, "would be like one hand
clapping," (39) and the sound of even two or three hands clapping
would also be disappointing to the spectator public. This exception has been
justified by the necessity of a collective sale and corresponding
distribution of revenues in order to maintain equality and
competitiveness between small-market and large-market franchises. Insofar as the Ciudad Murcia team had
obtained the right to play in the Second Division on sporting merit, its
mere sale and conversion into Granada 74 SAD did not breach FIFA and
UEFA regulations that are designed to prevent a different range of
practices, namely all methods or practices that jeopardize the integrity
of matches or competitions. It is
under attack by institutional reforms and commercialism. Member teams thus have
only derivative rights from a league and must satisfy distinct
obligations (29) to other members to protect mutual market opportunities
as well as the league itself. In the
words of a leading expert, the core of the North American Model is
"synonymous with the way professional sports has been organised in
the four Major League Sports." (25)
B. The
second element in the agreement is a so-called "solidarity
mechanism," which requires that if a player is transferred during
the course of his contract, a small portion of any fees paid by the
transferee to the transferor team is redistributed to other teams for
which a player has played previously. The new mechanism involves two
elements. Even so, the models help each of us see our
own sports culture as others see it. The Charleroi club therefore requested
damages for these losses. For example, the
European Commission secured an agreement limiting the role of the IF
governing Formula One Racing after complaints that the federation had
been using its regulatory power to favor its own economic interests.
(47)
2. Commonalities
1. Of particular prominence are the
tensions between European Union law and the so-called specificity of
sport, according to which the special nature of sport, the
"sporting exception," (3) with its own complex structure of
regulation and dispute resolution, constitutes a reserved domain of
authority largely insulated from EU intervention.
Finally, the actual structure of professional sports in Europe
continues to evolve. Press Release, Sept. In addition, the elite
European clubs have formed their own revenue-generating dream league.
This "G-14" group (so-called, although the group has grown
beyond the original 14 clubs) has launched what amounts to an attack on
the vertically integrated structure by launching their own championship
competition. 243 (1995).
(42) Stratis Camatsos, European Sports, the Transfer System and
Competition Law: Will They Ever Find a Competitive Balance?, 12 Sports
L.J. For a thorough analysis of
pertinent European Union law, see Stefan Van den Bogaert, Practical
Regulation of the Mobility of Sportsmen in the EU Post Bosman (2005).
(55) See Deutscher Handballbund eV v Kolpak, Case C-438/00, 2003
E.C.R. FIFA responded,
first, that there was no connection between the injury of Oulmers and
Charleroi's eventual league standing; second, that it is the
national associations, not FIFA or UEFA, that should reimburse clubs for
the cost to them of player injuries; and third, that 75% of the profits
from major tournaments are returned to national associations for use in
their discretion, such as to compensate them for player injuries as in
the case itself.
The case was initially brought before a Belgian commercial
tribunal, the Tribunal de Commerce de Charleroi. Markovits, Western Europe's America
Problem, Chron. The UEFA's
new system for comprehensive licensing of teams, following a French
practice, challenges the merit-based system of promotion and relegation.
The result of relying on a licensing system to certify teams is apt to
be a semi-closed tournament system akin to the North American Model.
Also, the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the
Granada 74 case, which upheld the purchase, renaming, and relocation of
a team, opens up a major crack in the system. Two clubs
are therefore relegated to the North League and two clubs to the South
League. He also found that Granada 74 SAD had been duly
recognized by the LFP. Thus, for example, The
Guardian reported complaints in 1995 that British stadiums have
increasingly come to resemble those in America and are now equipped with
good seats, restaurants, and even dance floors: Abolishing those
infamous standing-room sections, or "terraces," where nearly
100 people lost their lives in riots at Hillsborough in Sheffield, has
made the sport too "nice." In 1998 The Independent intoned:
"The creeping Americanisation of British sports, in terms of
ubiquitous coverage and potential for earning, means that niceness is at
a higher premium than ever before." Americanization has also been
blamed for taming fans, who previously cared passionately about whatever
game they were watching; now they allegedly attend events primarily to
see and be seen. Peter Goplerud, & Maureen
A. They define which teams are to be included within
a league, and once teams are so included, they may remain in the league
with little fear of expulsion. high schools and colleges is also a very
significant feature in the American Model of sport compared to the
situation in Europe" wink .
(2 cool A further distinction has been drawn between
"closed" and "hermetic" structures, as follows:
The structure and organisation of sporting leagues in the US also
differs on other essential points. Some 700,000 clubs at the local
level are expected to be actively involved in training athletes and
organising competition in their communities, usually by enlisting
volunteers (an estimated 10 million) rather than paid professionals.
(13) Such grassroots involvement is a foundation of European sports. (70)
Starting in 1999, therefore, UEFA sought clearance from the
Commission for its pooled sale of broadcast rights to Champions League
games. For each sport,
there is a separate national federation, each of which therefore enjoys
both a monopolistic position in a particular sport and the competence to
regulate itself, subject to national legislation. There is no blanket immunity. Grassroots Involvement
Grassroots involvement is also alive and well, not only in Europe
but in North America. Res. 6, 2004, at 47 (Russian billionaire Roman
Ambromovich's takeover of Chelsea).
(54) Case C-415/93, 1995 E.C.R. For example,
in describing the Hicks Sports Group's acquisition of Liverpool
F.C., its Chief Operating Officer spoke of a "gold rush to English
soccer" by investors who sought "low-hanging fruit,"
"brand exploitation," and "synergies in cross-fertilizing
opportunities". For a discussion of the decision's
effect in shifting power from clubs to players and thereby triggering a
dramatic increase in players' salaries so as to favor dominant
teams, see Schiera, supra note 5, at 718.
(45) See James D. Promotion and Relegation
In the North American Model, team success also serves to a limited
extent as a basis for reconstitution of league membership. In contrast to the European Sports
Model's pyramid structure and its system of promotion and
relegation, the major sports leagues in the United States are generally
closed and autonomous, each with an average of 30-32 teams. N.B.A., 95 F.3d 593, 598
(7th Cir. The Conference therefore calls on the bodies of the
European Union to listen to sports associations when important
questions affecting sport are at issue. Quite
likely, however, the EC regulatory machinery has been unable to keep up
with the steady commercialization of European football/soccer.
In both Europe and North America, it as to be candidly acknowledged
that many fans prefer dominant teams. What is important about that
case is, once again, the question of where to draw the line between the
autonomy of sporting activity and regulation of it by the EC in the
interest of economic integration. Under
the single-entity approach, teams can no more illegally collude with one
another than could members of the board of a corporation. It may sound trite, but it is nevertheless true, that a
sporting contest has metaphorical qualities which lends itself to shared
observation, evaluation, and discussion. 2002).
(66) 259 U.S. Once the distinction is made, however, it
tends to be exaggerated so as to obscure the strong role of
non-professional competition in North American sports culture. Rev. The
"non-statutory exemption" establishes that the Wagner Act and
later labour-relations legislation preempt applications of the
anti-trust laws. While the MLS approach initially seemed to suggest
great hope for success, these expectations did not materialize. The transfer-fee requirement, long a fixture in European
sports, had been justified as a means of ensuring balanced competition
and uncertainty of results, as well as an equitable means of
compensating a team for the cost of training a player. Professional sports can also bring
to the fore pettiness, greed, divisiveness, and an exaggerated emphasis
on athletic victories.
Id. 28, 2007).
(50) Halgreen, supra note 1, at 64.
(51) See Mark Rice-Oxley, Common Currency? New Flag? Nope. A player declining to sign with a team
may be restricted from playing on other teams for a period of time. of the less-than-successful Montreal Expos in the MLB is one
example of this phenomenon; another involves the plan for the relocation
within the NBA of the underperforming Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City.
This plan is of particular interest because the team would thereby move
from a large population center and media market to a much smaller one.
Perhaps only a community-owned team such as the Green Bay Packers in the
NFL is secure from the limited process of de facto promotion and
relegation.
More significantly, however, Europe's promotion-and-relegation
system, particularly in football/soccer may no longer be absolute. In fact, the same power a sports team has to
unify, it has to divide, if it is perceived as only for a particular
race, economic class, or culture ... It is not at all clear whether
the European Sports Model has helped the region advance competition
beyond such rivalries, with all the bitterness and spectator violence
such rivalries entail, to a higher level of transnational integration.
Nor is it clear that the fifty years of European integration has
led to any continent-wide identifications in sport. When players complained
about the NBA replacement of leather-covered basketballs, their union
promptly filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board,
claiming that the NBA had violated agreements by failing to consult the
players. Instead, the
swimmers' claim was "at odds with the Court's case
law," and their argument that anti-doping rules were imposed not
only for health considerations but also to safeguard the economic
potential of international competition was "not sufficient to alter
the purely sporting nature of the legislation." What may be most
significant (and disappointing) about the ECJ's decision is that it
failed to further clarify what is economic and what is not in defining
the contours of sports organisational autonomy within the European
Community.
3. It might seem that the rich, flush with
success, would tend to get richer and the poor, poorer. A
luxury tax has a similar purpose but operates differently so as to
impose a penalty on payments above a set limit.
F. In doing so the White Paper acts as another
communication with sports organisations and also as an orientation
document sensitizing the other Commission DG's and EU institutions
to the current debates within sport. J. 6, 2001, O.J. This structure is described as a pyramid.
At its base are the largely autonomous and nonprofessional clubs http://www.sports.com/ that
are said to be fundamental institutions in European society from the
smallest communities on up. This is particularly puzzling in a region committed to
integration. The teams are horizontally integrated, whereas the European
hierarchy of clubs, associations, and federations is vertically
integrated.
The North American Sports Model, generally as constructed in
European documents and professional commentary, emphasizes that its
constituent leagues operate as cartels of team owners. In practice, however, the arrangements for
collective sales have encountered problems:
[In Europe, transaction costs inhibit] club-run leagues from
maximizing profits from the sale of broadcast and internet rights.
Owners have passed up profitable opportunities because, unable to
agree among themselves on how to divide the proceeds, a requisite
super-majority cannot agree to proceed with a valuable rights sale.
In the English Premier League in football/soccer, for example,
rights have traditionally been sold collectively. Indeed, several
decisions of the European Court of Justice, to be discussed later, (33)
have struck down restraints on conditions for a club's employment
and transfer of players that had been imposed by sports associations and
federations. (64) adopted a "unity of interest" test to
differentiate between strictly "internal" agreements to manage
the affairs if the league and illegal anti-competitive agreements that
established relationships between teams. (1 cool
The Commission's 2007 White Paper amplifies this appeal by
noting reciprocal roles of patriotic emotions and solidarity, on one
hand, and personal commitments to physical exercise and healthy social
relationships, on the other.
E. Generally, though, they impose
conditions on a player's freedom to transfer, based on the length
and terms of service the player has provided a team.
Also, teams have had the right to prolong the player's
contract indefinitely, under a reserve clause, or, temporarily, under an
option clause. The Bosman decision was later extended
to benefit players from non-EC states having special agreements with the
EC, that is the so-called "Europe agreements" states that are
in the process of applying for membership in the EC. Indeed, only three of
the four major leagues in North America MLB, NBA, and NHL--have any
teams at all in Canada; and only one, the NHL, has substantial Canadian
membership.
The feature of national identity in the European Sports Model is
itself problematic. (51)
B. (9) At the next higher
level are regional federations within each country. In
Frazer v Major League Soccer, (65) the court did not rule, as had been
hoped, that the MLS structure passed the "unity of interest"
test of Copperweld, but rather decided the case on other grounds. Striking this
balance between competition and cooperation in a social enterprise with
"no analogous models in other industries," however, can be
difficult. The English Football Association
(FA) hierarchy, for example, consists of seven tiers. But the
current developments are often positive. Many predicted that this would be a new model for successful
U.S. 125 (1999).
(64) 104 S. Media & Ent. Collective Bargaining System
In North America, team and player restraints, and formal
relationships between them, are largely premised in labour agreements.
Indeed, the collective bargaining system has been described as a
"very essential difference compared with Europe, where the
'sports industry' concept is not yet as developed and player
unions have been relatively weaker and not equipped with the necessary
bargaining powers". In Federal
Baseball Club of Baltimore Inc. 2005/3-4, at 3.
by James A.R. This theme has been expressed
variously in analyzing the regulatory power of the European Union over
sporting activity and in contrasting the European Sports Model with a
so-called North American Sports Model. Conversely, the top team in each of these second-tier leagues is
promoted to the geographically undifferentiated National Football
Conference. Int'l L.
709 (2007). Such hallowed traditions as Little League
Baseball, competition among schools for colleges, and community leagues
in many sports bear witness to the vitality of voluntary, grassroots
organisation of sports in North America. 26.
(56) Case C-519/04P, July 18, 2006.
(57) Case C-243.96 (withdrawn; Eds).
(5 cool The ECJ's precise framing of the question presented is as
follows:
Do the obligations on clubs and football players having employment
contracts with those clubs imposed by the provisions of FIFA's
statutes and regulations providing for the obligatory release of players
to national federations without compensation and the unilateral and
binding determination of the coordinated international match calendar
constitute unlawful restrictions of competition or abuses of a dominant
position or obstacles to the exercise of the fundamental freedoms
conferred by the EC Treaty and are they therefore contrary to Articles
81 and 82 of the Treaty or to any other provision of Community law,
particularly Articles 39 and 49 of the Treaty?
(59) Case Granada 74, The Claim, C.A.S. It might be entertaining, but it would not be
sport." (40)
One might think that the closed system in North America, in which
the same teams compete against each other year after year, would not
encourage the adjustments in the composition of leagues upon which
competitive balance relies. Each year, the
best performing teams on any of the bottom six tiers may advance to a
higher tier and, if they are consistently successful, end up in the
national league system, the highest tier of competition. at 24, 25.
(17) Consultation Document, supra note 5, at 4, 5.
(1 cool Declaration 29 on Sport, supra note 4.
(19) Consultation Document, supra note 5, at 5.
(20) Id.
(21) The perception of creeping Americanization has been described
as follows:
Indeed, it seems as if the British find every aspect of the
sporting world's Americanization fearful. 234 (1964).
(30) Ray Yasser, James R. A Sharp Distinction Between Amateur and Professional Sports The
pyramid structure of European sports organisations merges professional
and non-professional sports into a hierarchy governed for the common
good by vertically integrated associations and federations. (27) It is therefore surprising how little
attention the comparative legal commentary has given to this feature of
North American sports culture. Ironically, the controversial G-14 competition among elite clubs,
as a structure not based on national rivalries, may better avoid the
negative aspects of the European Sports Model despite its general threat
to the promotion of national identities. FIFA and UEFA claimed that the club's
registration by Spain's Football League (LFP) violated the normal
promotion-and-relegation system for gaining membership in the second
division, based on sporting results on the field of play rather than a
commercial transaction.
The sole CAS arbitrator, however, endorsed the club owner's
view that Granada 74 SAD was not a new legal entity that had replaced
Ciudad Murcia. Sports L.J. For
example, Portuguese football/soccer clubs rely on approximately 70,000
unpaid coaches. If the petitioning club and the G-14
win, the pyramid and its vertical integration of European clubs, under
the supervision of FIFA and EUFA, will crumble further. In reviewing a
government challenge to an agreement to sell television rights for
only sixty of the league's 380 possible games, a tribunal found
that the league's limitation on television sales actually reduced
revenues. Indeed, what we might
call a great legal tournament in Europe concerning EC regulatory
authority in the sports arena, as opposed to the autonomy of clubs and
associations, has been described as the "crux of sports law"
(52) in Europe.
This development has been fueled, on one side, by rampant
commercialization, for example the sale of English football/soccer clubs
to foreign investors. Europe
In the European system, competition law and regulations also remain
paramount. Econ.
242 (1956).
(47) In the United States, by contrast, the National Association
for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), which sets standards and organises
competition for the most popular form of automobile racing, is a
family-controlled, for-profit enterprise that is independent of IF
regulation.
(4 cool Weatherill, supra note 38, at 92.
(49) Casey Shilts, Remarks at the Conference on the Increasing
Globalizaiton of Sports: Olympic, International and Comparative Law and
Business Issues, National Sports Law Institute, Marquette University
(Sept. 19, 2007, at B6, B8. Inquiry 703 (198 cool .
(46) For an influential articulation of these principles, see Simon
Rottenberg, The Baseball Players' Labor Market, 64 J. A wealthy investor purchased a second-division
football/soccer club, Ciudad Murcia, renaming it Granada 74 SAD and
relocating its headquarters to a coastal town, Motril, south of Granada
and west of Murcia. 37 (2002). (C340) 1 [hereinafter
Declaration 29 on Sport]. Smith, Robert C.
Berry, Sports Law and Regulation: Cases, Materials, and Problems 399
(2005).
(3 cool See White Paper, supra note 8, at 4.1 For further discussion
of the unique balancing required, see Stephen Weatherill, Fairplay
Please!: Recent Developments in the Application of EC Law to Sport, 40
Common Mkt. The Great Legal Tournament in Europe
Despite the commonalities shared in varying degrees by the two
models, important institutional differences between them are also
profound. If the instant commentary offers any new
perspective at all to European readers, it is that of a North American.
(2) Throughout this study, discussion of the North American Model
will be limited to the features of sport in the United States and
Canada, drawing heavily on examples from the United States. In other
words, the ability of the media to "siphon off " events by
blackouts or pay-for-view requirements is limited on both sides of the
Atlantic. Thus, the new ownership, the name change from
Ciudad Murcia to Granada 74 SAD, and the club's relocation did not
breach any applicable rules. Major
league teams are called franchises, a commercial term, and investment in
them is protected by the closed, horizontally integrated system. Mitten, Timothy Davis, Rodney K. Within the
framework of governmental regulation, the teams in each league co-opt
their own membership. Why, indeed, are there so few European-wide teams? If
European integration is important enough to trump the autonomy of sports
as something "special," why is the impulse of integration
missing in the actual composition of teams? The Ryder Cup team in golf
stands out as a major example of a European-wide team. Levine, Hard Cap or Soft Cap: The Optimal
