anyone ever hear of antitrust exemption?
Fanfrom1960 said:
I thought the NFL had become the class organization that the other pro sports could model themselves after. I was way wrong. I think the problem has been and still is that NFL refs are weekend warriors only, rather than paid "professionals" like in major league baseball. Not sure about the NBA, but I'd bet their refs are professional refs. I don't know how the NFL fixes this because games are mostly just on weekends and they obviously don't want to take on paying refs a salary for other than weekends.
it's hard to become a classy "organization" when nobody's on the same payroll. as long as the franchises are financially independent, and one franchise can sue the others, and WIN, and not get thrown out of the collaborative, and the product is not completley under the control of the nfl organization itself, i don't believe it can be called an organization.
what it is is an exclusive group of independendent organizations acting in collusion with each other. that's called a "trust", which is illegal. suppose all the banks in the country got together and decided to stop competing and give us all the same interest rates, etc. that's a trust, and illegal.
The Congress gives the NFL, NHL, MLB, and the NBA, by classification, an exemption fron the rules banning "trusts". it's called an "antitrust exemption". Congress ever decides to call these alliances what they are, all the leagues coule continue, but the fracchises wouldn't be able to make a single contract with player, etc.
wiitjhin those exemption rules, the Congress has also given the owners and their franchises a set of tax exemptions and tax credits that essentially makes it imposible for an nfl franchise to lose money. there are also a set of exemptions for franchises that build stadiums. if my math is right, the tax exemptions afforded to the patrions, including accelerated depreciation rules, afford them about $35 million a year in exemptions from tax payments. the stadium cost $345m.
each referee is a successful professional, business owner, educator, or something else where they have enough personal income to be invulnerable to bribes. they only get something like $1500 a game plus travel. iso they don't officiate games for the money, they do it, basically, for the thrill. imagine standing three feet away as joey porter and shawn alexander run into each other full tilt.
n most cases, these guys would not give up their careers to become full time refs for the nfl. they make very good money in their day jobs, and they like their work.
