When the upstart Federal League challenged the existing baseball leagues in court in 1922, the case handed unique protections to the sport that have lasted a century
Many Americans still regard baseball as our national pastime, a bridge to sweeter days when players barnstormed across the country and fans listened to games on the radio. What few probably know is that a quirk of legal history has uniquely helped baseball to thrive: the game’s court-created exemption from the country’s antitrust laws. One hundred years ago, the Supreme Court made a determination about the nature of the game that would stick like rosin through the century.
This legal protection has given baseball a privileged position and largely protected it from competition—so far. Challenges have been brewing recently. Last year three Republican U.S. senators sought to remove the exemption as punishment for Major League Baseball’s decision to move the All-Star game out of Georgia to protest the state’s new voting law.