In Laumann et al. v. National Hockey League et al Southern District of New York Judge Shira A. Scheindlin allowed class actions to move forward against the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and television providers Comcast and DirecTV relating to their control of sports broadcasts. The class members are purchasers of baseball and hockey sports programing who allege that the sports leagues and the TV providers monopolized the broadcast of games on television and over the Internet, anticompetitively blacking out some telecasts and charging supra-competitive prices.
Judge Scheindlin rejected the defendants’ argument that the distribution of live telecasts should be immune from antitrust scrutiny because it is a core function of the sports league’s joint venture operations. The court explained that a long line of precedent held to the contrary “that limiting the telecasting of professional sports games [is] subject to antitrust scrutiny.”