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This chapter chronicles the 1949 merger between the BAA and the NBL and its aftermath. The BAA owners' decision to absorb the most attractive NBL teams obviously looms large in the league's development, although the move and subsequent merger ultimately could not save several BAA franchises. By ghettoizing the later NBL refugees, BAA owners may have ensured the demise of those teams. Fortunately, there were not too many people paying attention to the league's upheavals. The league's integration did not initially create much excitement either. Yet the streamlined NBA still struggled to entice fans—in many ways the professional players' experience and savvy led to brutal, foul-plagued games that alienated fans. The chapter also looks at how league owners struggled with racial integration.

This chapter traces the history of professional team sports in order to place the issues covered in the Congressional hearings in the proper context. It first considers the rise of baseball as America's national pastime and Major League Baseball (MLB)'s decision to maintain two separate leagues, the American League and the National League. It then discusses the dispute between MLB and the rival Federal League, along with the emergence of other sports that achieved Big League status, namely, football and basketball. It also examines the prosperity of the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the appearance of new challengers to their dominance after World War II. Finally, it looks at the Flood v. Kuhn, a Supreme Court case that challenged baseball's reserve clause, along with the rise of free agency.

This introductory chapter describes the “bush league” characteristics of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) early days. While basketball was quite popular in the 1940s, and college basketball had shown promise as a spectator attraction, professional basketball still had an air of disrepute: barnstorming, uncouth players, and poorly lit (and often poorly ventilated) gyms or dance halls. The Basketball Association of America (BAA), the NBA's precursor, had struggled to gain credibility and popularity among the country's sports fans during this time. The BAA/NBA during its early seasons relied on exhibition games featuring the Harlem Globetrotters, on playing doubleheaders, on using territorial draft picks of stars from local colleges, on playing regular-season games out of town, and on having teams fold mid-season. Some teams continued to play league games in high school gymnasiums well into the 1950s.

This chapter examines the Congressional hearings of 1971–1972 that addressed the petition of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the American Basketball Association (ABA) for partial antitrust exemptions for their proposed merger. Yale Law School lawyers analyzed the proposed merger, comparing it with the professional football merger: “the concerted action produces efficiencies which arguably outweigh whatever restraints on competition are involved.” They suggested thinking of leagues as being similar to “law partnerships, a firm.” This chapter first considers the arguments presented by basketball owners to justify a merger before discussing the views of economists Robert Nathan, Roger Noll, and Benjamin Okner, along with other pieces of evidence presented at the hearings, regarding the owners' claims of losses. It also assesses the implications of the proposed NBA–ABA merger for player rights and concludes with an overview of Nathan, Noll, and Okner's recommendations about the proposed merger.

This chapter focuses on the Congressional hearings conducted in 1959 and 1960 to address the issue of expansion and prospective new leagues. All of the league constitutions contained clauses pertaining to relocating or selling existing franchises and creating new franchises. These clauses typically required a supermajority, in some cases unanimity, of owners to approve franchise relocation or sales and expansion. However, incumbent owners were lukewarm about franchise expansion and hostile towards new leagues. This chapter begins with a discussion of tactics employed by team owners to prevent the entry of a new league, including territorial rights. It then considers the demise of the Continental League due to a number of hurdles, such as getting television contracts, providing pension benefits equivalent to Major League Baseball's (MLB) scheme, and and getting stadiums. It also examines the expansion policies of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL), along with the legal wrangling between the NFL and the American Football League (AFL) over expansion.

This chapter discusses the impacts of the issues that Michael Jordan has faced after retiring for the third time. It points out that Jordan’s image took the National Basketball Association (NBA) by storm and it can be said that the world was tuning in to NBA largely because of him. It also points out that Jordan’s success is not without stain, as there were criticisms leveled at his reputation: his political neutrality toward race relations; political sterility; his abandonment of the black community; and his behavior as a ruthless capitalist.

This chapter examines the issues surrounding player draft in professional sports leagues. During the postwar era, baseball officials and players often mentioned free agents. Unlike the free agents of our era, however, these players were talented amateur players. Indeed, high school and college players constituted the remaining vestige of a free market for baseball labor during the postwar era. The owners quickly discovered that this free market for labor was costly and made attempts to curb spending on amateur players, sparking allegations of cheating that led to distrust among them. This chapter first considers the creation of the amateur draft in Major League Baseball (MLB) before discussing the reverse-order draft in the National Football League (NFL) and the player draft in the National Basketball Association (NBA). It concludes with an assessment of the impact of the draft on owners and players.

This chapter focuses on the Congressional hearings conducted in 1957 and 1958 to address whether basketball, football, and hockey should be given a broad antitrust exemption similar to that of baseball. It first considers the introduction of different bills pertaining to professional sports and antitrust following the Supreme Court's ruling in Radovich v. NFL, with particular emphasis on antitrust legislation focusing on the National Football League (NFL), before discussing the farm systems in baseball and hockey pioneered by Branch Rickey of the St. Louis Cardinals. It also looks at the issue of the reserve clause and its effect upon competitive balance and concludes with an assessment of Congress's decision not to grant even partial antitrust exemptions for the reserve clause, draft, territorial rights, and commissioner powers in the NFL, National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Hockey League (NHL).

This chapter focuses on the Congressional hearings of 1972–1977 that addressed the National Football League's (NFL) television blackout rules. It first considers the economic and legal aspects of the proposed antiblackout law before discussing the Senate hearings that resulted in a temporary experiment in lifting the blackouts under specified circumstances. It then examines the NFL's defense of blackouts, along with empirical evidence regarding lifting the blackouts and the lawmakers' concern that NFL owners might allow cable and pay television to telecast games after the blackout was lifted. It also assesses the responses of Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), and the National Basketball Association (NBA) to the proposed antiblackout legislation, as well as those of network television officials such as ABC Sports president Roone Arledge and CBS president John Schneider. The chapter concludes with an overview of various reports on the effects of the television blackout law and the impact of the antiblackout rule on NFL gate attendance, no-shows, and revenues.