Judicial Review of Labor Agreements: Lessons from the Sports Industry

Abstract

Much of the recent legal controversy in the professional sports industry has emanated from the clubs' efforts to limit the movement of players among teams. The traditional restraints have included devices such as the draft system, reserve and option clauses, and arrangements requiring that compensation be paid to a club whose player has accepted employment with another member of the same league.' Until the early 1970s, these player restraints were treated as matters of private contract between club and player. Except for occasional decisions interpreting the breadth of the club's claim or clarifying the mechanism for a club's unilateral renewal of a contract,2 the judiciary played no significant role in overseeing the operation of the restraint system. The treatment of the restraints as a private law matter changed dramatically in the mid-1970s. The advent of durable players' unions and the commencement of a series of antitrust challenges interjected the law's institutions, especially the courts, rather deeply into the issue of player mobility.3 The beneficial effect of these cases was to open the way for greater player input, typically through collective bargaining, into the shaping of