RebKell's Junkie Boards

[ArtBest23]

Next time anyone here complains about unfair or "unjust" restrictions on athletes' choices and opportunities, they need to start with WBB. No pro league, not even the NFL, is as restrictive as the WNBA in allowing players to start getting paid. And any system in which one college junior or sophomore can turn pro while other players are forced to wait until graduation is indefensibly arbitrary.

Want to talk about sexism? Why are women in the NBA-controlled WNBA denied the opportunity granted to the men in the NBA to make a living playing basketball?

[hyperetic]

The reasoning comes in part from the fact that, especially when the league started, salaries weren't considered worthy of throwing away a potential degree over.

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/tonyboydphotography

[pilight]

[hyperetic]

[ArtBest23]

[pilight]

[ArtBest23]

[GlennMacGrady]

I have three reactions to this situation.

1. As a fan of WCBB, I personally would not like to see WCBB become anything remotely like the "none/one/two-and-done" of MCBB.

2. The WNBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, which contains the restrictions on eligibility, has always seemed to be vulnerable as a facial violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which declares illegal "every contract, combination . . . and conspiracy . . . in restraint of trade or commerce". The CBA is a contract between the league and the players already in the league to restrain players under age 22 from entering into the trade or commerce of the league.

3. Even if the CBA restraints were entirely struck down as illegal, or voluntarily dropped from the next CBA, I doubt the amount of money and roster spots available in the WNBA would entice very many college age players to jump, other than a small handful of elite players.

However, since there is never anything more than a handful of elite women's players in each U.S. age group, I'd be very disappointed to lose the opportunity to see them play in college competition. That's the sport that interests me as a basketball fan, not the (insipid to me) WNBA. Thus my personal psyche comes full circle to Reaction #1, and hopes the CBA restrictions aren't legally challenged or changed.

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/MagicBusBasketball

[ArtBest23]

[pilight]

In the long run a strong pro league will deepen the talent pool, just as it has on the men's side.

_________________
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

[GlennMacGrady]

I've never looked at the intersection of antitrust and labor law. A brief look shows an immediate and obvious collision of policy interests, which the courts have long recognized.

I don't think the Clayton Act statutory exemption would apply to the WNBA CBA. I think what would apply is a so-called "non-statutory exemption" of collective bargaining agreements from the antitrust laws, which federal District and Circuit Courts have crafted and applied in a somewhat inconsistent manner over the years. In 2004, the Second Circuit (including Sotomayor) rejected an antitrust attack on the NFL's post-high school eligibility restrictions in a case called Clarett, although the District Court had held the restrictions to be "blatantly anticompetitive". The Second Circuit rejected the "non-statutory exemption" analysis of the Eighth Circuit. Clarett has been criticized in the literature, but I don't have the tools or interest to look at it's future history.

I vividly recall Dean Sacks of Harvard reciting what he called the "two worst decisions in all of Supreme Court history": the Federal Baseball Club case in 1922 and the Flood case in 1972. The first case held that major league baseball was exempt from federal antitrust laws because baseball was not an activity involved in "interstate commerce". In the Curt Flood case 50 years later, attacking the reserve clause, the Supreme Court acknowledged the vastly changed interstate commercial landscape of major league baseball, but ruled against Flood on the ground of stare decisis, which was wooden legal respect for the by-then obviously wrongly-decided and ancient precedent of Federal Baseball Club.

I'd like to see the Clarett case re-litigated in a different Circuit, if it hasn't already, with some additional facts and some additional claims involving age and sex discrimination thrown into the confused "non-statutory exemption" pot.

As Robert Bork's book presciently observed in 1978, antitrust law has historically been "a policy at war with itself", and when professional sports has been involved, the fog of war seems to have become almost impenetrable.

_________________
http://www.youtube.com/MagicBusBasketball

[IM in OC]

[pilight]

[ArtBest23]

[beknighted]

There is a long history (mostly outside sports) of bargained-for restrictions on who can be hired in collective bargaining agreements, and I don't think that the courts have ever had much trouble with them so long as they don't permanently keep people out. There certainly hasn't been an example of a bargained-for age restriction being thrown out in the context of a sports league.

And, as others have said, this is not really a WNBA issue so much as a combination of the WNBA and the union. I don't know, in fact, if the WNBA wanted the restrictions or the union did (or both).

[ArtBest23]

[hyperetic]

[GEF34]

[hyperetic]

[GEF34]

[hyperetic]

[GEF34]

[ClayK]

No sports league wants the legality of drafts questioned in court. They may be legal but they don't pass the smell test.

_________________
Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā

[NFL1]

Personally I am glad the restriction, women get so much physically stronger and play so smarter after college!! They may be great vs. the college competition, but not all do as well at the next level...this is true for men as well as women, but I want to keep the women's game intact.