A US district judge has ruled that Major League Baseball cannot use an antitrust exemption to avoid facing a lawsuit from fans who claim that the league unfairly dictates broadcast markets for its clubs.
The ruling by judge Shira Scheindlin came after sports fans brought two lawsuits against MLB and ice hockey’s National Hockey League.
Judge Scheindlin said in the ruling that the US Supreme Court has “expressly questioned the validity and logic of the baseball exemption and declined to extend it to other sports.”
She refused to apply the exemption to “a subject that is not central to the business of baseball, and that Congress did not intend to exempt — namely baseball's contracts for television broadcasting rights.”
The judge added that the lawsuits could proceed to trial.
The fans who have brought the lawsuits believe the leagues should be forced to open television markets so that customers have more options and less expensive fees to access games.