'86 Chronology-Barbarians at the Gate

Event Date: March 30th, 1986

Event Description: NFL Under Attack

Source: UPI

The National Football League is suffering antitrust attacks from within and without -- from the three-year-old United States Football League and from some of its own member owners.

Two USFL teams, the Oakland Invaders and Baltimore Stars, have filed a pair of anti-trust lawsuits claiming the NFL has tried to harm them economically.

Those cases have now been combined into one and are tentatively scheduled to begin trial April 18th in U.S. District Court in Manhattan but probably will be pushed back into May.

On another antitrust issue, the NFL has been sued for a second time by a team owner challenging the league's requirement that three-fourths of the 28 member teams must approve an owner's plan to relocate his club outside of its home territory.

The NFL is already facing some $70 million in damages, interest and fees awarded in 1983 when Raiders' owner Al Davis -- who moved his team after 13 seasons from Oakland, Calif., to Los Angeles without league approval -- successfully argued the same rule was an illegal restraint of trade. The league is appealing the damages amount and has not yet paid the penalty.

St. Louis owner Bill Bidwell claimed in a suit filed Feb. 11 that NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle threatened to sue the Cardinals if they moved out of Busch Stadium, a facility the owner has complained is too small. Bidwell reportedly has been considering moving to Phoenix or New York City.

Since last spring Rozelle has vigorously supported legislation before Congress that would grant various sports leagues an exemption from the antitrust laws to allow the league to regulate team movements, new ownership and, as the NFL does now, share its broadcast revenues.

Depending on whether their states are seeking to attract a pro team or trying to keep one they have at home, elected officials have vigorously debated various proposals but have yet to adopt a solution.

Sen. Albert Gore of Tennessee, where Memphis would love to have an NFL team, tried to get Rozelle to commit last year to adding six teams in exchange for advancing the league's preferred bill, but Rozelle refused. The bill is tentatively scheduled to come up for a vote in the Senate in May and, if passed, must still be approved by the House of Representatives.

Memphis is home of one of the most successful USFL franchises, and the Showboats are one of 16 current or former USFL clubs which have sued the NFL and 27 of its 28 teams -- the Raiders were omitted.

The suit contends that NFL owners began their monopoly effort in the 1950s, restricting the number of franchises to “limit the shares, and consequent dilution, of their revenues.” The 1960s saw the rise and eventual merger of the only successful competing pro football league, the American Football League, and in the 1970s, NFL clubs strengthened their monopoly “by increasing their control over virtually every facet of the business,” according to the USFL's court papers.

After attorneys for the two parties had taken dozens of depositions of potential witnesses during the fall of last year, rumors began circulating that the case would be settled with an agreement to merge three or four of the strongest USFL franchises into the NFL.

“Merger talks have been held at the instigation, always, of the U.S. Football League,” Rozelle said last month at his annual news conference before the Super Bowl. “In all cases it came from their side. There are not any continuing discussions, none at this time, between any representatives of two leagues involving merger.”

Story-(UPI-Cerisse Anderson Modified)