The National Football League ("NFL") failed to persuade the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to stay its decision invalidating the league's eligibility rule for the NFL player draft (Clarett v. Nat'l Football League, S.D.N.Y., No. 03 Civ. 7441 (SAS), 2/11/04). In doing so, the federal district court made running back Maurice Clarett eligible to participate in the 2004 draft. Clarett, a tailback, played just one season at Ohio State, leading the Buckeyes to the 2002 national championship. He was suspended last year for accepting improper benefits from a family friend and then lying about it to investigators. The ruling also prompted Mike Williams, the all-American wide receiver that helped propel the University of Southern California to the 2003 national championship, to leave college early and apply for the NFL draft.
Maurice Clarett sued the NFL last summer to challenge the league rule that a player must be out of high school three years to be eligible for the draft. The NFL argued that its rule resulted from a collective bargaining agreement with the players and was therefore immune from antitrust scrutiny. The league also said its rule was reasonable and that Clarett could not bring such a lawsuit. Ordinarily, the best offense is a good defense, but, according to Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, none of the NFL's defenses held the line.
Judge Scheindlin's initial February 5 ruling held that Clarett could bring a lawsuit against the NFL alleging antitrust injury because he was fighting a policy that excluded all players in his position from selling their services to the only viable buyer -- the NFL. In particular, the court held that the NFL's rule violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act under the rule of reason analysis because it categorically excluded a class of players the NFL had decided was not yet ready to play. Accordingly, the rule amounted to a naked restraint of trade with no legitimate procompetitive justification. If there was a competitive reason for the rule, the court added, it still should be invalidated because there is a less restrictive alternative: testing to measure an individual player’s maturity.
Furthermore, the NFL had not justified Clarett's exclusion by demonstrating that the rule enhanced competition. Indeed, the judge found Clarett alleged the very type of injury -- a complete bar to entry into the market for his services -- that the antitrust laws are designed to prevent. The court's decision was also based on findings that the nonstatutory labor exemption was inapplicable to the case and that Clarett had antitrust standing to challenge the rule.
On the NFL's application to stay the underlying decision, Judge Scheindlin weighed the relevant factors and case law and found that a stay would effectively make Clarett the losing party in the case. First, a stay would make Clarett miss the 2004 draft and prevent him from being eligible for NFL play until the 2005 draft, when he would have been eligible under the voided rule. The court also noted that Clarett might be injured if he were permitted to play college ball next year, preventing him from ever playing professional football, which is not easily remedied by monetary damages.
Second, Judge Scheindlin ruled that while the NFL would suffer some harm absent a stay, the harm would not be irreparable. If the court's decision ultimately is reversed on appeal, the worst that would happen is that the NFL would be forced to tolerate the handful of "younger" players selected in the 2004 draft. The third relevant factor also weighed against issuance of a stay because the decision invalidating the rule was based on Supreme Court precedent and well-settled legal rules. In fact, the court maintained that none of the essential holdings in its initial order were, as the NFL claimed, based on "novel legal theories".
In addition, Judge Scheindlin ruled that public interest favored the denial of a stay. The court identified the overarching public interest as the fair and efficient operation of the marketplace -- in this case, free and unfettered movement of players and open competition in the NFL. Because the NFL's deadline for the 2004 draft was March 1, 2004, the court doubted that many players would overtrain or resort to steroid use in order to be eligible for the draft. Hence, the real effects of the court's decision would not be felt until the 2005 draft, by which time the Second Circuit likely will have ruled on an appeal.
The court also decided that the other potential harms advanced by the NFL were illusory. In particular, the judge doubted the NFL’s claim that it would be forced to evaluate, assess, work out, and interview a large number of prospective NFL players who had previously been deemed ineligible. In fact, the court asserted that the few college underclassmen who were likely to declare for the draft were already well-known to pro scouts.
At first blush, Judge Scheindlin's analysis appears correct, and there will be few teenagers moving to the NFL -- the departure of Williams from USC’s national championship team into the top five of the draft does not even qualify as a drop in the bucket, much less a torrential downpour of underclassmen into the NFL. The NFL filed its latest appeal in this case on February 29, alleging that allowing "adolescents'' to be eligible for the draft would put those youngsters' health and educational futures at risk and bring potentially tragic consequences for both themselves and society. However, if Judge Scheindlin's decisions withstand possible appeals, they could allow a myriad of other teenage football stars to take advantage of the career and business opportunities available to young athletes in other sports such as baseball and basketball.
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