At issue was whether the NFL could be sued for giving a single company, Reebok, an exclusive license to market hats, T-shirts and other apparel carrying logos of the league's 32 teams.
Most of the justices seemed to doubt that the small Chicago-area company that lost its license to sell stocking caps with NFL logos would ultimately win its antitrust suit against the NFL. But most of them also seemed to think the company should be permitted to try. To win its suit, the small competitor would have to prove that consumers were hurt by the NFL's exclusive marketing deal.
The case of American Needle vs. NFL is being closely watched in the sports world because lawyers for the NFL sought a ruling that the league is a "single entity" and therefore shielded from antitrust claims. A single company cannot be accused of conspiring with itself.
If the high court were to deem the league a single entity, NFL players and coaches worry that the owners would conspire to restrict their salaries. Currently, players can sell their services as free agents and seek more money from competing teams.
But the NFL's single-entity argument ran into skeptical questions from most of the justices.
Gregg Levy, the NFL's lawyer, said the league operates as a single business.
"No NFL team can produce a product on its own," he said, and the selling of hats and T-shirts is intended to promote the league.
The teams "do this to make money," scoffed Justice Antonin Scalia. "They have an incentive to sell as many shirts as possible."
When Levy insisted that the NFL acts as a single business, Justice Sonia Sotomayor interrupted. "You are seeking in this ruling what you have not gotten from Congress: an absolute bar" to being sued under the antitrust laws, she said.
"Once you fix prices to make money, that is a Sherman Act violation," she said, referring to the landmark antitrust law.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, one of the court's antitrust experts, said the NFL was entitled to say it operated as a joint venture. On that basis, it could set rules, such as for the scheduling of games and for competition on the field. But even so, its business decisions could be challenged if they unfairly restrained competition and hurt consumers.
American Needle, the hat maker, alleged that consumers were paying unfair, monopoly prices because of the exclusive licensing deal with Reebok. "Why shouldn't they have their shot" at proving the case in court? Breyer asked.
Last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled for the NFL and threw out the suit.
A Justice Department lawyer also urged the justices to send the case back to Chicago and to permit the hat maker to try to prove its antitrust claim.
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