Congressional complicity in the baseball antitrust exemption: analysing senate voting patterns

Abstract

This article examines a key congressional vote on preserving baseball's antitrust exemption. It finds that the most important factor influencing a legislator's vote was whether there was a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in the legislator's constituency. This supports the notion that the professional sports industry has been effective in ‘capturing’ their political overseers.

Notes

¹Zimbalist (2003), for example, argues that the antitrust exemption allows baseball to engage in many restrictive practices, thus making it difficult for any new rival leagues to challenge MLB. For a more broad-based overview of monopoly issues in sport, see also Fort and Quirk (1999).