nclude a balancing of the agreements impact on competition against the importance of the employee interests. If not, the rule will continue to substantially put a burden on competition without advancing any important interest of active football players as employees.The NFL has an exemption from Congress that allows it to pool television rights without violation of the antitrust law. The merger between the NFL and AFL was also exempted. Congress has expressed a preference for ordering the employment relationship in a way that encourages employees to act together to pool their economic resources so labor interests can confront management groups from a position of collective bargaining strength, and not simply as individuals. In order to encourage labor negotiations in a collective bargaining setting, courts have interpreted these developments in a way that allows participating unions to escape section 1 liability. Two cases in particular have shaped the nonstatutory labor exemption in the context of professional sports league operating rules. In Mackey v. National Football League, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit developed a test for determining when a restraint is properly incorporated into a collective bargaining agreement, thereby excusing league officials from the Sherman Act. In Mackey, a group of active and retired NFL players argued that the Leagues free agent indemnity system, known as the Rozelle Rule, operated to restrain players ability to market their services freely. The League argued that the agreement was part of the collective bargaining contract and that proper accommodation of federal labor and antitrust policy required that the agreement be deemed immune from antitrust provisions. The court concluded that when evaluated under the rule of reason the indemnity rule could not be sustained. Furthermore, in order to avail itself of the exemption, management must show that the restraint primarily affects...
