What gives me pause is the degree to which the organizations are in the public view, and the degree to which there are specific legal rules in place, and the degree to which public resources are devoted to the sport (arena, the university driven player pipeline).
The question that I have is why isn't the league a kind of public accommodation (given the public investment, see above), in support of the league. I can see business related requirements (maintain a roster, have certain assurances of meeting a level of competitiveness, have assurances of meeting financial commitments, work within a marketing and reporting structure as set by the league, and so forth), and have a process to measure the fitness of applicants that selected membership from applicants.
The whole business seems far to publicly entrenched to be run as a private club.
Thx!
TomB
FWIW, you forgot their Anti-Trust exemption.
But you're putting the horse before the cart. The simple reason it isn't a public accommodation is because it is a private club, and there is no legal grounds for forcing them to be otherwise. In fact, it would probably be unconstitutional to do so, since one of our fundamental rights is freedom of association.
All kinds of private clubs operate all kinds of business around the USA...but that doesn't mean they're beyond the law. They still have to conform to the laws of the USA, as well as the state and cities in which they operate.
And merely doing a lot of business doesn't make you NOT a club.
Look at the Krewes of New Orleans I mentioned before: they put on the Mardi Gras parades, and every last one is a private club. A bunch of them were successfully sued for having racist admissions policies, so they had to choose between continuing their racist admissions policies or staging their parades. They chose racism. So a whole bunch of parades are no longer held...but new ones- operated by non-discriminatory Krewes like Harry Connick, Jr.'s Orpheus- have risen up and filled the gap.
Sports leagues & teams DO get a lot of things their way. But that's because they make a lot of money, and money talks. The Dallas Cowboys used to play at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas (near where I used to live) and had a training facility in Valley Ranch (near where I live now). Their business discussions with city governments around here lead to all kinds of interesting political & PR battles.
While my father was part of a group erecting a medical building, they had to pay the city to get a turn lane for improved access. Meanwhile, the Cowboys had tax breaks thrown at them. And when the battle over the stadium began, the Mayor refused the deal they offered. She felt that the city didn't need to give tax breaks And pass bonds to find a stadium that Mr. Jones could have built with 3 years worth of the revenue from just the luxury suites at Texas Stadium.
And Arlington got the Cowboys by voting in the bonds and tax breaks to build the new stadium. The training facility has also moved on.
