Competitive Entertainment: Implications of the NFL Lockout Litigation for Sports, Theatre, Music, and Video Entertainment

Henry H. Perritt Jr., Chicago-Kent College of Law

Abstract

The 2011 NFL lockout reveals profound changes in the labor and product markets for the entire entertainment industry, driven by a revolution in technology. This article explores the revolution in the professional sports, theatre, and movie-making industries and concludes that it is fragmenting production, blurring the boundaries between labor markets and product markets, and introducing new forms of competition. As a result, the labor exemptions to the antitrust laws, which featured prominently in the NFL controversy are becoming less relevant, shifting the law's policing of competition to antitrust rule-of-reason analysis, where counterpoises such as labor unions are inactive, and making overaggressive interpretation and enforcement of copyright law a major danger to realization of the new markets' potential.