The analysis of professional sports leagues as joint ventures

This paper addresses whether the welfare analysis of the agreements and rul es of a professional sports league should depend on the organisational form chosen by the league's participants. Courts have analysed sports leagues b oth as associations of horizontal competitors and as single entities. The f ormer approach suggests much less tolerance for rules that affect competiti on. Drawing on the distinction between ex ante and ex Post competition that has been found useful in the economic analysis of intellectual property ri ghts, the authors suggest a middle road in the horizontal competitors versu s single entity characterisations of professional sports leagues.