How Do Prior Precedents and Legislative Acts Affect the Courts Analysis?
American Needle asserts that the Court’s prior decisions dictate that the NFL may not constitute a single entity under the Copperweld doctrine because the NFL teams are separately owned and controlled and the Court has never extended the logic of single entity immunity beyond the context of a parent company and its wholly owned subsidiary. See Brief for American Needle at 21–22, 25. In previous cases, the Court has uniformly applied Section 1 to agreements between the NFL teams and teams in other comparable sports leagues, including the NCAA. See id. at 30. Additionally, American Needle contends that Congress has endorsed and ratified the idea that the NFL teams and other sports leagues should not be immune from antitrust scrutiny. See id. at 31. American Needle notes four separate occasions in which Congress failed to pass bills that created antitrust immunity for sports leagues, including the NFL. See id. at 33–36. Additionally, American Needle argues that the Curt Flood Act, which p
