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Utah's Attorney General Planning an Antitrust Suit against the BCS

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Following a Congressional subcommittee voting to prevent the BCS from declaring its culminating game the "national championship," as Howard discussed on Wednesday, it appears that another legal challenge to the BCS may be brewing. ESPN.com's Lester Munson reported on Friday that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is prepared to file an antitrust lawsuit against the BCS as soon as early 2010. The suit would presumably be premised on the BCS' exclusion of an undefeated Utah team from the national championship game last year. AG Shurtleff has scheduled a meeting with Christine Varney, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, to ascertain whether the federal government would be interested in participating in the suit.

With or without federal assistance, Utah's proposed suit strikes me as a much more serious threat to the BCS than the Congressional measure discussed this week.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on December 12, 2009 (boomark / email).