Legal News

Would an All-White Professional Basketball League Be Legal?

By Ashby Jones

It sounds like a joke, like a constitutional-law exam question made up by a professor with poor judgment and too much time on his hands. But, sadly, our hopes that such a scenario was merely a hypothetical have been upended.

Click here for NBC news’s story; here for the initial report, from the Augusta Chronicle.

According to the Augusta Chronicle:

The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team.

“Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league,” the statement said.

Uh, okay. Couple questions: Whose brainchild is this? And how does he justify it?

Enter a man named Don “Moose” Lewis. He’s the commissioner of the league, and refuted charges of racism.

“There’s nothing hatred about what we’re doing,” he said. “I don’t hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here’s a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like.”

Added Lewis: “People will come out and support a product they can identify with. I’m the spoken minority right now, but if people will give us a chance, it’ll work . . . The white game of basketball, which is essentially a fundamental game, works.”

Now that we’ve given Moose his air time, let’s switch to something more interesting: If Lewis is able to get his league off the ground (and that’s a Shaquille O’Neal-sized “if”), would it pass legal muster?

For help on that question, we refer to Legal Blog Watch, where Eric Lipman chimes in. Lipman first refers to a post by sports agent Jason Wolf, who says the league might not be illegal, but does raise “interesting theoretical legal questions about private entities setting up entry barriers.”

Lipman challenges the idea on antitrust grounds, however:

I couldn’t help but notice that the league has apparently declared itself a “single entity” which will own all 12 proposed teams. Presumably, Commissioner Moose has already deconstructed the oral argument transcript of last week’s Supreme Court battle between the NFL and spurned team apparel manufacturer American Needle, in which that league’s single-entity status, and attendant antitrust immunity, was seriously questioned by the justices. No word yet on whether the AABA has decided which lucky company will be licensed to produce “Kentucky Klavern” caps or “Georgia Grand Dragons” jerseys.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).