{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/11/senator-mike-lee-leads-amicus-brief-urging-supreme-court-to-end-baseball-s-antitrust-exemption", "Senator Mike Lee Leads Amicus Brief Urging Supreme Court to End Baseball\u2019s Antitrust Exemption", "2025-11-07", "2025", "2025-11", "Republican", "Senate", "UT", "Mike Lee", "L000577", "www.lee.senate.gov", "mikelee", "https://www.lee.senate.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) announced today that he is leading an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn a century-old precedent that has long shielded professional baseball from the nation\u2019s antitrust laws. Senator Lee serves as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights and is joined on the amicus brief by U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), the subcommittee\u2019s Ranking Member.\n\n\u201cFor too long, Major League Baseball has enjoyed an exemption from the competition laws that apply to every other professional sport and business in America,\u201d said Senator Mike Lee. \u201cAs I\u2019ve said before, baseball understands best of all the benefits of competition. Sadly, our Supreme Court has historically balked at the opportunity to overturn a wrongly decided case, and subject professional baseball to the same competition laws as every other professional sport. It is time for America\u2019s pastime to be revitalized by the laws governing all American businesses.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor over a century, professional baseball has enjoyed a free pass to break the rules of fair competition because of a flawed Supreme Court ruling\u2014one that the Court itself has acknowledged was a mistake,\u201d said Senator Cory Booker. \u201cThe one-of-a-kind antitrust exemption gives leagues the power to artificially control salaries, ticket prices, team relocations, and more, harming players and baseball fans alike. It\u2019s time the Court fix this error and ensure that baseball, like every other sport, plays by the same rules of fair competition.\u201d\n\nBackground\n\nIn 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that professional baseball was exempt from federal antitrust laws \u2014 a decision that has since been widely criticized as incorrectly decided. Although the Court has repeatedly acknowledged the ruling\u2019s flaws over the years, it has declined to take responsibility for reversing it, leaving Congress or future Courts to act.\n\nThis exemption has allowed Major League Baseball to suppress player wages, divide markets, and restrict competition in ways that other leagues such as the NFL and NBA are prohibited from doing. The persistence of this outdated judicial carveout continues to distort the free market and disadvantage players, teams, and fans alike.\n\nSenator Lee\u2019s bipartisan amicus brief calls upon the Supreme Court to end this anomaly and by applying America\u2019s antitrust laws uniformly across the professional sports industry. The brief argues that the Court has both the authority and the obligation to correct its past error and bring baseball into alignment with modern competition law.\n\nRead the full text of the amicus brief here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/11/senator-mike-lee-leads-amicus-brief-urging-supreme-court-to-end-baseball-s-antitrust-exemption"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4530192129313946, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}