Reference no: EM132197343

Gene Washington, Diron Talbert, and and Sean Lumpkin former professional football players, instituted suit on behalf of themselves and a putative class of similiarly situated players alleging that the NFL had monopolized the market for their ikenesses in violation of the Sherman Act. The players argued that because they were not allowed the rights to game footage and images from the games in which they played, the NFL had committed an anti trust violation. The players aleged that they received little compensation from the game footage in which they appeared, while the NFL reaped large sums. The game footage at issue is owned either by the NFL alone or by the NFL and a particular team. In other words, the individual teams did not exculsively own the footageof their own players. Thus the teams had to " cooperate to produce and sell" the footage because "no one entity can do it alone". The district court held that the NFL and its teams could conspire to market each teams indicidually owned property, but not property the teams and NFL can own collectively. the court found no illegal concerted action under the sherman act. Should retired players be permitted to sell their likenesses in footage?