Baseball’s antitrust exemption continues to be enforced in this suit by minor league baseball players for collusion in setting player salaries. Minor leagues serve as a talent pool and training source for major league teams which pay the minor league players’ salaries. So the antitrust exemption granted major league teams applies to their decisions regarding pay for minor league players. Also, Congress has enacted the Curt Flood Act, which removes the antitrust exemption as to some aspects of the relationship between major league players and their teams, but it does not apply to minor league players, showing that Congress intended the antitrust exemption to continue to apply to those players.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Thomas, C.J.); June 26, 2017; 2017 WL 2723962