So, why DID the rule keeping high-schoolers from jumping straight to the NFL violate antitrust issues?
Well you could read the opinion …
But my IANAL summary is that
- the rule prohibiting players as young as Clarett from being eligible from the draft was not the subject of collective bargaining
- Clarett was prohibited from selling his services to the only person who can pay him
- The judge considered the rule unreasonable
I basically just restated the summary at the beginning of the opinion.
The player is an adult. The teams of the NFL agreed among themselves that none of them would sign him to a contract. In view of the previous history of such cases the result was a foregone conclusion.
Whether Claret is smart to skip college and try for the NFL is another matter.
Because the NFL isn’t his employer. The team who would sign him is.
There is a way around the ruling, of course- players would have to be under contract to the league, rather than to their franchises. Under those circumstances, the league could issue a qualification ruling under which all players had to have at least three years of college, or something along those lines, bringing us back to where we began. It would be an open question as to whether the NFL itself could then be broken up as a monopoly- can the AFL (Arena Football League) be considered competition? You might end up with an athletic AT&T.
I’m not familiar enough with the league’s collective bargaining agreements or with the Players’ Union rules to say whether or not such an arrangement would be practical… however, I believe the MTRA (monster truck racing’s governing body) has a similar arrangement with drivers and crew members, and truck racing has the same financial distribution system as the NFL- ie. league monies (aside from gate receipts) are distributed evenly, whether you’re the Patriots or the Chargers.