The NASL lawsuit is dead; long live the NASL lawsuit NASL's appeal in its antitrust lawsuit against US Soccer and MLS, which was filed on May 9 after a jury verdict was rendered against NASL in Feb, is still on the 2d Cir. docket and MLS' brief is due today.

Big change, but probably beneficial in terms of increasing the value of their player buy and sell windows and moving the playoffs to a period that doesn't compete with football. Question is whether it will hurt ticket sales to trade games in June-July for games in Nov-Dec

"Season-ticket holders across the league, who have previously received a complimentary subscription to MLS Season Pass, will now receive an annual Apple TV subscription at no additional cost.” www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/202...

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the tariff was probably one of the most frequent topics for political cartoons. Even in an era of high tech, talk shows, and podcasts, a picture is still worth a thousand words when it comes to describing how many ways people dislike tariff policy

Spoke with @kbaxter11 about whether and to what extent the World Cup will be a watershed moment for US Soccer. Here's some context for my quote below 1/ latimes.com/sports/soccer/

This is the first test of FIFA's removal of its restriction on playing domestic league matches in other countries in settlement of an antitrust suit filed by Relevent Sports. In theory, US Soccer could still refuse to sanction it, but it can't hide behind FIFA policy to do so.

The IRS will have had more commissioners in 2025 (7, so far, counting interims and actings) than the Cleveland Browns have had quarterbacks (6).

I’m pretty sure every season ticket holder in MLS gets MLS season pass as part of their season ticket package. That’s a lot of people, but not anywhere close to 120K between the two teams playing. So, there are still a lot of viewers who aren’t also season ticket holders of the teams playing

Something called "Football is for the Fans, Inc." filed a petition with the US Patent & Trademark Office to cancel the Cosmos trademark on a variety of grounds relating to non-use. It contends it would like to "deliver football competitions" honoring the legacy of NASL clubs such as the Cosmos 1/

Although as @jeffrueter.bsky.social reports, Rocco Commisso has sold the Cosmos IP/team ownership to a new ownership group, NASL, presumably still funded by Commisso, continues its antitrust lawsuit against US Soccer. It filed an appeal of a jury verdict for the defense and its brief is due 8/21

Sounds like the so-called "Bracero" program used from the 1940s through the early 1960s until it was shut down in large part because it allowed employers to exploit workers in a form of indefinite indentured servitude

Enjoyed speaking with @socceramerica.bsky.social on the effects of the House settlement on college soccer players. www.socceramerica.com/house-ncaa-s...

Soccer has been the most proactive non-revenue college sport in addressing how it fits in - or needs to opt out of - the post-House settlement NCAA. That's partly b/c U.S. Soccer is unique among US sports governing bodies in being structured to oversee all levels of the sport

The European Super League litigation continues. Spain's competition law authority is investigating UEFA for its agreements with top clubs "to prevent them from organizing or participating in European competitions other than their own." www.law360.com/publicpolicy...

And NCAA DI Men's Soccer may now be the least stable unsanctioned professional soccer league in the world, with many schools considering opting out of revenue share, dropping the sport to club status, or reclassifying to a lower division if permitted by the NCAA.

Here we go . . .

There you have it. The Gold Cup is a “major sporting event” under the law. Now, what about Leagues Cup and the Nations League? Are they “mid-majors?”

Finally, we'll get a legal determination of whether the Gold Cup constitutes a "major sporting event" in the United States

This is the correct question on the Club World Cup pay issue. Under the CBA, MLS agreed to pay players 50% of any $ from other tournaments up to a max of $1m/team. The CBA isn't out-of-date. Either the MLSPA failed to put in something like an escalator clause or they had other priorities.

CBAs, which are often written to last for years (6 in this case), can quickly be outdated. No idea whether significant prize $ was unanticipated, the subject of heavy negotiation, or dismissed as low probability, but it's an example where term sheets alone can miss key details

AI's fundamental flaw is that it's not programmed to simply answer "I don't know" or "I can't find an answer."

US Court of International Trade three judge panel rules that the Trump tariffs exceed any authority granted to the President under the Int'l Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 BTW, the judges were appointed by Obama, Trump, and Reagan www.cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/fi...

As long as the NFL is moving toward int'l rugby-style rules, it might as well allow players to be supported by other players when they jump up to catch a ball or block a field goal, just like rugby players on lineouts

The Administration has created a narrative that research grants are a subsidy to universities and this response implicitly accepts that. Wouldn't it be better characterized as the gov't paying for research in the public interest that universities can do more cheaply/efficiently than the gov't? 1/

From a timing perspective, I suspect Woodson and others may investing now to try to lock in the full tax shelter benefits from amortizing the price of buying into a pro sports team. The House GOP tax bill proposes to limit some of those deductions for acquisitions as of the date of enactment.

When you renege on deals and promises all the time, then bribes are just gifts

NASL has filed a Notice of Appeal in its antitrust lawsuit v. US Soccer and MLS. The case, which has already lasted longer than the league itself, marches on.

The judge denied NASL's motion for a new trial in its antitrust case against US Soccer/MLS. NASL lost in a jury trial in January and claimed there were "serious errors." The judge concluded that none of NASL's arguments had merit. NASL now must decide if it wants to appeal

This is like having promotion game stakes without have any clear promotion-relegation system to determine who plays in the game

While the US already has the Ted Stevens Act and the SafeSport Act and might take up something on college sports, a broadbased approach to sports governance like this could be useful too. The challenge is that so much of US pro sports is governed by collective bargaining

Tariffs not only don't bring back manufacturing jobs, but they reduce US assembly jobs by reshaping trade and shipping patterns "He’s now preparing to avoid the U.S. tariff system as much as he can, beefing up his roster of international clients and shipping products directly to them from China."

Because current and past pro players have bargained away the rights of future pro players to search for employment in an open market and the labor laws provide antitrust protection to the employers under the collective bargaining process

The deals are already being cut bsky.app/profile/char...

Plenty of fans think it while watching their team play, but few act on the impulse: A complaint was filed against U.S. Soccer for defrauding the U.S. government by "not trying to win" in the She Believes Cup (where it lost 2-1 to Japan in the final). 1/2

Exemptions like this is how you quietly concede that you overplayed your hand and have to back down

Almost a year after Relevent settled with FIFA in its antitrust suit over sanctioning of foreign league matches in the US, while the case against US Soccer continued, Relevent and US Soccer appear to have settled as well, w/ Relevent filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal

Really distressing that it took a possible second assault/murder for a charge to be brought on the first one and a reminder of the many ways that sex offender sports coaches can slip through the U.S. Center for SafeSport cracks www.latimes.com/california/s...

The Panic of 2025

Even worse is that he thinks in transactional terms and if these tariffs remain, he will use them to cut deals. Deals that exempt or mitigate the burden on individual countries, industries, and businesses in return for shadowy benefits he can dole out with no oversight or accountability.

You could paper every wall of the Ways and Means hearing room with late 19th/early 20th century cartoons complaining about the high tariff.

Tariff Blowback #5 "I wonder if it's loaded!" (1903) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the McKinley Tariff was followed by the Panic of 1893 and the Smoot-Hawley was followed by the deepening of the Great Depression. Third time is a charm, right?

First "NCAA" Final Four. UCLA was in the Association for Intercollege Athletics for Women ("AIAW") Final Four in 1978 and 1979 and won the national championship in 1978

On the heels of DII Azusa Pacific reclassifying to DIII, St. Francis announces it’s moving from DI to DIII. These won’t be the last either.

To keep the Spanish tax laws named after football players straight, Mbabbe's Law was approved effective Jan. 2025 for non-residents, including pro athletes, who move to Madrid, while the Beckham Rule applied for moves to Spain generally, but no longer applies to pro athletes

It's several years away and dependent on getting the new USL D1 league off the ground, but it's still a big hurdle to clear considering a prior proposal reportedly never made it to a vote

Next step is hosting some of those UEFA Champions and Europa League matches in the US if Relevent wins its antitrust lawsuit against US Soccer to prevent it from refusing to sanction official matches sponsored by foreign leagues or organizations.

Informally, many schools are already DI in name only. The one thing that defined "D1" - operating under the same rules - will no longer exist anymore for all but the few who can afford it. A school can admit it and reclassify or cling to the D1 label in the hopes that it will deceive recruits

At least with the nuclear football, someone else has to decide to give it to him before he can impulsively blow himself and everyone else up. With tariffs, he can impulsively blow himself and everyone else up just by saying he's planning to impose them.

Enjoyed speaking with @kbaxter11 for this story about USL's announcement that it plans to launch a new Division 1 league www.latimes.com/sports/socce...