American Needle vs. NFL: Questions and Answers

By Ryan M. Rodenberg and Peter C. Lawler   The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of American Needle v. NFL on May 24, 2010. Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, in one of his final decisions after close to 35 years on the bench, wrote for a unanimous court and rejected the NFL’s “single entity” argument as a shield against antitrust lawsuits based on Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In the wake of American Needle, there have already been a number of articles analyzing the ca