Arthur SolomonLet’s get real folks.

Sports whether labeled -league, conference, division is clearly a business. And in the U.S., for decades, businesses have to play by the laws passed by Congress and upheld by the courts and no self-proclaimed “commissioner” can make up rules.

Despite being commercial sporting businesses – MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, Olympics, tennis, horse racing, big time college teams, have tried to convince the gullible public – aka fanatics – that they are a special business and should be able to make their own labor laws. And they mostly have succeeded beyond their dreams.

By calling an employee a “commissioner” the owners for decades accomplished what non-sport businesses yearn for – being able to disregard governmental enacted labor laws and establish their own in-house “legislation.”

And no sport business has been more successful in doing so than the NFL. But that was in the past, before the Ray Rice elevator incident.

Ever since the slap-on-the wrist punishment handed out to Rice things are not going the NFL’s way. A large segment of the public was outraged at commissioner Roger Goodell for the lenient discipline he originally doled out, until public and media outrage forced his hand.

There have also been other unsportsmanlike activities by NFL players that the commissioner has ruled on that have been challenged by the players. But the big sack of the commissioner came when federal district Judge Richard Berman ruled against Goodell’s four-game suspension of Tom Brady, calling the NFL’s czar’s action unfair and accusing him of dispensing his “own brand of industrial justice.”

The sports business has always been afraid of being made to argue its decisions before an impartial court of law. Most often, the courts have ruled against the type of justice that prevail only in sports leagues. But no recent ruling has shined a spotlight on the unfairness of commissioner rulings than the Brady deflate-gate case.

For the NFL, the ruling meant that they are not above the law of the land. For all sports with commissioners the ruling means that the self-proclaimed powers of its high paid employees – aka as commissioners – is waning. For America, the ruling by Judge Berman means that a business is a business, no matter how it promotes itself, and its self-enacted labor laws are subject to judicial review.

Goodell says the NFL will appeal Judge Berman’s decision to protect the “integrity of the game,” a ludicrous statement considering the NFL’s past criminal behavior.

Making such a big deal over a slightly underinflated football, given the NFL’s blind eye to the really serious problems of concussions and the thug-like conduct of too many players, makes the NFL brass seem like they were tackled once too often without wearing helmets.

Where was the NFL’s integrity in those and many other cases? Instead the NFL blew-up a slightly underinflated football and used it for a futile goal line stand to protect the “integrity of the game,” as if the fate of the continuance of mankind was at stake.

Sports organizations have always acted as if their franchises were a company town. But this is 2015, not 1915, and while society has changed, the sports cabals still act as if they were robber barons. The ruling in the Brady case might force them to change.
There are the possibilities of additional appeals, even up to the Supreme Court, which I doubt the NFL wants. But no matter the final decision, an important precedent will remain:

In the sports business, the rule of civilian law surmounts the rule of commissioner’ law. And that means the days of commissioners ruling as divine kings, and making up laws as they wish, is a thing of the past.

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Arthur Solomon, a former senior VP at Burson-Marsteller, contributes to PR and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and serves on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].