Background

Argued and submitted August 12, 2014, San Francisco. Filed January 15, 2015. The case arose from the Oakland Athletics' attempt to relocate to San Jose, blocked by the San Francisco Giants' designated operating territory (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties — including the city of San Jose). MLB's 'Relocation Committee' had been 'still at work' for four years without resolving the question. The decision is consistently cited as the modern boundary-defining ruling on baseball's antitrust exemption with respect to franchise location. The opinion's closing line ('Like Casey, San Jose has struck out here') is a deliberate callback to Justice Blackmun's quotation of Casey at the Bat in Flood v. Kuhn (1972). MLB's broad relocation authority — affirmed here — was subsequently exercised in the Athletics' approved move to Las Vegas (announced 2023, in progress as of 2026). Directly load-bearing for any analysis of why San Jose, Sacramento, Portland, and other cities cannot independently compel MLB to allow a team to relocate to them, and why the league's territorial-control structure is essentially immune to antitrust scrutiny in court.

Key provisions

• Holding (1): The baseball industry's historic exemption from the antitrust laws, upheld in Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972), bars San Jose's antitrust claims regarding franchise relocation under the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and state law.
• Holding (2): Flood's reasoning is not limited to the reserve clause. Antitrust claims against MLB's franchise relocation policies are in the heartland of those precluded by Flood. (Citing Portland Baseball Club v. Kuhn, 491 F.2d 1101 (9th Cir. 1974), as foreclosing the argument that the exemption is reserve-clause-limited.)
• Holding (3): The Curt Flood Act of 1998 (Pub. L. 105-297, § 3(b)(3), 112 Stat. 2824, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 26b(b)(3)) explicitly preserves the antitrust exemption with respect to franchise relocation; Congressional acquiescence rationale applies 'with special force' to franchise relocation.
• Holding (4): State antitrust claims fall with federal antitrust claims under Flood's federal-preemption rationale (407 U.S. at 284, 'national uniformity is required in any regulation of baseball').
• Holding (5): California Unfair Competition Law (UCL) claims duplicating dismissed antitrust claims are also barred.
• Disposition: AFFIRMED.

Notable provisions

The City of San Jose steps up to the plate to challenge the baseball industry's 92-year old exemption from the antitrust laws. It joins the long line of litigants that have sought to overturn one of federal law's most enduring anomalies.— 776 F.3d 686, slip op. at 3 (Kozinski, J.)

There might be activities that MLB and its franchises engage in that are wholly collateral to the public display of baseball games, and for which antitrust liability may therefore attach. But San Jose does not — and cannot — allege that franchise relocation is such an activity. To the contrary, few, if any, issues are as central to a sports league's proper functioning as its rules regarding the geographic designation of franchises.— Slip op. at 9

In 1998, Congress passed the Curt Flood Act, which withdrew baseball's antitrust exemption with respect to the reserve clause and other labor issues, but explicitly maintained it for franchise relocation.— Slip op. at 9 (citing Pub. L. No. 105-297, § 3(b)(3), 112 Stat. 2824 (1998), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 26b(b)(3))

Like Casey, San Jose has struck out here. The scope of the Supreme Court's holding in Flood plainly extends to questions of franchise relocation. San Jose is, at bottom, asking us to deem Flood wrongly decided, and that we cannot do. Only Congress and the Supreme Court are empowered to question Flood's continued vitality, and with it, the fate of baseball's singular and historic exemption from the antitrust laws.— Slip op. at 12

Further context

City of San Jose v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball

The most recent significant federal appellate decision on the scope of baseball's antitrust exemption. The 9th Circuit, in a unanimous panel opinion by Judge Alex Kozinski, affirmed the district court's dismissal of San Jose's antitrust action seeking to compel MLB approval of the Oakland Athletics' relocation to San Jose. The decision is a modern reaffirmance that the exemption extends well beyond the reserve clause and applies to franchise relocation — a holding particularly relevant to current MLB relocation politics.

Procedural posture

The Athletics had been pursuing relocation to San Jose for years, blocked by the San Francisco Giants' designated operating territory (which includes Santa Clara County and the city of San Jose itself). MLB's "Relocation Committee," established in 2009, had been "still at work" four years later with no resolution. The Athletics, unable to perform on a city option agreement to purchase six parcels of San Jose land, were stuck.

San Jose sued in the Northern District of California, alleging federal and state antitrust violations, California UCL claims, and tort claims. The district court (Whyte, J.) dismissed all but the tort claims under baseball's antitrust exemption and subsequently dismissed the tort claims for lack of supplemental jurisdiction. San Jose appealed.

The opinion

Kozinski's opinion proceeds in three moves:

1. Flood applies broadly, not narrowly. Drawing on Portland Baseball Club v. Kuhn (491 F.2d 1101, 9th Cir. 1974), the panel rejected San Jose's argument that Flood's holding should be confined to the reserve clause. Portland Baseball had already extended the exemption to a relocation-adjacent dispute that "had nothing to do with the reserve clause."

2. The Curt Flood Act demonstrates Congressional acquiescence for relocation. When Congress narrowed the exemption in 1998, it explicitly preserved it for franchise relocation (Pub. L. 105-297, § 3(b)(3), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 26b(b)(3)). This, Kozinski reasoned, is stronger evidence of congressional intent than the silence that supported the exemption in Flood itself.

3. State antitrust claims fall with federal ones. Flood's federal-preemption rationale (407 U.S. at 284) bars duplicative state antitrust claims, and California's UCL cannot resurrect what antitrust law cannot reach.

The opinion's closing — "Like Casey, San Jose has struck out here" — explicitly invokes the Casey at the Bat passage Blackmun used in Flood.

Doctrinal significance

This case settles, for the 9th Circuit, that:

• Baseball's antitrust exemption is broad, not narrow.
• Franchise relocation is squarely within the exemption's heartland.
• The Curt Flood Act's express carve-outs strengthen rather than weaken the exemption's application elsewhere.
• The exemption can only be displaced by Congress or by the Supreme Court directly overruling Flood.

The decision is the immediate doctrinal predicate for MLB's broad authority over franchise relocation, including the Athletics' subsequently approved move to Las Vegas.

Related documents in the archive

• 1922-05-29_caselaw_federal-baseball-club-v-national-league.md — predicate.
• 1953-11-09_caselaw_toolson-v-new-york-yankees.md — first reaffirmance.
• 1972-06-19_caselaw_flood-v-kuhn.md — primary case applied here.
• 1998-10-27_legislation_curt-flood-act-of-1998.md — the statute Kozinski treats as confirming Congressional acquiescence to the relocation aspect of the exemption.

Verification status

Single-source needs_review. The 9th Circuit's official PDF is the primary source — itself authoritative — but the archive's standards require two independent sources for verified status. FindLaw and Justia web_fetch attempts returned empty bodies this session (both appear to be JS-rendered for this URL). A future pass should obtain a F.3d reporter scan or use a browser-based fetch to add a second source.

Related documents

Related documents

Federal Baseball Club v. National League, Toolson v. New York Yankees, Flood v. Kuhn, Curt Flood Act of 1998

Source provenance

• Primary source
• Wayback Machine archive