NFL Victimized San Diego, Oakland, Nonprofit Owner Tells SCOTUS

The NFL victimized San Diego, like it did Oakland, when it relocated the Chargers to Los Angeles after the city couldn’t meet the league’s “extortionate” economic demands to stay, a San Diego nonprofit owner told the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.

Ruth Henricks filed the friend of the court brief Tuesday in support of Oakland’s petition seeking Supreme Court review of its antitrust challenge over the Raiders relocation.

Oakland is challenging the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that it lacks antitrust standing because of the indirectness of its injuries, the speculative measure of harm, and the difficulty in calculating damages.

Henricks is a plaintiff in a taxpayer waste action in San Diego Superior Court filed on behalf of San Diego against the Chargers, the NFL, and its franchise teams over the league’s relocation policies and the alleged damages the team’s departure caused the city. She also operates a nonprofit that provides meals to elderly and homebound residents of San Diego.

Oakland and San Diego were victims of a scheme by the league and its teams to “use their control of the supply of the NFL product to play cities off against each other,” Henricks told the court.

“When it was unable to meet the NFL’s economic demands, the NFL moved the Chargers to Los Angeles, leaving San Diego with an empty stadium and millions of dollars in financial losses,” according to the brief.

“Under such circumstances, any victim city should be able to sue the NFL, as Oakland did here, alleging violations of the Sherman Act,” Henricks said.

Henricks filed her brief one day after the Open Markets Institute, a non-profit “dedicated to promoting fair competitive markets,” urged the court to accept the city’s petition for review.

“In affirming the dismissal of the City of Oakland’s suit on antitrust standing grounds, the Ninth Circuit turned an expansive private right of action established by Congress into a highly circumscribed right,” OMI told the court.

Oakland says, in its March 10 petition, that it went to “extraordinary efforts to keep the Raiders from leaving,” but ultimately couldn’t match the $750 million Las Vegas offered the team. When the city was “unable to meet the cartel’s demands,” the NFL moved the Raiders to Las Vegas, Oakland says.

The city alleges that the decision to move the team, and to deny Oakland a new expansion franchise, constituted a group boycott.

Oakland also asserts that limiting the number of NFL franchises drove up the price of hosting a team “far beyond the marginal costs of operating an NFL team and far beyond the price that would be found in a competitive marketplace.”

The city alleges the Raiders paid the other NFL clubs $378 million for voting “yes” on the Las Vegas relocation.

Aguirre & Severson LLP represents Henricks. Towards Justice represents Open Markets Institute.

Goldstein & Russell PC, Pearson, Simon & Warshaw LLP and Berg & Androphy represent the city.

The case is City of Oakland v. Oakland Raiders, U.S., No. 21-1243, 4/12/22.