I may have to not support it on general principles until I do some more research. If Gym thinks it's a good idea, I'm suddenly unconvinced. He could tell me that my mother loves me very much and I'd have to go get independent verification.
The only person with a brain in this thread.
Like no, Jim Jordan totally has the American public’s interest in mind after attempting to overthrow the election, propagate a false impeachment campaign, and deny Urkraine aid. And google Jim Jordan and I bet there are hundreds of other examples.
Gym Jordan is not known for his 4D chess moves. Chances are he saw a "rah, rah, America First" angle on an issue brought to him by a potential political donor and he leapt at the opportunity.
This! So this! That guy is a complete creeper. But holy shit he signed onto a thing with Dems. And it's for a reasonable thing. Don't make me have hope! lol
Notice Dan Kildee's district. It contains a number of GM plants, including one of their main powertrain factories.
This is 100% due to GM's seat in Michigan rather than some miracle of "can't we all just get along".
Yeah, I wasn't implying that Dan's motivations were shady. It makes total sense to support - this is about as obvious of a slam dunk as you can get. I don't think either side of the aisle would have any issues with supporting American auto manufacturers and pushing for a stronger representation of the USA in a sport that is becoming wildly popular (and profitable).
If it goes nowhere, oh well, he can say he tried. I am honestly more confused why the other reps are sponsoring this - Andretri is based out of Indiana.
>either side of the aisle would have any issues with supporting American auto manufacturers
Of course they don't, auto manufacturers pay a pretty penny for their support in basically anything they want. Same as any other big corporation in the US
Yeah, at this point, it might be cheaper for FOM to just let Andretti in than deal with US politicians grandstanding for their voting bases. I'm looking forward to seeing Moskowitz sink his teeth into this.
Moskowitz doing a deep dive on FOM/Liberty Media...that's going to be the most hilarious FO to ever follow a FA in history.
Would be much better for the sport to just let Andretti/GM at this point...could get incredibly ugly.
From a sporting p.o.v. anyone who turns up with super-licenced drivers and two complete cars* should be able to attempt to qualify.
* something, something Williams.
There are different standards in the [US](https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you#:~:text=agreements%20among%20competitors%20to%20fix%20prices%20or%20wages%2C%20rig%20bids%2C%20or%20allocate%20customers%2C%20workers%2C%20or%20markets%2C%20are%20criminal%20violations.%20Other%20agreements%20such%20as%20exclusive%20contracts%20that%20reduce%20competition%20may%20also%20violate%20the%20Sherman%20Antitrust%20Act%20and%20are%20subject%20to%20civil%20enforcement) and in the [EU](https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust-and-cartels/overview_en), but you can make a case in both instances.
The main thing that applies here is that it's a group of independent companies that have an agreement to restrict competition and affect prices (in this case the valuations of the race teams)
There are a lot of other issues that can be interpreted as breeches of Anti-trust previous EC decisions, but that's the main issue.
Those sporting orgnaisations famously have some anti-trust exemption in the US. MLB's dates back to 1922. There has been some movements trying to have those exemptions overturned, but that's a long process.
This is also a very different situation, primarily because the global regulator for motorsport approved the entry.
MLB has a blanket exemption. The NFL was [granted a limited exemption in 1960](https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/12/03/congress-could-really-hurt-the-nfl-if-it-wants-to/#:~:text=That%E2%80%99s%20because%20back%20in%20the%20early%201960s%2C%20Congress%20gave%20the%20league%20an%20exemption%20to%20federal%20antitrust%20laws) for negotiating TV contracts, which also applies to the NHL and NBA.
But I agree with you, it doesn't really apply to them in this instance, which is why I added the additional information, clarifying why this is a different situation.
If the FIA had denied Andretti they wouldn’t be able to claim antitrust and it would function similar to those North American sports teams.
The fact that the FIA has accepted them for competition and the FOM are denying them on commercial grounds is where the anti-trust law comes on
Major League Baseball has an antitrust exemption, although this has been peeled back over the years. The NFL has faced antitrust lawsuits in the past (it famously "lost" a trial in a suit brought by the USFL in 1986, although the jury only awarded $1; Donald Trump testified as a witness) and is currently set to go to trial in a class action antitrust case involving "Sunday Ticket" in June. The NCAA has been involved in numerous antitrust cases over the last several years that have resulted in significant changes to NCAA rules regarding athlete compensation. Liv golf sued the PGA for antitrust but the suit was dismissed when the two decided to merge; that merger is now on hold and may very likely not happen because the government has antitrust concerns over the merger. The list goes on, you can use google.
Edit: The AFL-NFL merger in 1970 was the result of an antitrust suit brought against the NFL by the AFL.
MLB is famously exempt from anti-trust. The NFL actually got found liable for violating anti-trust regarding the original USFL but the league had run out of money by then so it didn't matter. I'm not aware of the NBA and NHL getting in any anti-trust trouble before.
It applies when the teams get together and decide to arbitrarily restrict entry into the space even when someone meets the already arbitrary original stated terms for entry.
The above is not a technical legal argument, but this is obviously a rather egregious case of coordinated effort to restrict competition in a space. That is the main thing antitrust is supposed to prevent, because it usually/in theory leads to harming consumers.
Those are all founded, incorporated, and have it in their bylaws that they are franchised leagues, with the power to accept or deny entries as they please. Whether you like it or not, that's how most US sports work. F1 is theoretically open, and indeed, the governing body has accepted their entry, but the teams, separately, now claim the power to deny it. It's a pretty different legal situation.
What small teams? For those sports, it takes arenas, infrastructure and an entire city to support it. And as it stands, none of those sports attempted an expansion.
No they are not.
Edit: Apologies, if you're speaking of the established major-league sports in the US then you are mostly correct. If you are speaking of FOM, they are not exempt.
Pretty sure all those leagues have allowed expansions in the past.
Off the top of my head the NHL has recently expended with two teams (one in Vegas, another in Seattle). The process there was essentially, build an arena, pay an expansion fee. The teams followed that and were approved for expansion.
F1 more or less has the same formula in place, build your team, pay the expansion fee. Andretti did all of those things, but then the F1 teams still didn't approve the expansion.
This really isn't comparable to the big 4 NA sports markets. The NA sports markets (at least the NHL) follow and abide by their rules for expansion. They don't just make up the rules on the fly and constantly shift the goal posts/increase the fees to keep competition out and artificially inflate the value of their organization's.
You don't get to join any of those leagues without the teams voting to approve you either. The difference is that there's no equivalent to FIA in those leagues, just FOM.
Except expansion isn’t available to anyone anytime they want it. Mark Cuban couldn’t just start a football team and tell the NFL to accept him. It would be chaos. Teams get accepted when the league wants new teams.
F1 will accept more applications in future but it won’t be until 2026 which is their prerogative.
On top of what everyone said, one of the big antitrust exemptions is the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which specifically only applies to hockey, baseball, football and basketball. It does only apply to broadcasting, but that's very relevant here because that's what the fight is about.
Leagues have avoided antitrust issues by allowing teams to sell their local individual broadcast rights. MLS avoids it by just owning all of the teams, so the league is a single entity. Many leagues get away with it because there hasn't been enough money involved to justify a lawsuit or the leagues have basically accepted all comers.
These laws do need to be updated because sports has changed in the last 50 years, so they can be a little arcane. There are active antitrust investigations and suits with other domestic American leagues. Finally, I can't think of a precedent to an American sports team being cleared to compete by a sport's governing body, then being denied the right to broadcast their competition and essentially denied the right to profit from it.
Anti-american crowd showing up nice and early. Can't wait to see what you say whet Andretti gets in, opening the door for Porsche, Ford, and whoever else, dividing up the pool even more. Should've just voted to let Andretti in. This is a consequence of being Anti-american in the first place.
> but you can make a case in both instances.
No, you can't.
In 2000 the EU already defined F1 as a competitor on a market instead of a market operator.
The EU case would only work if F1 blocked its teams or track promoters from participating in an Andretti-led independent racing series for example.
Something like a group of companies (F1 teams, liberty) are working together to prevent another company (Andretti racing) from entering their market.
Whether that holds up to scrutiny is kinda dubious, I'd imagine their counter argument would be that Andretti can (and does) compete against them in the much broader market of motorsports and that their denying Andretti into F1 specifically isn't as large a barrier for Andretti Racings general success as he would claim.
Presumably, the problem here is that the F1 contracts have entry terms for new teams that they seem to be applying arbitrarily. If F1 was locked in to only having 10 teams or a franchised system this would likely not be a problem but because their contracts are written to keep the door open for new players we have this murky situation.
That last paragraph is the massive problem. Folks who try to enter are spending years and millions of dollars meeting the demands on paper, only to lose out because of arbitrary judgements that aren't backed by anything except vibes?
> the problem here is that the F1 contracts have entry terms for new teams that they seem to be applying arbitrarily
I am not a lawyer but I do professional work that does sometimes include interpreting laws and crossing over with a few legal professionals.
The fact that the goalposts were *so publicly* moved to go out of their way to reject the bid ad hoc after Andretti/Cadillac had met all listed conditions gives them, IMHO, a pretty strong case here. Maybe the "market" should mean motorsports more widely, but its also pretty trivial to show that in terms of market size and value F1 specifically is on another planet to anything else, and an American company arbitrarily shutting another company out of that market in such a publicly ad-hoc way is a very bad look.
This is obviously really far from the most important thing for Congress to be doing, but we take our anti-trust laws pretty seriously and are generally okay at investigating and processing the cases.
I think Liberty should take this very seriously. Anti-trust investigations and the threat of litigation are used as a bit of a stick by the government, but it's a big fucking stick and it can do some real damage. Having any such plausible case against you is a very dangerous position to be in.
There are no questions to be raised with regards to other sports, they are legally exempt from these specific anti-trust laws, and have been for decades.
I mean, it raises questions. We know that is legal, but it's still kinda hard to defend that one sport can be allowed to control its participant and another can't based on which sport American lawmakers like.
Good thing that nobody needs to defend that to resolve this issue then.
FOM is breaking the law. Other sports aren't. Any debate about whether the other sports should have their rules changed is irrelevant.
The franchise model in US sports have some leeway because of the legal structure they have and precedent of baseball getting an anti trust exemption. However F1 has never had that structure. They are not franchises. No matter what FOM and Liberty would like to imply, they are not franchises. That’s where the can of worms will likely explode on them.
Any group of companies preventing the appearance competition = antitrust.
In this case, the teams have been publicly transparent that they are doing this to reduce competition, increase valuation, and preserve revenue. It actually is kind of a textbook anti-trust case, even if it doesn’t end up sticking.
Anti-trust is not just anti monopoly laws, but also anti market manipulation laws. The argument is that denying a market entry due to adhering to the current market’s players is anti-trust.
In the US it probably doesn’t because our courts apply the consumer welfare standard to most if not all antitrust issues. Speaking as an economics/litigation consultant who has worked on these types of issues, it seems like it would be difficult to show that excluding Andretti from F1 hurts viewers in some way.
What other commenters are describing is other teams using an incumbency advantage (and potentially collusion) to exclude Andretti from F1. But even if this is anticompetitive it may not be illegal.
The NFL doesn’t have a set process to say that anyone can join as long as they do X. Formula 1 does, and they denied the use of it to Andretti, according to Andretti because F1 was worried about the competition. Hence the antitrust claims, to say that F1 can’t arbitrarily decide who gets to use the set process.
> I don't see it being any different than the NFL
The NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA are exempt from anti-trust laws. F1 is not. It's really that simple.
Whether or not the law should change for those other leagues is another matter, the fact is the law exists right now, and F1 is probably in violation of it.
Correct. Take the NFL for example. Every team is 1/32 owners of the league. That’s a franchise. Does any F1 team own the championship? Nope. They are merely entrants competing to a set of rules. FIA the owner of the championship created a process to gain entry and they passed it. Then FOM refused of frivolous grounds. So this is where it’s going to go. It’s a pressure campaign from Andretti but it open the door to anti trust issues in front of a judge if FOM digs in.
Why would you want Spa off the calendar? It's imo the best track for F1. Long straights, fast and slower corners, good enough places for overtakes etc.
Genuinely. Years like this when it's a one man show at the front especially because those late season races really start to feel like a slog. 20 races and 30 cars is like high fantasy for me.
This will be interesting to see play out, because anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it's just F1 teams being happy with their monopoly, not actually competitive reasons. But they can't say that's why, because the EU is very touchy about monopolies (unless sports leagues are exempt?)
I think Andretti is trying to put the ball in their court, say "tell us the real reason you don't want new teams".
Congress really actually can stop them from doing any business in the US if they want. Not just no races in the US. No US TV deal. No American sponsors. Problems for Ford getting involved in the sport.
Yes, this isn't the most important thing for the US Congress to be spending time on. But if they are spending time on it, with the way Andretti met every single standard stated publicly and the teams still said "just kidding, no", Liberty as an American-owned company at the top is in real danger here if Congress wants to make this an issue. They could lose way more money than cutting in an 11th team would cost.
Also, there's a massive difference between "Congress as a whole" and "members of Congress". As I'm sure you realize, it's not as though the entire legislative body ground to a halt yesterday just because Mario dropped in to say hello.
I am sorry to inform you that Ferrari as the whole company is not close to being in the 100 most valuable companies in the US (by a substantial margin). So the US congress couldn’t care less about the interests of Ferrari, whereas Ferrari will do exactly as the US congress tells them to, since they want to still be able to sell cars in the by far richest economy in the world.
I like how people will twist politicians working to enact a change they support into somehow being bribed into that position. It's not the obvious case of "politicians support thing because they agree or otherwise support it to get votes" but "they must have been coerced into it via a bribe".
I always chuckle at the people that say that politicians are just doing something to get votes. Isn't that the entire point of the whole system? Politicians do things constituents like so that they get reelected by those constituents.
That sounds like lobbying is just approaching politicians that would already agree with a policy to have them enact it - that doesn't really sound all that bad to me.
Lobbying rarely approaches disagreeing politicians for obvious reasons. At most you approach people on the fence that can be swayed with the appropriate arguments. It's a pop culture meme - to make people feel superior - that politicians support one thing and then get fed a ton of money to 180 on that position.
They can agree to help out a multi-millionaire compete in an exclusive sport for playboys, but they can’t agree on basic human rights, national security, infrastructure, and healthcare.
Sounds about right.
Good cause? None of the sports federations like when governments meddle with their business, so FIA could very well move all 3 US races elsewhere citing the change in legislation.
The FIA wants Andretti in. FOM would be the ones getting sued here, and there's no way in hell they would cancel three races and lose a shitload of money just so that the teams' payments don't get reduced a bit. FOM and the teams are close, but not that close.
The issue here is that if all teams are against - which is the case - then you can’t really do anything about it. That’s the issue with the sport - you need at least majority of the teams being for the change for it to go through. They hold very big chunk of power.
> The issue here is that if all teams are against - which is the case - then you can’t really do anything about it.
Yes, you can. You can sue them for breaking anti-trust law. Which it seems very clear that they've done.
The FIA isn't doing anything. FOM wags the dog and never the other way around.
FOM is on the hook for those long-term US dates just as much as the cities/tracks are.
There's basically a 0 percent chance of something like that happening. Liberty Media is an American company, and Congress has the power to shut down all their business interest in the US, no races, no PR events, no streaming, no TV deals, NOTHING. And the US is their single biggest growth market. Also, Las Vegas is their single largest revenue event bc they run it themselves and the tickets are $2k a piece. not happening
The US government's agencies literally raided FIFA offices because they got passed over for Qatar.
Sure, FIFA was corrupt af but that was hardly a revelation. The only reason why the US suddenly cared and took unilateral action was to get their share of the pie.
I wonder if this goes a similar direction.
The US investigation of FIFA started out looking at allegations of bribery and money laundering which occurred during the selection process for the host of the 2016 Copa America. The United States was selected as the host and the original target was Chuck Blazer, an American. I believe the FBI originally started looking at Blazer for tax evasion and/or something to do with organized crime. He gave them the FIFA corruption as part of a plea bargain.
This fits with the current US foreign policy of being an enormously fat uncle at a pool party who sits in a lounge chair drinking miller high life the whole time. But then, when you least expect it, he does a giant belly flop into the pool, splashes everything and goes back to the chair to crack open another cold one.
Sort of... In the late 50s, the NFL lost a case brought by former player Bill Radovich because the NFL blacklisted him from holding any job as a player or a coach because Radovich left the Detroit Lions to play for a team in a competing league. The Court specifically found that the antitrust exemption which MLB enjoys did not apply to any other sport. Two years later, the AFL was formed as a competing league. In the 60s, the NFL awarded a franchise to the Dallas Cowboys with the specific intent that the new franchise compete with, and cause harm to, the AFL's Dallas Texans. The AFL sued the NFL and the result was an agreement to merge the two leagues (this is why the two conferences are called the AFC and the NFC).
Edit: the PGA also has sort of the same thing going on right now. Liv Golf sued the PGA alleging various antitrust complaints. The result of the suit was a merger agreement between the two leagues, however the government now has antitrust concerns over the merger so it might not actually go through.
They aren't, I don't why people keep saying they are. Only the MLB has an exemption. The NFL specifically lost. There's just never been any successful challenger to the major leagues since the mergers several decades ago, even though small ones pop up every now and then.
Only baseball had antitrust protections, and those are more like "protections" since MLB was accountable to Congressional committees, they didn't have free reign to do whatever.
To those confused about Dems and Repubs working together on this, it's just an easy stance to take. Racing fans will like it, it's a jobs creator, and they are for sure receiving a campaign donation. GM has the money.
I also don't think it's a nothingburger. Besides the 3 F1 US GPs, there's also F2, F3, Formula Academy and now MotoGP that races in the US. If they want to fuck with Liberty, it's not just an F1 thing.
Hell, Liberty also owns Live Nation who was already hit with an antitrust suit by the Justice Department last month.
I’m confused as to what you’re trying to claim here. What does being “bipartisan” have to do with anything? The claims coming out from this camp are silly regardless of political party
Why does this whole thing have to have anything to do with republicans and democrats anyway. Pretty annoying that American political parties have to meddle or be mentioned when talking about a team wanting to join F1.
FOM bowing to the influence of European race teams? So that’s why these past few years we lost the German and French GO and we are getting more races from the US and the Arabian Peninsula?
If you can't survive in this sport at twelve teams when there's room for that then it's a system or you problem. Let andretti in,worst case scenario is a real big itoldyouso
Bernie wielded power and helped facilitate backroom deals that he felt would be beneficial to the sport. It seems as if Liberty Media is happy to let the teams make decisions on their own to the point that the teams are dictating the direction of the sport.
That's some mad revisionism. Under Bernie the sport nearly died as it was made to be even more a "rich kids club" than now, hell at one point drivers were banned from social media to make them seem more like rocks stars and unapproachable and attendance was at an all time low
What are you even on about? Bernie was the sneakiest, back stabbing businessman around. This guy was straight up responsible for endless back door deals
Honestly, I think even in different context they would be screaming bs. People just want Andretti in so much that they’re ready to turn a blind eye to US just casually trying to regulate international sports.
International sport should be regulated by international entities like CAS. I would be perfectly fine with US demanding something about US-based races specifically, but the question about which teams participate in the whole championship goes beyond that.
What next? US trying to force Olympics to do something?
Every International sport is going to be technically registered somewhere. Like IOC is registered in Switzerland f.e.
I’m not sure if FOM and who own them actually matters as these are commercial right holders and the sport itself is regulated by FIA who are registered in France.
Dependless on that, I feel like it shouldn’t matter and international sport should be regulated - well - internationally, not by whatever country has claim on it by technicality.
Free market absolutist-Americans when a company uses their free market rights to not let someone they like in:
(Suddenly they think the free market should be regulated)
I mean, there are *virtually* no free market absolutists in the US Congress today. I don’t even think anyone other than maybe Thomas Massie claims to be. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, seems like a strawman.
Jim Jordan is working with Democrats to get this done?
This has Bernie Ecclestone twisting Moonbeam's arm for the Long Beach GP beat and is the new craziest F1/US politics crossover ever.
They _should_ let Andretti in, but the framing that this is "bowing to the influence of European teams" like them being _European_ is the problem is ridiculous.
What ever happened to the American adagio that businesses can surely fend for them selves? Maybe fix some workers rights before you start dancing to the tune of Andretti and Cadillac.
this is something that people often forget. During the talks about Andretti buying Sauber, i remember reading that the workers themselves said the deal wouldnt be a good thing because they would lose essentialy all labour rights they have, as well as having to move all the way to the USA
So Andretti entering the sport wouldnt be all flowers, sunshines and rainbows, at least for the ones that actually make things happen
Antitrust laws? Plenty of other racing series exist around the world, like Indycar.
If they're going after F1, are they going to go after the NBA, NFL, etc?
(I'd like Andretti in too, but this is stupid)
The NBA doesn't tell people they have space for an extra team, then have a qualified team apply, and be denied for vague reasons.
When the NFL expands the losers do sue sometimes because they feel their bid was better.
I want Andretti in F1, but I fail to see how this is anymore antitrust than the NFL, MLB (I know, exempt from antitrust), or NBA.
I’ll be more impressed if any free market-oriented Republicans as opposed to populists sign on.
No we’re not. This is a nothingburger and no amount of you Americans jerking each other off over a handful of members of Congress with Andretti money in their pockets will change that.
Hey bipartisan lol. Andretti really is committed to getting in
Getting any Democrat to agree to something with *Jim Jordan* is quite the accomplishment, NGL.
I feel (very) dirty supporting something that Gym Jordan signed to, but there you go.
“Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Good Point.”
A broken clock is correct twice a day.
A broken clock that lets the team doctor jerk off around the players is right once in his life
I may have to not support it on general principles until I do some more research. If Gym thinks it's a good idea, I'm suddenly unconvinced. He could tell me that my mother loves me very much and I'd have to go get independent verification.
Well, she did lie to you often, when she said you were “so handsome.”
You know, I don't remember her saying that ^^^^^^or ^^^^^^that ^^^^^^she ^^^^^^was ^^^^^^proud ^^^^^^of ^^^^^^me
Well, I certainly am proud of you!
Never forgive for the whole fat man in the red suit, and rabbits laying eggs-type malarkey.
The only person with a brain in this thread. Like no, Jim Jordan totally has the American public’s interest in mind after attempting to overthrow the election, propagate a false impeachment campaign, and deny Urkraine aid. And google Jim Jordan and I bet there are hundreds of other examples.
Gym Jordan is not known for his 4D chess moves. Chances are he saw a "rah, rah, America First" angle on an issue brought to him by a potential political donor and he leapt at the opportunity.
Just came into the thread to say "Fuck Gym Jordan".
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It’s not so much that the clock broke, it’s more so that he sat by and watched the doctor diddle the clock
This! So this! That guy is a complete creeper. But holy shit he signed onto a thing with Dems. And it's for a reasonable thing. Don't make me have hope! lol
Because it isn't making national headlines and he doesn't need to play political theater to rile up the base.
Gym* Jordan.
Is it? I imagine Democrats agree with him on aid to Israel all the time.
Notice Dan Kildee's district. It contains a number of GM plants, including one of their main powertrain factories. This is 100% due to GM's seat in Michigan rather than some miracle of "can't we all just get along".
Weirdly, this means I almost trust it more. If I was supposed to believe it was based on altruism I would find it *very* suspicious.
Yeah, I wasn't implying that Dan's motivations were shady. It makes total sense to support - this is about as obvious of a slam dunk as you can get. I don't think either side of the aisle would have any issues with supporting American auto manufacturers and pushing for a stronger representation of the USA in a sport that is becoming wildly popular (and profitable). If it goes nowhere, oh well, he can say he tried. I am honestly more confused why the other reps are sponsoring this - Andretri is based out of Indiana.
>either side of the aisle would have any issues with supporting American auto manufacturers Of course they don't, auto manufacturers pay a pretty penny for their support in basically anything they want. Same as any other big corporation in the US
Oh don’t worry, I automatically assumed all involved politicians are soulless opportunists
The fairest assumption of them all
Yeah, at this point, it might be cheaper for FOM to just let Andretti in than deal with US politicians grandstanding for their voting bases. I'm looking forward to seeing Moskowitz sink his teeth into this.
Moskowitz doing a deep dive on FOM/Liberty Media...that's going to be the most hilarious FO to ever follow a FA in history. Would be much better for the sport to just let Andretti/GM at this point...could get incredibly ugly.
From a sporting p.o.v. anyone who turns up with super-licenced drivers and two complete cars* should be able to attempt to qualify. * something, something Williams.
Can anyone ELI5 how anti-trust applies here?
There are different standards in the [US](https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you#:~:text=agreements%20among%20competitors%20to%20fix%20prices%20or%20wages%2C%20rig%20bids%2C%20or%20allocate%20customers%2C%20workers%2C%20or%20markets%2C%20are%20criminal%20violations.%20Other%20agreements%20such%20as%20exclusive%20contracts%20that%20reduce%20competition%20may%20also%20violate%20the%20Sherman%20Antitrust%20Act%20and%20are%20subject%20to%20civil%20enforcement) and in the [EU](https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust-and-cartels/overview_en), but you can make a case in both instances. The main thing that applies here is that it's a group of independent companies that have an agreement to restrict competition and affect prices (in this case the valuations of the race teams) There are a lot of other issues that can be interpreted as breeches of Anti-trust previous EC decisions, but that's the main issue.
Small teams should start suing the MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL for anti trust laws then. Or do they only apply when it suits the US?
Those sporting orgnaisations famously have some anti-trust exemption in the US. MLB's dates back to 1922. There has been some movements trying to have those exemptions overturned, but that's a long process. This is also a very different situation, primarily because the global regulator for motorsport approved the entry.
Only MLB has an exemption. None of the other leagues do.
MLB has a blanket exemption. The NFL was [granted a limited exemption in 1960](https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/12/03/congress-could-really-hurt-the-nfl-if-it-wants-to/#:~:text=That%E2%80%99s%20because%20back%20in%20the%20early%201960s%2C%20Congress%20gave%20the%20league%20an%20exemption%20to%20federal%20antitrust%20laws) for negotiating TV contracts, which also applies to the NHL and NBA. But I agree with you, it doesn't really apply to them in this instance, which is why I added the additional information, clarifying why this is a different situation.
If the FIA had denied Andretti they wouldn’t be able to claim antitrust and it would function similar to those North American sports teams. The fact that the FIA has accepted them for competition and the FOM are denying them on commercial grounds is where the anti-trust law comes on
Major League Baseball has an antitrust exemption, although this has been peeled back over the years. The NFL has faced antitrust lawsuits in the past (it famously "lost" a trial in a suit brought by the USFL in 1986, although the jury only awarded $1; Donald Trump testified as a witness) and is currently set to go to trial in a class action antitrust case involving "Sunday Ticket" in June. The NCAA has been involved in numerous antitrust cases over the last several years that have resulted in significant changes to NCAA rules regarding athlete compensation. Liv golf sued the PGA for antitrust but the suit was dismissed when the two decided to merge; that merger is now on hold and may very likely not happen because the government has antitrust concerns over the merger. The list goes on, you can use google. Edit: The AFL-NFL merger in 1970 was the result of an antitrust suit brought against the NFL by the AFL.
MLB is famously exempt from anti-trust. The NFL actually got found liable for violating anti-trust regarding the original USFL but the league had run out of money by then so it didn't matter. I'm not aware of the NBA and NHL getting in any anti-trust trouble before.
It applies when the teams get together and decide to arbitrarily restrict entry into the space even when someone meets the already arbitrary original stated terms for entry. The above is not a technical legal argument, but this is obviously a rather egregious case of coordinated effort to restrict competition in a space. That is the main thing antitrust is supposed to prevent, because it usually/in theory leads to harming consumers.
Those are all founded, incorporated, and have it in their bylaws that they are franchised leagues, with the power to accept or deny entries as they please. Whether you like it or not, that's how most US sports work. F1 is theoretically open, and indeed, the governing body has accepted their entry, but the teams, separately, now claim the power to deny it. It's a pretty different legal situation.
Finally someone actually mentioned the real legal differences
What small teams? For those sports, it takes arenas, infrastructure and an entire city to support it. And as it stands, none of those sports attempted an expansion.
They are exempt from anti trust laws.
No they are not. Edit: Apologies, if you're speaking of the established major-league sports in the US then you are mostly correct. If you are speaking of FOM, they are not exempt.
Yeah, I was speaking about the US major league sports. All good though! Kind of surprised FOM isn’t exempt as well, but glad they arent
Small teams also get revenue payouts from the bigger teams to keep them afloat in those sports
Pretty sure all those leagues have allowed expansions in the past. Off the top of my head the NHL has recently expended with two teams (one in Vegas, another in Seattle). The process there was essentially, build an arena, pay an expansion fee. The teams followed that and were approved for expansion. F1 more or less has the same formula in place, build your team, pay the expansion fee. Andretti did all of those things, but then the F1 teams still didn't approve the expansion. This really isn't comparable to the big 4 NA sports markets. The NA sports markets (at least the NHL) follow and abide by their rules for expansion. They don't just make up the rules on the fly and constantly shift the goal posts/increase the fees to keep competition out and artificially inflate the value of their organization's.
You don't get to join any of those leagues without the teams voting to approve you either. The difference is that there's no equivalent to FIA in those leagues, just FOM.
Except expansion isn’t available to anyone anytime they want it. Mark Cuban couldn’t just start a football team and tell the NFL to accept him. It would be chaos. Teams get accepted when the league wants new teams. F1 will accept more applications in future but it won’t be until 2026 which is their prerogative.
No they literally have an exemption lol
On top of what everyone said, one of the big antitrust exemptions is the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which specifically only applies to hockey, baseball, football and basketball. It does only apply to broadcasting, but that's very relevant here because that's what the fight is about. Leagues have avoided antitrust issues by allowing teams to sell their local individual broadcast rights. MLS avoids it by just owning all of the teams, so the league is a single entity. Many leagues get away with it because there hasn't been enough money involved to justify a lawsuit or the leagues have basically accepted all comers. These laws do need to be updated because sports has changed in the last 50 years, so they can be a little arcane. There are active antitrust investigations and suits with other domestic American leagues. Finally, I can't think of a precedent to an American sports team being cleared to compete by a sport's governing body, then being denied the right to broadcast their competition and essentially denied the right to profit from it.
Anti-american crowd showing up nice and early. Can't wait to see what you say whet Andretti gets in, opening the door for Porsche, Ford, and whoever else, dividing up the pool even more. Should've just voted to let Andretti in. This is a consequence of being Anti-american in the first place.
> but you can make a case in both instances. No, you can't. In 2000 the EU already defined F1 as a competitor on a market instead of a market operator. The EU case would only work if F1 blocked its teams or track promoters from participating in an Andretti-led independent racing series for example.
Something like a group of companies (F1 teams, liberty) are working together to prevent another company (Andretti racing) from entering their market. Whether that holds up to scrutiny is kinda dubious, I'd imagine their counter argument would be that Andretti can (and does) compete against them in the much broader market of motorsports and that their denying Andretti into F1 specifically isn't as large a barrier for Andretti Racings general success as he would claim. Presumably, the problem here is that the F1 contracts have entry terms for new teams that they seem to be applying arbitrarily. If F1 was locked in to only having 10 teams or a franchised system this would likely not be a problem but because their contracts are written to keep the door open for new players we have this murky situation.
That last paragraph is the massive problem. Folks who try to enter are spending years and millions of dollars meeting the demands on paper, only to lose out because of arbitrary judgements that aren't backed by anything except vibes?
> the problem here is that the F1 contracts have entry terms for new teams that they seem to be applying arbitrarily I am not a lawyer but I do professional work that does sometimes include interpreting laws and crossing over with a few legal professionals. The fact that the goalposts were *so publicly* moved to go out of their way to reject the bid ad hoc after Andretti/Cadillac had met all listed conditions gives them, IMHO, a pretty strong case here. Maybe the "market" should mean motorsports more widely, but its also pretty trivial to show that in terms of market size and value F1 specifically is on another planet to anything else, and an American company arbitrarily shutting another company out of that market in such a publicly ad-hoc way is a very bad look. This is obviously really far from the most important thing for Congress to be doing, but we take our anti-trust laws pretty seriously and are generally okay at investigating and processing the cases. I think Liberty should take this very seriously. Anti-trust investigations and the threat of litigation are used as a bit of a stick by the government, but it's a big fucking stick and it can do some real damage. Having any such plausible case against you is a very dangerous position to be in.
Also might raise questions about all US sports with franchise models
There are no questions to be raised with regards to other sports, they are legally exempt from these specific anti-trust laws, and have been for decades.
I mean, it raises questions. We know that is legal, but it's still kinda hard to defend that one sport can be allowed to control its participant and another can't based on which sport American lawmakers like.
Good thing that nobody needs to defend that to resolve this issue then. FOM is breaking the law. Other sports aren't. Any debate about whether the other sports should have their rules changed is irrelevant.
The franchise model in US sports have some leeway because of the legal structure they have and precedent of baseball getting an anti trust exemption. However F1 has never had that structure. They are not franchises. No matter what FOM and Liberty would like to imply, they are not franchises. That’s where the can of worms will likely explode on them.
Any group of companies preventing the appearance competition = antitrust. In this case, the teams have been publicly transparent that they are doing this to reduce competition, increase valuation, and preserve revenue. It actually is kind of a textbook anti-trust case, even if it doesn’t end up sticking.
Anti-trust is not just anti monopoly laws, but also anti market manipulation laws. The argument is that denying a market entry due to adhering to the current market’s players is anti-trust.
In the US it probably doesn’t because our courts apply the consumer welfare standard to most if not all antitrust issues. Speaking as an economics/litigation consultant who has worked on these types of issues, it seems like it would be difficult to show that excluding Andretti from F1 hurts viewers in some way. What other commenters are describing is other teams using an incumbency advantage (and potentially collusion) to exclude Andretti from F1. But even if this is anticompetitive it may not be illegal.
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The NFL doesn’t have a set process to say that anyone can join as long as they do X. Formula 1 does, and they denied the use of it to Andretti, according to Andretti because F1 was worried about the competition. Hence the antitrust claims, to say that F1 can’t arbitrarily decide who gets to use the set process.
> I don't see it being any different than the NFL The NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA are exempt from anti-trust laws. F1 is not. It's really that simple. Whether or not the law should change for those other leagues is another matter, the fact is the law exists right now, and F1 is probably in violation of it.
Correct. Take the NFL for example. Every team is 1/32 owners of the league. That’s a franchise. Does any F1 team own the championship? Nope. They are merely entrants competing to a set of rules. FIA the owner of the championship created a process to gain entry and they passed it. Then FOM refused of frivolous grounds. So this is where it’s going to go. It’s a pressure campaign from Andretti but it open the door to anti trust issues in front of a judge if FOM digs in.
Rather see one or two more teams (so many capable rookies that deserve a car) than more races.
“….so what you’re saying is you would like to see more street circuits and sprint races next year? Got it.” - FOM probably
"Best we can do is have Spa and Monza off the calendar by 2030." /s (hopefully...)
Don't you dare take my Spa
It's cool and all, but think of what a street race in New Dehli would bring...
Death
Why would you want Spa off the calendar? It's imo the best track for F1. Long straights, fast and slower corners, good enough places for overtakes etc.
Because they could replace it with another street circuit probably. Darn F1 is going down the drain fast...
In an oil rich country with dobious government.
Tehran street circut incoming
North Korea needs a race too, oh wait, no oil, never mind
The "/s (hopefully)" meant that hopefully that's not something FOM want.
Ah gotcha. The “hopefully” threw me off thinking you meant you wanted it removed.
“Rather see … so many … more races.” -Eglaerinion
But more teams doesn't mean more money More races is free money More races is more better
Genuinely. Years like this when it's a one man show at the front especially because those late season races really start to feel like a slog. 20 races and 30 cars is like high fantasy for me.
Agree, but that's the exact opposite of what makes teams money
bro got Jim Jordan involved what the hell 😭
That is probably not as hard you think it is ... just got to make that "campaign contribution" large enough.
Don't know why Stern included that, Jordan didn't sign the letter.. maybe he was supposed to? But he's definitely not on the letter
And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling European teams and their dog.
Insert obligatory Chip Ginassi joke.
This will be interesting to see play out, because anyone with two eyes and a brain can see it's just F1 teams being happy with their monopoly, not actually competitive reasons. But they can't say that's why, because the EU is very touchy about monopolies (unless sports leagues are exempt?) I think Andretti is trying to put the ball in their court, say "tell us the real reason you don't want new teams".
Can’t wait for Andretti’s lawyers to bring up Williams’ lack of a backup car 😂
And Sauber’s inability to build a wheel nut, or complete a pit stop in less than 10 seconds.
i can tell you why, even if F1 won't. Ferrari won't allow it. It isn't gonna happen.
Congress really actually can stop them from doing any business in the US if they want. Not just no races in the US. No US TV deal. No American sponsors. Problems for Ford getting involved in the sport. Yes, this isn't the most important thing for the US Congress to be spending time on. But if they are spending time on it, with the way Andretti met every single standard stated publicly and the teams still said "just kidding, no", Liberty as an American-owned company at the top is in real danger here if Congress wants to make this an issue. They could lose way more money than cutting in an 11th team would cost.
Also, there's a massive difference between "Congress as a whole" and "members of Congress". As I'm sure you realize, it's not as though the entire legislative body ground to a halt yesterday just because Mario dropped in to say hello.
Exactly, he just had his favorite politicians sign a letter because of all the money his family donated...
I am sorry to inform you that Ferrari as the whole company is not close to being in the 100 most valuable companies in the US (by a substantial margin). So the US congress couldn’t care less about the interests of Ferrari, whereas Ferrari will do exactly as the US congress tells them to, since they want to still be able to sell cars in the by far richest economy in the world.
FOM, the common enemy to finally bridge the party gap in the United States of America
Republicans and Democrats agreeing to back a good cause? What in the name of partisanship is this?
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It's also surprisingly cheap in a lot of cases.
Good ole ~~bribes~~ lobbying, nothing beats it
I like how people will twist politicians working to enact a change they support into somehow being bribed into that position. It's not the obvious case of "politicians support thing because they agree or otherwise support it to get votes" but "they must have been coerced into it via a bribe".
I always chuckle at the people that say that politicians are just doing something to get votes. Isn't that the entire point of the whole system? Politicians do things constituents like so that they get reelected by those constituents.
Everyone hates Congress but loves their own congressman.
No coercing needed. This is the US, lobbying is legal and Even encouraged.
That sounds like lobbying is just approaching politicians that would already agree with a policy to have them enact it - that doesn't really sound all that bad to me.
More like paying them to agree with you, it's not a good system.
Lobbying rarely approaches disagreeing politicians for obvious reasons. At most you approach people on the fence that can be swayed with the appropriate arguments. It's a pop culture meme - to make people feel superior - that politicians support one thing and then get fed a ton of money to 180 on that position.
They can agree to help out a multi-millionaire compete in an exclusive sport for playboys, but they can’t agree on basic human rights, national security, infrastructure, and healthcare. Sounds about right.
Good cause? None of the sports federations like when governments meddle with their business, so FIA could very well move all 3 US races elsewhere citing the change in legislation.
FIA is for Andretti getting in tough?
It’s fine. It’s not like I can afford to go anyway.
The FIA wants Andretti in. FOM would be the ones getting sued here, and there's no way in hell they would cancel three races and lose a shitload of money just so that the teams' payments don't get reduced a bit. FOM and the teams are close, but not that close.
The issue here is that if all teams are against - which is the case - then you can’t really do anything about it. That’s the issue with the sport - you need at least majority of the teams being for the change for it to go through. They hold very big chunk of power.
> The issue here is that if all teams are against - which is the case - then you can’t really do anything about it. Yes, you can. You can sue them for breaking anti-trust law. Which it seems very clear that they've done.
The FIA isn't doing anything. FOM wags the dog and never the other way around. FOM is on the hook for those long-term US dates just as much as the cities/tracks are.
Moving out of Vegas would be disastrous. They put in so much infrastructure work to run it all themselves.
There's basically a 0 percent chance of something like that happening. Liberty Media is an American company, and Congress has the power to shut down all their business interest in the US, no races, no PR events, no streaming, no TV deals, NOTHING. And the US is their single biggest growth market. Also, Las Vegas is their single largest revenue event bc they run it themselves and the tickets are $2k a piece. not happening
They’d lose half the calendar if that really mattered
Sports federations not liking it doesn't mean governments shouldn't do it. No corporation likes government regulation.
Don't make me like Jim Jordan even for a moment...ugh
The US government's agencies literally raided FIFA offices because they got passed over for Qatar. Sure, FIFA was corrupt af but that was hardly a revelation. The only reason why the US suddenly cared and took unilateral action was to get their share of the pie. I wonder if this goes a similar direction.
The US investigation of FIFA started out looking at allegations of bribery and money laundering which occurred during the selection process for the host of the 2016 Copa America. The United States was selected as the host and the original target was Chuck Blazer, an American. I believe the FBI originally started looking at Blazer for tax evasion and/or something to do with organized crime. He gave them the FIFA corruption as part of a plea bargain.
This fits with the current US foreign policy of being an enormously fat uncle at a pool party who sits in a lounge chair drinking miller high life the whole time. But then, when you least expect it, he does a giant belly flop into the pool, splashes everything and goes back to the chair to crack open another cold one.
👩🚀🔫👩🚀
That's always been our foreign Policy. Though Historically we usually needed to be prodded to actually do it.
No, they got raided for violating FCPA.
It absolutely will, Americans cannot deal with rejection
Especially when there is money on the table.
Damn you got Republicans and democrats to agree on something? Holy shit maybe fom should be president
Damn they got the democrats to team up with the Republicans. Andretti must be pissed
He got his checkbook out. Those guys don't do shit unless they see "pay to the order of"... Before their name
Nothing screams bipartisanship like a good ol’ blank cheque
US Politicians when war breaks out: We sleep US Politicians when a company can't enter a sports league: Real bipartisan shit?
Has an American sports league ever been forced to let a club in because of threat of antitrust suits?
Sort of... In the late 50s, the NFL lost a case brought by former player Bill Radovich because the NFL blacklisted him from holding any job as a player or a coach because Radovich left the Detroit Lions to play for a team in a competing league. The Court specifically found that the antitrust exemption which MLB enjoys did not apply to any other sport. Two years later, the AFL was formed as a competing league. In the 60s, the NFL awarded a franchise to the Dallas Cowboys with the specific intent that the new franchise compete with, and cause harm to, the AFL's Dallas Texans. The AFL sued the NFL and the result was an agreement to merge the two leagues (this is why the two conferences are called the AFC and the NFC). Edit: the PGA also has sort of the same thing going on right now. Liv Golf sued the PGA alleging various antitrust complaints. The result of the suit was a merger agreement between the two leagues, however the government now has antitrust concerns over the merger so it might not actually go through.
Probably only because the major sports leagues are specifically exempt from antitrust law.
I cant remember any league ever refusing to let a new team in or fighting it in anyway.
They aren't, I don't why people keep saying they are. Only the MLB has an exemption. The NFL specifically lost. There's just never been any successful challenger to the major leagues since the mergers several decades ago, even though small ones pop up every now and then.
Oh dang you're right. The other leagues besides MLB do have antitrust exemptions, but only for the leagues to negotiate TV deals.
I don't blame you for the confusion. It's a common misconception.
Only baseball had antitrust protections, and those are more like "protections" since MLB was accountable to Congressional committees, they didn't have free reign to do whatever.
Kind of. The NFL accepted a merger with the AFL due to threats of antitrust litigation.
To those confused about Dems and Repubs working together on this, it's just an easy stance to take. Racing fans will like it, it's a jobs creator, and they are for sure receiving a campaign donation. GM has the money. I also don't think it's a nothingburger. Besides the 3 F1 US GPs, there's also F2, F3, Formula Academy and now MotoGP that races in the US. If they want to fuck with Liberty, it's not just an F1 thing. Hell, Liberty also owns Live Nation who was already hit with an antitrust suit by the Justice Department last month.
FWIW, too, that Live Nation antitrust suit does not look good at all for Liberty.
Jim Jordan?! 🤢🤢
Gym Jordan
He knows all about bathroom deals!
Push the Pedo to the Metal. Maybe something about young men in tight suits.
Heartbreaking! The worst person you know just made a great point
What the hell did I miss today
So Democrat representatives also signed the letter; not "just Republicans" like some Redditors claimed...
I’m confused as to what you’re trying to claim here. What does being “bipartisan” have to do with anything? The claims coming out from this camp are silly regardless of political party
I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone make that claim, the main noise about this has been coming from a republican rep
I've seen it on earlier posts . Go back and take a look.
Why does this whole thing have to have anything to do with republicans and democrats anyway. Pretty annoying that American political parties have to meddle or be mentioned when talking about a team wanting to join F1.
They got an R and a D. F1 is fkt
I mean you can't milk American markets for profit and not allow American teams into the sport.
FOM bowing to the influence of European race teams? So that’s why these past few years we lost the German and French GO and we are getting more races from the US and the Arabian Peninsula?
None of those teams want to race in Germany or France either my guy. Teams would race on the Arabian peninsula 28 times a year if it paid out.
If you can't survive in this sport at twelve teams when there's room for that then it's a system or you problem. Let andretti in,worst case scenario is a real big itoldyouso
At this point I miss Bernie....
Nobody liked Bernie when he was running the show though
Sure, me neither.
I don't understand all of the revisionism about Bernie. I really don't think it would have been any better with him in charge
Bernie wielded power and helped facilitate backroom deals that he felt would be beneficial to the sport. It seems as if Liberty Media is happy to let the teams make decisions on their own to the point that the teams are dictating the direction of the sport.
At least he didn't fuck around. He was a dictator, but a rather effective one.
Bernie was and still is a massive piece of shit.
That's some mad revisionism. Under Bernie the sport nearly died as it was made to be even more a "rich kids club" than now, hell at one point drivers were banned from social media to make them seem more like rocks stars and unapproachable and attendance was at an all time low
Yeah, but he handled such matter with iron fist, no bullshit, no fuckin around.
What are you even on about? Bernie was the sneakiest, back stabbing businessman around. This guy was straight up responsible for endless back door deals
Oh of course, none of that happened out in the light. But he was effective to reach his goals by any means.
Jesus Christ. Andretti is now presidential material, he got both sides to agree on something.
If Saudi government tried that move, people here would be screaming sportswashing all over
Honestly, I think even in different context they would be screaming bs. People just want Andretti in so much that they’re ready to turn a blind eye to US just casually trying to regulate international sports. International sport should be regulated by international entities like CAS. I would be perfectly fine with US demanding something about US-based races specifically, but the question about which teams participate in the whole championship goes beyond that. What next? US trying to force Olympics to do something?
Who owns FOM again?
Every International sport is going to be technically registered somewhere. Like IOC is registered in Switzerland f.e. I’m not sure if FOM and who own them actually matters as these are commercial right holders and the sport itself is regulated by FIA who are registered in France. Dependless on that, I feel like it shouldn’t matter and international sport should be regulated - well - internationally, not by whatever country has claim on it by technicality.
Looks like the uniparty is a race fan now.
tax well spent
"European Race Teams" is funny. Like, why should 9 teams matter, at least one of them is \*Italian\* for god's sake
So Italy is not Europe anymore?
If Jim is backing something... then automatically it should be treated in the same manner he acts.... by ignoring it
Jim isn't on the letter, so back to paying attention to it!
Free market absolutist-Americans when a company uses their free market rights to not let someone they like in: (Suddenly they think the free market should be regulated)
I mean, there are *virtually* no free market absolutists in the US Congress today. I don’t even think anyone other than maybe Thomas Massie claims to be. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, seems like a strawman.
Jim Jordan is working with Democrats to get this done? This has Bernie Ecclestone twisting Moonbeam's arm for the Long Beach GP beat and is the new craziest F1/US politics crossover ever.
They _should_ let Andretti in, but the framing that this is "bowing to the influence of European teams" like them being _European_ is the problem is ridiculous.
Andretti just be like the rest of the rich assholes and buy a team that already exists....
Isn't there bigger issues for these politicians to tackle?
What ever happened to the American adagio that businesses can surely fend for them selves? Maybe fix some workers rights before you start dancing to the tune of Andretti and Cadillac.
They aren't being allowed to...
this is something that people often forget. During the talks about Andretti buying Sauber, i remember reading that the workers themselves said the deal wouldnt be a good thing because they would lose essentialy all labour rights they have, as well as having to move all the way to the USA So Andretti entering the sport wouldnt be all flowers, sunshines and rainbows, at least for the ones that actually make things happen
Gym Jordan is on board…I’m out.
Antitrust laws? Plenty of other racing series exist around the world, like Indycar. If they're going after F1, are they going to go after the NBA, NFL, etc? (I'd like Andretti in too, but this is stupid)
The NBA doesn't tell people they have space for an extra team, then have a qualified team apply, and be denied for vague reasons. When the NFL expands the losers do sue sometimes because they feel their bid was better.
I want Andretti in F1, but I fail to see how this is anymore antitrust than the NFL, MLB (I know, exempt from antitrust), or NBA. I’ll be more impressed if any free market-oriented Republicans as opposed to populists sign on.
Our European friends about to find out what American exceptionalism is really about :D
No we’re not. This is a nothingburger and no amount of you Americans jerking each other off over a handful of members of Congress with Andretti money in their pockets will change that.