What would it take to defeat the Major League Soccer (MLS)/U.S. Soccer monopoly with an antitrust  lawsuit? It is important to remember that the USA soccer closed system has something that the isolated U.S. sport closed systems do not: a globally recognized divisional sanction that provides a clear pathway to individual club profit beyond internal league competition. Hinging an antitrust lawsuit on the lucrative nature of FIFA’s divisional sanction standard is the key to toppling the unjust MLS/U.S. Soccer monopoly.

There is a strong antitrust lawsuit case to be made against MLS/U.S. Soccer monopoly because a nation’s division 1 sanction is directly linked to profit via international club competitions. Qualifying for the CONCACAF Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup are the profit pathways in USA’s case. USA clubs directly benefit from participation in these competitions through shared TV and ticket revenue from the tournament itself. The other side of this same coin is that division 1 sanctions are seen as the standard indicator of club quality around the world, and that achieving this status indirectly leads clubs to profit through global prestige and notoriety. International shirt sales and TV rights for the D1 league are indirect profit examples in this case. 

When stake the antitrust argument on the factors of domestic competition only – as the case example of the Fraser vs. MLS did around the turn of the millennium – it is a much more difficult case to win. For example, isolated U.S. sports like American football or baseball can make a decent case that they are competing fairly because there are no extracurricular profits to be had outside of the confines of their own competition. Sure, teams and owners can make profits within a U.S. sports league, but the direct and indirect profits they generate are not assisted by the outside interference of a global governing body for their sport. Being in their U.S. sport league does not assure them of entry into any international competitions that provide externally generated profit opportunities as FIFA does for domestic soccer clubs around the world. These U.S. sports leagues could also make the case that anyone is free to start a competing league since there is no globally recognized D1 standard to adhere to in these isolated sports.

The winning legal case can be distilled down to this: Access to the USA soccer division 1 sanction allows clubs in the USA soccer ecosystem to attain profits through access to FIFA-sanctioned competition. Allowing one company or club to hold exclusive ownership of this D1 sanction is violation of U.S. antitrust law and principles. MLS should be given the choice to either align with an open-access, promotion/relegation USA system, or it should be forced to give up the U.S. Soccer Federation division 1 sanction an operate sanction-free like all of the other closed USA sports leagues.

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