What do the NFL and Hot Dogs have in Common?
Aside from all the historical stuff associated with July 4th, it’s also now becoming internationally known as the Annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island, New York. Since 2001, Japanese “Power Eater” Takeru Kobayashi has walked away with first prize 6 times for the most hot dogs eaten. He first won top prize in 2001 for devouring 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes! What’s amazing about Kobayashi is that he stands at 5′-7″ tall and weighs a mere 132 pounds.
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But this year, he made headlines not for participating in the competition (he didn’t compete); instead he was actually arrested and hauled off (and subsequently released the following morning) by New York’s finest for trying to go up on the stage in protest. He didn’t sign up for this year’s competition because of a contractual change: The MLE (Major League Eating!??) wanted him to sign an exclusive contract with them and he objected on the grounds that it restricted his freedom to participate in other eating contests around the world (and it was reported the MLE also wanted a cut of his appearance earnings too - sound familiar?). You REALLY can’t make this stuff up!
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You can read more of the basic news story on Huffington Post – click HERE.
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So what does Kobayashi’s refusal to sign an exclusive contract with MLE have to do with the NFL? Sports law professor Mark Conrad wrote several posts about the situation based on what he’s seen publicly between Kobayashi and MLE. Two stories posted up on CalorieLab summarized the argument that Major League Eating wanted to restrict Kobayashi’s appearance at other eating events.
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“Professor Conrad is the author of The Business of Sports: A Primer for Journalists, which includes a chapter on professional sports contracts, with a section on endorsement contracts, although it’s written more from the standpoint of how a company can protect itself when it contracts with an athlete, than from the standpont of how an athlete can retain endorsement rights in his player contract. (In fact, the idea that a sports league would attempt to restrict endorsements never seems to have entered anyone’s mind until the International Federation of Competitive Eating/Major League Eating thought of it).”
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To read the two pieces from CalorieLab, click HERE and HERE. (The video clips are pretty good too.)
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Conrad writes two opinion posts using an example of antitrust restrictions in other sports. He’s expecting the lawsuit to be filed any day:
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“But what about other products, for instance beer? If Mr. Kobayashi gets a Coors Light sponsorship, that doesn’t conflict with MLE. What it might do is make it harder for MLE to approach Budweiser to sponsor next year’s Nathan’s contest. But why is that so? The reason is that the Nathan’s event is so closely associated with Mr. Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut that there is a perceived conflict. There would be no such perceived conflict if a professional football player endorsed a different beer than a Super Bowl sponsor, because no single football player is so closely equated with and identified with the Super Bowl. If the Nathan’s event has come to be equated with two individual athletes, that’s not the athlete’s problem. It’s the problem of MLE and Nathan’s, who need to work to develop other athletes rather than try to smother the only two stars that they have.”
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Read his posts on Sports Law Blog HERE and HERE.
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So what do the NFL and Hot Dogs have in common? Neither seem to have ever run into a monopoly they didn’t like and neither of them thinks antitrust laws apply to them. Is that like comparing Pigskins to… pigskins?!!!
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