Ring Magazine on the Road to Sanity

[marbleheadmaui]

I think it's an illegal move. It's called collusion. You can't make agreements in the US to squeeze out the other guys buy controlling the market.

I don't think it meets the legal requirement for collusion (but I'm not an attorney). Collusion involves fraud. Nobody is saying the straps can't exist, only that they agree not to talk about them.

Collusion is the just the word I to describe the behavior. What it's actually called is "Antitrust Laws". Basically they are in place to keep corporations and the like from joining forces to for out the competition. Another word is called monopoly. It doesn't have to involve fraud to be illegal.

I really doubt anti-trust laws apply. For two reasons. First ESPN, Ring etc are press organizations and thus protected by the First Amendment. No way the Gov't tries to tell them what they can or cannot talk about. Second, the anti-trust laws are generally geared around two things (sorry, I wrote papers on the Sherman anti-trust act in college), manipulating pricing and manipulating market shares. Neither applies here. Not mentioning them does nothing to impact the revenue of the alphabet gangs. They still can charge fighters sanctioning fees. In addition ESPN, Ring etc do not compete with the alphabet ganges. They are in different businesses. Ring/ESPN etc make money off subscriptions and advertising, NOT by obtaining sanctioning fees from fighters.