Sports & Entertainment

Competition is the product in this industry — and antitrust is the rulebook. Leagues and governing bodies are joint ventures of competitors. Content is licensed through exclusive windows and pooled rights. Live events flow through concentrated ticketing and promotion channels. Athletes and performers sell their services into markets shaped by drafts, caps, eligibility rules, and union agreements, where the labor exemptions draw lines most executives have never had to think about — until an enforcer, a rival, or a class action makes them. The House v. NCAA settlement and its implementation are reshaping college sports. In April 2026, a New York jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable for monopolization and tying claims brought by a multistate coalition, with remedies still to be determined. Every rule a league adopts is a potential Section 1 agreement — and the antitrust questions in this industry are accelerating, not settling down.

Bona Law is an antitrust-focused firm with more than 15 antitrust attorneys. Steve Madoff spent more than two decades inside the entertainment business, including as Executive Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Paramount Pictures, where he ran worldwide home entertainment, pay television, and digital media, and before that as International Counsel to the Motion Picture Association of America, representing every major studio around the world. He negotiated the deals — with HBO, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon — and he handled the competition problems that came with them, from Justice Department review of the five-studio Movielink joint venture to European Commission proceedings and an FTC pricing investigation.

Luke Hasskamp argued a Sherman Act appeal for a Tony Award-winning theatrical producer in the Second Circuit and worked on litigation involving concussions in the NFL and NHL. Aaron Gott broke down the Live Nation/Ticketmaster verdict on live television. Bona Law brings that fluency to the leagues, teams, venues, promoters, studios, streamers, agencies, athletes, and artists whose businesses run on the joint ventures, exclusive rights, and talent markets that antitrust law polices most closely.

Why sports and entertainment companies hire Bona Law

We know this industry from the inside. Our bench includes a former Paramount Pictures business-and-legal-affairs executive and MPAA international counsel, a former lead state enforcer on the challenge that stopped the DraftKings/FanDuel merger, an editor of the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law who worked with an NFL franchise's ownership group, and a discovery-counsel veteran of a major studio. We speak the industry's language — output deals, windows, packaging, charters, sanctioning rules, rights pools — because our people have negotiated and lived them.

We work every side of the industry's disputes. We represent plaintiffs and defendants; leagues, associations, and their members; incumbents and upstarts; buyers and sellers of rights and talent. Antitrust litigation, counseling, investigations, merger review, class action defense, and appeals — the doctrines this industry runs on are the doctrines we handle every day. That range means we see each dispute the way the other side will.

A focused platform with fewer conflicts. Our antitrust focus also means we often face fewer institutional conflicts than large full-service firms. We also provide independent claim evaluations — a clear-eyed assessment of whether an antitrust claim against a league, platform, promoter, or agency is worth pursuing, before you spend litigation money.

Independent recognition backs it up. Bona Law is recognized in the Chambers Spotlight guides for antitrust in both California and New York, and Steve Cernak and Pat Pascarella were named to The Best Lawyers in America® 2027 for antitrust — the seventh consecutive year Bona Law attorneys have earned Best Lawyers recognition.

The attorneys behind this practice

Steve Madoff spent more than two decades in senior entertainment-industry roles before joining the firm. As Executive Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs at Paramount Pictures, he supervised more than 30 attorneys and business-affairs executives across worldwide home entertainment, pay television, and digital media, negotiating television output agreements exceeding $1 billion each with TPS, BSkyB, Premiere, and HBO, and digital-distribution deals with Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix, and working on the Viacom–CBS de-merger and Paramount's acquisition of DreamWorks. As International Counsel at the Motion Picture Association of America, he represented the worldwide interests of Disney, Warner Bros., Fox, Universal, Sony, Paramount, and MGM/United Artists. His competition experience spans DOJ review of the five-studio Movielink joint venture, which he negotiated on behalf of the studio partners, European Commission proceedings involving Paramount's BSkyB output agreement, an FTC minimum-advertised-price investigation, and the Blockbuster antitrust litigation — plus expert-witness engagements for NBCUniversal/Comcast, Warner Bros. (in the long-running profit-participations litigation over The Exorcist), and Univision. He holds an LL.M. in Trade Regulation from NYU and writes on entertainment market definition, appearance releases, and the Paramount consent decrees.

Paul Moore served as California's lead attorney in the joint FTC/California/District of Columbia challenge that stopped the proposed merger of DraftKings and FanDuel, the two dominant daily-fantasy-sports platforms — enforcement-side experience that informs how we advise sports and gaming businesses on deals and how we press or defend merger challenges today.

Luke Hasskamp argued Drabinsky v. Actors' Equity Association in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, pressing a first-impression question on the scope of the statutory labor exemption in a Sherman Act group-boycott case for a Tony Award-winning theatrical producer. He also worked on the litigation involving the NFL and NHL’s concussion MDL proceedings in the NFL and NHL concussion multidistrict litigation. He has been quoted in USA Today on antitrust issues in youth sports, including a Texas attorney general investigation into youth hockey. He is the author of the blog's five-part history of baseball's antitrust exemption and its series on the PGA Tour/LIV Golf fight, and he has written on the NBA's rival-league problem, the MMA fighters' class certification against the UFC, and Nielsen's broadcast-ratings bundling appeal. And he has served as a legal consultant to CBS's NCIS on federal-court procedure.

Aaron Gott provided on-air analysis of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopolization verdict on FOX and writes on the exemption architecture that shapes this industry, including the Sports Broadcasting Act and other lesser-known exemptions and antitrust lessons from professional hockey. He has argued state-action immunity issues in the federal courts of appeals in the firm's exclusive-franchise monopolization cases.

Steve Cernak, former Chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section, counsels trade associations and joint ventures — the governance form every league, conference, and sanctioning body takes — and presented "The Antitrust-Labor Interface: Not Just for Pro Athletes" at the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting years before athlete labor markets became the industry's defining fight. He also assisted in the appellate work in some of the precedent-setting league cases. With Luis Blanquez — Vice Chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section's Media and Technology Committee — and Sabri Siraj, he analyzed the Paramount–Warner Bros. transaction's global antitrust review in the Daily Journal.

Our team also includes Pat Pascarella, former chief antitrust counsel at AT&T and a veteran of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, who defended a regional sports governing body in conspiracy and monopolization cases in federal court; Sabri Siraj, who worked with the Kraft Group and the New England Patriots before law school and served as an editor of the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law; Jon Cieslak, who defended a media company in multidistrict class litigation alleging price-fixing and unlawful information sharing among local television stations; Kimberly Straight-Gagnon, former in-house discovery counsel at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; and Jarod Bona, the firm's founder, who has written on Hollywood's talent-agency antitrust fight and when league members are capable of conspiring under American Needle v. NFL.

Representative experience

Tony Award-winning theatrical producer — group-boycott antitrust action (S.D.N.Y. and Second Circuit). Represented a Tony Award-winning theatrical producer in a Sherman Act action arising out of a national union's group-boycott conduct, arguing in the Second Circuit a first-impression question on the scope of the statutory labor exemption — whether it is an affirmative defense or an element the plaintiff must plead — at the doctrinal frontier of antitrust and labor law in the entertainment industry.
U.S. Supreme Court — certiorari petition on labor-union antitrust overreach. Petitioned the Supreme Court to review the scope of antitrust scrutiny of union conduct alleged to exceed the statutory labor exemption.
Disney/FuboTV sports-streaming joint venture — Second Circuit amicus. Filed an amici curiae brief for leading antitrust law professors urging the Second Circuit to vacate the preliminary injunction blocking a sports-focused live-streaming joint venture, addressing the antitrust standard for new entry into concentrated streaming markets.

Beyond these industry matters, our lawyers litigate the same theories these disputes turn on — group boycotts, monopolization and monopsony, refusals to deal, and labor-market restraints — in courts across the country, with published appellate wins in monopolization cases in federal courts of appeals.

Where antitrust risk (and opportunity) arises in sports and entertainment

Leagues, governing bodies, and athletes. A league is a joint venture of competitors, and after American Needle v. NFL, its members are usually capable of conspiring — so eligibility rules, transfer restrictions, roster limits, and compensation caps all face rule-of-reason scrutiny. The House v. NCAA settlement, its ongoing appeals, College Sports Commission enforcement, and a wave of athlete-eligibility injunction cases are remaking college sports in real time, while athlete-compensation litigation runs on monopsony economics from the UFC fighters' cases to the Seventh Circuit's NCAA Five-Year Rule decision. Youth sports organizations face growing antitrust scrutiny as well — state attorneys general have begun investigating exclusionary practices by leagues affiliated with professional teams. Leagues, conferences, schools, collectives, and athletes each need counsel who understands both the joint-venture defenses and the monopsony theories.

Live events and ticketing. The April 2026 jury verdict finding Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable for monopolization and tying claims brought by a multistate coalition opens a remedies phase and a potential follow-on era for venues, promoters, and ticketing rivals evaluating their own claims. The FTC's separate consumer protection and ticket-resale case and spreading state ticketing statutes create compliance obligations for everyone who sells, resells, or prices tickets. The concert-focused market definition in the liability verdict may also leave the door open for parallel litigation in sports ticketing. Businesses across the live-events chain — venues, promoters, ticketing platforms, and rivals — face both claims and opportunities as the remedies phase unfolds.

Media rights, streaming, and content. Pooled broadcast rights sit atop the Sports Broadcasting Act's narrow exemption; exclusive windows and bundles draw challenges like the Nielsen ratings-bundling appeal; and streaming consolidation — from the Disney/FuboTV joint venture fight to the Paramount–Warner Bros. transaction — keeps merger review at the center of the business. As rights migrate from traditional broadcast to streaming and bundled packages, the line between what the Sports Broadcasting Act covers and what falls outside it is increasingly contested. Market definition works differently in entertainment, and the two-sided platform frameworks courts are developing in other industries will shape how these markets are analyzed.

Music, talent, and Hollywood. From the writers' antitrust fight with the talent agencies over packaging fees to the end of the Paramount consent decrees to group-boycott questions raised by award-eligibility rules, Hollywood's business models are built from agreements among competitors — agencies, studios, guilds, and platforms. Even associations of music teachers have drawn FTC enforcement. Talent-side and company-side alike, these disputes reward counsel fluent in both the Sherman Act and the contracts the industry actually signs.

Gaming and esports. Game platforms, tournament organizers, and publishers face the same exclusion, self-preferencing, and merger questions as the rest of the industry — the Microsoft–Activision fight — layered onto platform and app-store antitrust doctrine developing in parallel. As esports leagues mature and tournament exclusivity becomes more valuable, the joint-venture and eligibility questions that define traditional sports antitrust are migrating into gaming.

Unions and labor markets. The statutory and nonstatutory labor exemptions decide whether antitrust reaches conduct by and with unions — the exact frontier we pressed in Drabinsky and that continues to develop. The exemptions protect certain collective bargaining but have real limits, and where those limits fall is one of the most active questions in antitrust law. Meanwhile no-poach, wage-fixing, and non-compete enforcement applies to production crews, arena staff, and front offices just as it does to athletes, while noncompete restrictions raise additional state-law and, in some circumstances, federal competition issues.

How we help

Sports and entertainment antitrust litigation — Plaintiff and defense representation in monopolization, monopsony, group boycotts, exclusive dealing, tying, and joint-venture disputes — for teams, venues, promoters, rights holders, platforms, producers, and talent.
League, association, and joint-venture counseling and compliance — Practical guidance on rulemaking, membership, information exchange, and pricing for leagues, conferences, sanctioning bodies, trade associations, collectives, and rights-pooling arrangements.
Government investigations and third-party subpoenas — Defending businesses in DOJ, FTC, and state AG investigations, and representing venues, schools, collectives, brokers, and media companies that receive subpoenas in the industry's major cases.
Appeals and amicus strategy — A dedicated appellate practice with published wins in the federal courts of appeals in antitrust cases.
Sports and entertainment mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures — HSR strategy and merger advocacy for content, rights, ticketing, and team transactions, informed by enforcement-side experience.
Expert witness services — Steve Madoff has served as an expert witness in entertainment-industry litigation, including engagements for NBCUniversal/Comcast, Warner Bros., and Univision.

Frequently asked questions

Our league (or conference, association, or sanctioning body) wants to adopt a new rule. Is that an antitrust problem? It can be. After American Needle, most league and association rules are agreements among competitors judged under the rule of reason — and eligibility, compensation, and membership rules are drawing challenges at an unprecedented rate. The answer is rarely "don't act"; it is to make sure the rule is pro-competitive, then build the record and the process that justify the rule before someone else builds the record against it.
We received a subpoena in one of the big cases — the ticketing litigation, the college-sports cases, or a government investigation. What now? Treat it seriously and move quickly: preservation obligations attach immediately, and scope negotiations early in the process determine most of the cost. We represent third parties in exactly these situations, often resolving them without our client ever becoming a party.
Do we have an antitrust claim against a dominant promoter, platform, league, or agency? Maybe — and it is worth finding out before you spend litigation money. We evaluate exclusion, monopsony, refusal-to-deal, and group-boycott theories, the same claims we litigate.
Does the labor exemption bar antitrust claims involving a union? Not always — the statutory and nonstatutory exemptions have real limits, and where they fall is one of the most active questions in antitrust today. We pressed a first-impression question on the statutory exemption's scope in the Second Circuit and track the doctrine as it develops.
Is name, image, and likeness (NIL) an antitrust issue? Deeply. The House settlement, its cap on school revenue-sharing, clearinghouse review of NIL deals, and conflicting state statutes all sit on contested antitrust ground — and collectives, schools, athletes, and brands each face different risks. This is moving quickly; get advice that is current.

From our writing

Selected sports and entertainment analysis from The Antitrust Attorney Blog and our resources library:

Sports leagues and athlete markets

Media, streaming, and entertainment

Antitrust exemptions and industry structure

Who Is Capable of Conspiring to Violate the Antitrust Laws? (American Needle and the single-entity question)
What Are the Statutory and Non-Statutory Labor Exemptions to Antitrust Liability?
Seven Lesser-Known Antitrust Exemptions and Immunities

Contact us

If your business competes in sports, media, or entertainment — or competes against someone who controls the venue, the rights, the platform, or the rules — contact Bona Law. We handle sports and entertainment competition matters nationwide from our offices in San Diego, New York, Detroit, Dallas, and Minneapolis.