Michael Jordan may be the greatest NBA player of all time, and he even owned an NBA team. But those deep ties didn’t dissuade Jordan—through 23XI Racing, the NASCAR racing team he co-owns—from demanding the NBA turn over sensitive financial information to help him defeat NASCAR in court.
Unfortunately for 23XI Racing and co-plaintiff Front Row, a federal judge in New York has blocked Jordan’s shot.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos denied a motion to compel the NBA, as well as the NFL and NHL, to give 23XI and Front Row these categories of documents:
Materials that show revenues—including media, ticket and concession data—shared among league and teams.
Materials that show the formula for the split between teams and league for the revenue categories.
Materials that show the amounts of revenues shared with, or retained by, teams.
Materials that show the valuations of expansion and current teams.
23XI and Front Row argue these data points are relevant to proving antitrust injury and calculating damages. They want to establish the NBA, NFL and NHL share more revenue in a joint venture where teams own the league than does NASCAR, which is controlled by the France family and which 23XI and Front Row contend is an illegal monopoly.
That argument didn’t persuade Ramos. He reasoned that the workings of the NBA, NFL and NHL are not sufficiently relevant to justify compelling the three leagues to turn over what the NFL and NBA say is “extremely sensitive financial information.”
While 23XI and Front Row maintain the three leagues are, like NASCAR, “premier professional sports leagues that generate revenue in similar ways,” Ramos pushed back on that comparison. He stressed those three leagues are joint ventures whereas NASCAR is not. Ramos also observed that even if 23XI and Front Row defeat NASCAR in the antitrust case, NASCAR still won’t operate as a joint venture of racing teams. The judge also referenced that the three leagues are unionized and collectively bargain workplace conditions—including revenue-shares—with their respective athletes. In contrast, there is no union of drivers for which NASCAR would bargain with.
Ramos also cited testimony from the leagues’ high-ranking officials on the confidential nature of the information sought by 23XI and Front Row. The judge referenced NHL executive vice president and general counsel Thomas Ferree saying NHL teams’ “revenue figures are confidential, propriety and highly sensitive” to teams and the NHL. Ferree added that public disclosure “could commercially harm or negatively impact” NHL teams and the league “by negatively impacting shared revenue figures and potentially jeopardizing the NHL’s … contractual dealings with vendors, licensees, sponsors and other partners.”
Ramos also referenced testimony by NBA executive vice president and assistant general counsel Dan Spillane on why NBA salary cap information constitutes “highly confidential and sensitive business information.” Spillane stressed that salary cap data is subject to a confidentiality agreement between the NBA and NBPA, and that sealing this information from public disclosure is “necessary to protect the NBA and its teams’ legitimate interests.”
Lastly, Ramos underscored that much of what 23XI and Front Row demands is publicly available. Many key documents can be found online, and some business publications, including Sportico, share detailed and comprehensive financial information about leagues and team valuations.
23XI and Front Row tried to rebut that argument by saying that leagues sharing financial data “is more authoritative” and “will hold more weight with the jury” than presenting to jurors media companies’ reporting and analysis of data. Ramos wasn’t persuaded. He noted that forcing leagues to surrender confidential documents—which might contain trade secrets and other proprietary information—could prove burdensome and disruptive.