Maury Brown expands a Richard Sandomir article in the New York Times on Friday about the contested sale of the Texas Rangers.  The Rangers creditors are contesting the approved sale, saying the team should have accepted a higher offer from another bidder.  But the Rangers, as a team governed by Major League Baseball are not free to negotiate with anyone.  They must submit information about all their bidders to the League for approval, and may only negotiate the final details upon receiving final approval from MLB.

Sandomir’s piece details emails sent between the Rangers council and those for MLB saying that they the team couldn’t negotiate a better deal for the creditors because MLB only approved one team, and thus created no competition for the bid.  This email is the best evidence that the creditors could have gotten a better deal.  But because Major League Baseball was made exempt from any kind of Anti-trust violation- are not held to the same rules as any other company in this country- they really can say that the Rangers can only sell to one person or group.

The question for the judge, according to Brown, is whether the emails between council really matter- does the creditors wishes trump that of MLB- and if they do, I believe that opens up the question of whether baseball will continue to skirt the anti-trust rules in place for any other company.

If the creditors win though, MLB will have to decide whether they want to appeal the decision or is it better to just take the owner the creditors want.   If they decide to appeal, they could end up without the benefit of the anti-trust exemption.

This may at this moment be a tiny story in the world of baseball, easily trumped by Stephen Strasburg, but it could be a story that changes the entire sport, because it will affect how money is transferred between clubs, how the collective bargaining agreement is negotiated and the list goes on. It will make a differenceor each franchise in deciding how much freedom they have and how much they have to listen to the league. I am not a lawyer. I can’t go into the myriad ways that the business of baseball will be affected. But be sure, there are a lot of clubs that are watching how this story plays out.