Who declares what the market value is? The NFL said “if you want this you have to pay X”. And people paid it. If enough people had refused to pay it the price would have gone down. They didn’t, thus that is the market rate.
Legally, the issue is that NFL teams are individual businesses but they function as a cartel under the umbrella of the NFL when it comes to TV deals, merchandising licenses, etc.
This would never be permitted in any other industry. If all the residential contractors in your area got together and established fixed rates for various home repairs, or all the auto mechanics colluded to fix rates for auto repairs, they’d be sued out of existence by the U.S. government.
“Who declares what the market value is? The NFL said “if you want this you have to pay X”. And people paid it. If enough people had refused to pay it the price would have gone down. They didn’t, thus that is the market rate.”
Zackly - there’s those here bitching about the NFL trying to charge more and who have bought all the sports packages available - they are now surprised....