Re:Re: monopoly definition

[tklaundry@juno.com]

---------- DonKelley@aol.com writes:
>There was a span of 50 years (1903-1953) when Major League Baseball >had 16 teams playing in only 10 cities.  New York had three teams.  >Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia each had two. Cleveland >did not, by the way.  It was during this period that the antitrust >exemption was granted. 

Dave responds:
So there were 11 teams playing in 5 cities then 1 in each of 5 more cities when the anti-trust exemption was granted.  So the majority of teams had competition in their own market and it was a monopoly?  So how is that much different from major market broadcasting today?

Don wrote:
>In the 50's teams began travelling by plane instead of train.  In 1953 >Boston's Lou Perini, owner of the Braves, got the idea that the team >would draw better as the big fish in Milwaukee instead of being the >second-fiddle team in Boston.  The St. Louis Browns followed suit the >next year and became the Baltimore Orioles.  The following year the >Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City.  Three years after that >the Dodgers moved to LA and the Giants moved to San Francisco.  Each >team wound up with a monopoly in its own market.

Dave responds:
This would seem to me to be the point where an exemption to the anti-trust law would have come into play.  So far that hasn't happened in broadcasting, but I seem to remember a quote from Uncle Mel a few years ago, paraphrasing, he said he saw nothing wrong with owning every station in a market and opposed regulations that prevent him from reaching that goal.