>No, the difference is that NFL makes a ton of money per player and they only want the best so the supply is extremely limited whereas basically anyone can work in a warehouse so there supply is basically infinite.
No, it's not. The NFL athlete market is even more ripe for collusion than other markets because there are only a handful of owners who can (and did) easily collude to keep salaries low. It took several player strikes to get the NFL to the eye popping numbers we see today, and it wasn't always that way. There is no way in hell Tom Brady get's to command a $50MM salary if the next guy on the bench is only making $80k/yr. Owners wont commit to a 500k/yr minimum for a guy who is injured out of the goodness of their hearts. You can't ignore that the jumps in player compensation happened in the NFL after lockouts and strikes. The "invisible hand of the market" isn't a force you can take for granted.
It’s not illegal collusion. To make any of the sports leagues have teams that are even remotely competitive require policies that are not allowed by most other industries. They all have legal exemptions from anti-trust
No, it's not. The NFL athlete market is even more ripe for collusion than other markets because there are only a handful of owners who can (and did) easily collude to keep salaries low. It took several player strikes to get the NFL to the eye popping numbers we see today, and it wasn't always that way. There is no way in hell Tom Brady get's to command a $50MM salary if the next guy on the bench is only making $80k/yr. Owners wont commit to a 500k/yr minimum for a guy who is injured out of the goodness of their hearts. You can't ignore that the jumps in player compensation happened in the NFL after lockouts and strikes. The "invisible hand of the market" isn't a force you can take for granted.