US: Baseball bat maker strikes out in antitrust battle

A maker of aluminum baseball bats was dealt a blow earlier this week when a federal judge tossed the company’s antitrust lawsuit arguing the performance standards for aluminum bats are anticompetitive.

According to reports, bat maker Marucci Sports argued the standards set by the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations violates antitrust law because it does not allow Marucci and other major bat manufacturers to compete with wood bat makers. The NCAA’s standards are meant to ensure that aluminum bats perform at the same quality as wood bats for safety reasons, assuring that baseballs come off the bat after contact at certain speeds.

But the suit was tossed after the judge ruled Marucci’s “allegations do not make it plausible that the NCAA and NFHS adopted a conscious commitment to a common scheme designed to achieve an unlawful objective.”

The NCAA’s standards were introduced in 2011; Marucci filed its antitrust suit a year later.

Full content: Courthouse News Service

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