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commissions and others as "world champion" in the division in which he competes. These divisions are:

A "world champion" gains his title by defeating the existing champion or by eliminating all contenders, and remains world champion in his division until he is, in turn, defeated by a contender or resigns the title. Such a title affords to its holder financial returns from personal appearances and exhibitions throughout the United States, from endorsements and other activities, as well as a greater percentage of the receipts from his bouts. The promotion of professional championship boxing contests is also more lucrative than the promotion of other boxing contests.

12. Of the various "world championships," the heavyweight division is the most important to boxers and promoters, as it returns the greatest financial benefits. The flyweight and bantamweight divisions are not of substantial importance in the United States because very few American boxers are of such light weights. No championship contest has been held in the flyweight division in the United States since 1935; none in the bantamweight division since 1947.

13. The promotion of professional championship boxing contests, in which the winners achieve "world champion' titles, includes negotiating and executing contracts with boxers for the main and preliminary bouts, arranging and maintaining training quarters, leasing suitable arenas, such as stadia or ball parks where substantial numbers of the public may be seated to view the contest, negotiating and executing contracts for the employment of matchmakers, advertising agencies, press agents, seconds, referees, judges, announcers and other personnel; organizing, assembling, and arranging other details necessary to the

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exhibition of the contests; selling tickets and rights to make motion pictures of the contests and to distribute them throughout the United States and in foreign countries; and selling rights to transmit the contests by radio or television throughout the United States and foreign countries.

14. Promoters of professional championship boxing contests make a substantial utilization of the channels of interstate trade and commerce to:

(a) negotiate contracts with boxers, advertising agencies, seconds, referees, judges, announcers, and other personnel living in states other than those in which the promoters reside;

(b) arrange and maintain training quarters in states other than those in which the promoters reside;

(c) lease suitable arenas, and arrange other details for boxing contests, particularly when the contests are held in states other than those in which the promoters reside;

(d) sell tickets to contests across state lines;

(e) negotiate for the sale of and sell rights to make and distribute motion pictures of boxing contests to the 18,000 theatres in the United States;

(f) negotiate for the sale of and sell rights to broadcast and telecast boxing contests to homes through more than 3,000 radio stations and 100 television stations in the United States; and

(g) negotiate for the sale of and sell rights to telecast boxing contests to some 200 motion picture theatres in various states of the United States for display by large-screen television.

15. Motion picture films of professional championship boxing contests are distributed and exhibited in theatres throughout the United States and in foreign countries. Similarly, radio and television broadcasts of such contests are transmitted throughout the United States and radio broadcasts of them are also transmitted to foreign countries.

16. The 21 major professional championship boxing contests promoted in the United States since June 1949

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have produced a gross income from admissions and the sale of motion picture, radio and television rights of approximately $4,500,000.00. The total such gross income for all professional boxing contests in the United States during this period, including the championship contests, has been approximately $15,000,000.00.

16 (a). A promoter of a professional championship fight usually derives substantially all of his revenue from two sources: (a) sale of tickets of admission and (b) sale of rights to telecast, broadcast and produce and distribute motion pictures of the fight. In such fights, sale of television, radio and motion picture rights account for a substantial proportion of the promoter's total revenue. Since 1949 sale of these rights has represented, on the average, over 25% of the total revenue derived from championship fights, and has exceeded, in some instances, the revenue received from sale of tickets of admission. With the progressive and continuing expansion of television facilities, the proportion of the promoter's total revenue derived from television, radio and motion pictures, has been on an ascending curve, in relation to revenue derived from sale of tickets of admission. In the Marciano-Walcott heavyweight championship fight of May 15, 1953, at Chicago, Illinois, promoted by defendants IBC (N. Y.), IBC (Ill.), James D. Norris and Arthur M. Wirtz, the promoters' receipts from sale of tickets of admission were, after federal admission taxes, $253,462.37, while their television, radio and motion picture revenue was approximately $300,000.

MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, with whom MR. JUSTICE MINTON joins, dissenting.

It would baffle the subtlest ingenuity to find a single differentiating factor between other sporting exhibitions, whether boxing or football or tennis, and baseball insofar as the conduct of the sport is relevant to the criteria or considerations by which the Sherman Law becomes applicable to a "trade or commerce." § 1, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1. Indeed, the interstate aspects of baseball

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and the extent of the exploitation of baseball through mass media are far more extensive than is true of boxing.* If the intrinsic applicability of the Sherman Law were the issue, no attempt would be made to differentiate the two sports.

In 1922, the Court found commercialized baseball outside the scope of the Sherman Law. Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U. S. 200. Last Term the Court refused to re-examine "the underlying issues" of this adjudication and adhered to it. Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc., 346 U. S. 356. What were the "underlying issues"? They were the constituents of baseball in relation to the Sherman Law. By adhering to that decision, the Court refused to depart from a judgment necessarily based on these constituent elements. To my understanding, that is what is meant by "[w]ithout re-examination of the underlying issues." The Court decided as it did in the Toolson case as an application of the doctrine of stare decisis. That doctrine is not, to be sure, an imprisonment of reason. But neither is it a whimsy. It can hardly be that this Court gave a preferred position to baseball because it is the great American sport. I do not suppose that the Court would treat the national anthem differently from other songs if the nature of a song became relevant to adjudication. If stare decisis be one aspect of law, as it is, to disregard it in identic situations is mere caprice.

Congress, on the other hand, may yield to sentiment and be capricious, subject only to due process. As a matter of fact, one of the explicit factors that led to the result in Toolson was the recognition of congressional refusal to up

*This opinion is concerned only with the sport as such, and not with the arrangements by which mass media show or report bouts. Such arrangements clearly are beyond the scope of the Toolson case, infra.

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set the Federal Baseball decision. But as the Government with commendable candor recognizes, Congress was not asked to avert the threat of litigation against baseball by providing a specific exemption of that sport from the provisions of the Sherman Law. The sponsors of this relief did not ask immunity for baseball as such. The "legislation" to which reference was made in the Toolson case consisted of bills which sought exemption for "organized professional sports enterprises [and] acts in the conduct of such enterprises." (H. R. 4229, 4230, 4231, and S. 1526, 82d Cong., 1st Sess.) Since, in the light of all the circumstances, Federal Baseball was left undisturbed by Toolson, I cannot bring myself to construe the respect that was thus accorded to stare decisis to be narrower than that all situations identic with what was passed on in the Federal Baseball case should be covered by it. I cannot translate even the narrowest conception of stare decisis into the equivalent of writing into the Sherman Law an exemption of baseball to the exclusion of every other sport different not one legal jot or tittle from it.

Between them, this case and Shubert illustrate that nice but rational distinctions are inevitable in adjudication. I agree with the Court's opinion in Shubert for precisely the reason that constrains me to dissent in this case. Within a year after Federal Baseball the Court, again unanimously and through the same writer, found that a bill against the show business based on the Sherman Law was not so frivolous as to call for dismissal. Hart v. B. F. Keith Vaudeville Exchange, 262 U. S. 271. For more than 30 years, therefore, these two decisions stood as the law. The Shubert case plainly falls within the adjudication of Hart. By the same process of reasoning, boxing falls within Federal Baseball, which this Court revitalized in Toolson despite all the new factors on which the dissent in Toolson relied.