<P>WASHINGTON The National Football League is not shielded from antitrust rules when it contracts for the exclusive marketing of Redskins caps, Green Bay Packers jackets and other teamlogo merchandise, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday.</P>

<P>The nine justices rejected NFL arguments for a broad antitrust exemption. The case had been closely followed including by consumer groups and coaches because the NFL sought a ruling that would have given <a href="http://www.monclerstore.co.uk/"><STRONG>moncler uk store</STRONG></a> it significant bargaining power, not only in the marketing of merchandise but possibly in ticket prices and salary contracts.</P>

<P>The case centered on whether major sports leagues, consisting of many individual teams, can be considered <a href="http://www.monclerstore.co.uk/"><STRONG>moncler uk</STRONG></a> a "single entity" and exempt from antitrust law that bars separate businesses from conspiring with one another.</P>

<P>OTHER DECISIONS: 2nd ruling on firefighter tests THE HUDDLE: NFL, NFLPA offer differing views on CBA impact Of the major sports leagues, only Major League Baseball enjoys an antitrust exemption.</P>

<P>The justices did not go in that direction here and instead reversed a lower court decision that had barred a suburban Chicago clothing manufacturer, American Needle, from suing when the National Football League Properties granted an exclusive license to Reebok International for trademarked headwear for all 32 teams in the league. Court of Appeals for the Chicagobased 7th Circuit which had rejected an antitrust claim by American Needle after its license was not renewed had deemed the NFL teams a single entity exempt from claims that they illegally thwarted competition and raised prices.</P>

<P>Lawyers for American Needle argued that the approach would mean "an endrun around the laws that ensure that popular products like NFL hats and jerseys are available at the lowest possible prices."</P>

<P>In rejecting the 7th Circuit's analysis, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "Although NFL teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profitmaking entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned."</P>

<P>The Obama administration sided with American Needle in the case in which potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing contracts are at stake.</P>

<P>Stevens stressed that the teams compete in the market for their logorelated goods. "To a firm making hats, the Saints and the Colts are two potentially competing suppliers of valuable trademarks," Stevens wrote of the teams that played in this year's Super Bowl. "When each NFL team <STRONG>http://www.monclerstore.co.uk/ </STRONG>licenses its intellectual property, it is not pursuing the common interests of the whole league but . pursuing interests of each corporation itself."</P>