Well, I’m guessing Cuban is off the table now given his SEC troubles either because (a) he doesn’t want in anymore; or (b) because now MLB appears to have a legitimate, non-anti-competitive reason to keep him out.  Sure, if Cuban and Zell were still interested in doing a deal, Cuban was still high-bidder, and they were being thwarted by MLB they could sue, but I think such a beast would pretty much be DOA.

Take away the SEC and assume that Cuban was high bidder, yes, I think there would be a righteous suit if Zell wanted to advance it.  The anti-trust exemption has already once been interpreted to not cover franchise sales (Piazza v. MLB re: the sale of the Giants in 1992), and I think that if someone wanted to challenge the validity of MLB and the owners approving or disapproving of would-be bidders they would be successful.  I wrote about this a bit at the old site:

http://shysterball.blogspot.com/2008/05/dont-count-cuban-out.html

Pete—I’m a hockey idiot (I go to one Blue Jackets game a year when my brother visits, and otherwise I pay no attention).  Question: where would a team being moved to Canada go?  I would assume Tornoto could support more teams than just the Leafs, but are there territories and stuff?  Where is it suspected that the Preds would go?