The Mysterious Case of the Tulsa Football Team

Just kidding. This post is about a soccer team, but I thought calling it football might garner me more readers. But don’t stop reading! This is a really interesting mystery and (spoiler alert!) I can’t unlock it.

The Tulsa Athletic, an amateur soccer team, has been a member of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) since 2013. It won the NPSL championship in 2023. However, for much of its existence, the Athletic has struggled to find an appropriate venue for itts games. The NPSL has specifications for the fields on which its teams play, and since 2016 The Athletic has had a hard time finding a home that meets the specifications. It appears that the main stumbling block is that the venue must be a “closed Stadium (not an open park or a park with temporary enclosures).” 

In 2022, The Athletic chose Hicks Park as its home field. It made improvements to the venue and renamed it Athletic Park. Although the park is enclosed by a fence, with only one entrance, The Athletic has not been able to satisfy the NPSL that it is in an appropriate venue. The venue has been repeatedly approved by other sports entities that have similar requirements for their venues, but the NPSL is not satisfied, and in 2024, negotiations broke down. The NPSL refused to inspect the site and issued a terse notice to The Athletic that the team was suspended, effective immediately. While the Athletic had been invited to hold a sort of champions league match-up called the Steinbrecher Cup in 2024, that invitation was withdrawn once the NPSL told the organizers that The Athletic was no longer in good standing. The NPSL reached out to The Athletic’s players with offered to find them new teams. Through all of this, the NPSL has steadfastly refused to provide any explanation for its actions beyond its claim, the basis of which is unclear, that Athletic Park does not meet its standards for venues.

The Athletic sued in state court, alleging breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with business and contractual relationships, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage. The NPSL changed venue to federal court. In Tulsa Athletics, LLC v. National Premiere Soccer League, Inc., the federal district court denied the Athletic’s motion for a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

The court found that The Athletic had adequately alleged that it would suffer irreparable harm if the injunction were not granted. However, it failed to establish the likelihood of success on the merits on the one claim, breach of contract, that it really spelled out in detail. The Athletic argued that NPSL had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in refusing to approve Athletic Park as a venue for its matches. This was a breach of contract, The Athletic claimed, because the “NPSL bylaws obligate the managing director to fairly enforce league rules, including the rules concerning venue requirements that are posted on the NPSL’s website.”

The court concluded that the bylaw in question was too vague to create a contractual obligation. I’m quite surprised by this finding. According to the court, “Plaintiff’s theory in support of its breach of contract claim would simply turn into an inquiry concerning whether the NPSL acted in bad faith when enforcing some rule other than the bylaw actually creating the alleged contract, and this standard is not sufficiently concrete to allow for judicial enforcement of an alleged contract between the parties.” But if the bylaws do in fact require the NPSL’s managing director to enforce league rules, why doesn’t a failure to do so in good faith give rise to a breach of contract claim? 

As a resident of Oklahoma, I am outraged on behalf of The Athletic and my adopted state’s second city.

Perhaps this was a pleading problem. The opinion suggests various problems with The Athletic’s legal representation, ranging from a failure to serve one of the defendants to a failure to discuss any of The Athletic’s claims, other than breach of contract, in its memorandum in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction. Even if the bylaw is quite general, surely there may well be conduct between the parties sufficient to find an implied contract. 

The case leaves me wanting to know so much more about sports leagues at this level. I assume that the teams pay money to the league in exchange for complying with league rules. The relationship must be contractual in nature. I am very surprised that the agreements between the teams and the league do not provide for dispute resolution. The case recounts how The Athletic attempted to appeal the NPSL’s decision to two soccer associations, both of which found themselves without jurisdiction. Perhaps The Athletic is better off not being part of a league overseen by people whose decisions are not subject to meaningful review.  According to its website, the team seems to have had a gloriously successful season.