There are a whole bunch of terms and jargon in the antitrust law and economics space (I am an economist who consults on antitrust issues in mergers and antitrust litigation, among other things). Generally, people don't say amongst themselves "let's collude!" and it's even rare for people to explicitly collude (think of a smoke filled room where business leaders in an industry agree to set prices or divide territories/customers). And as someone noted, a league is a different sort of animal than Coke vs. Pepsi. The league I am sure has argued over the years that they have rules in place to make sure there is in theory a level playing field among teams and that the real competition they face is other forms of entertainment, such as college football, etc. Here, the issue is monopsony (basically, monopoly from the standpoint of a buyer rather than a seller) which is the power to decrease wages or other terms as a buyer of labor . . . Sorry for the digression . . .