Sports team owner: Government antitrust regulations are designed to prevent one business from gaining an excessive advantage over others. Such...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Sports team owner: Government antitrust regulations are designed to prevent one business from gaining an excessive advantage over others. Such regulations are primarily intended to help consumers by ensuring healthy competition, which ultimately affects consumer prices. But in the case of professional sports teams, which are business enterprises, sports competition is their main product and thus an essential part of their business competition. Delivering exciting competition on the field of play is needed to help the teams profit from media-broadcast rights and sales of branded sports items. Thus, no antitrust regulations are needed to ensure healthy business competition among professional sports enterprises.
The sports team owner's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Government antitrust regulations are designed to prevent one business from gaining an excessive advantage over others. |
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| Such regulations are primarily intended to help consumers by ensuring healthy competition, which ultimately affects consumer prices. |
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| But in the case of professional sports teams, which are business enterprises, sports competition is their main product and thus an essential part of their business competition. |
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| Delivering exciting competition on the field of play is needed to help the teams profit from media-broadcast rights and sales of branded sports items. |
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| Thus, no antitrust regulations are needed to ensure healthy business competition among professional sports enterprises. |
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Argument Flow:
The owner starts by explaining what antitrust laws normally do (prevent business dominance and help consumers), then argues that sports teams are special because their sports competition IS their business competition, and concludes that therefore antitrust laws aren't needed for sports teams.
Main Conclusion:
Professional sports teams don't need antitrust regulations to ensure healthy business competition.
Logical Structure:
The argument tries to show that since sports competition on the field directly drives business success (through TV rights and merchandise), the natural sports competition will automatically create the business competition that antitrust laws usually try to ensure. The logic assumes that good sports competition equals good business competition, so no extra regulation is needed.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Misc - This is a flaw question asking us to identify the biggest weakness in the sports team owner's reasoning
Precision of Claims
The argument makes a specific claim about professional sports teams not needing antitrust regulations because sports competition IS their business competition - this is a qualitative distinction the author draws between sports and other businesses
Strategy
For flaw questions, we need to identify logical gaps or invalid reasoning in the argument. The owner argues that because sports teams sell competition as their product, they don't need antitrust regulations. We should look for ways this reasoning breaks down - like confusing different types of competition, making invalid analogies, or overlooking key differences between on-field competition and business practices
This choice suggests the argument fails to consider that government regulation occurs in service businesses versus manufacturing. However, the argument isn't making a distinction between services and goods - it's specifically about whether sports teams need antitrust regulation at all. The owner acknowledges sports teams are businesses; the issue isn't about what type of business they are but about whether any regulation is needed. This doesn't capture the main flaw.
This perfectly identifies the core logical error. The owner argues that because sports competition (one aspect) is self-regulating and doesn't need antitrust oversight, therefore NO antitrust regulations are needed for professional sports enterprises. But sports teams engage in many business activities beyond just playing games - they could potentially engage in price fixing, territorial agreements, or other anti-competitive practices that have nothing to do with on-field competition. The argument improperly generalizes from one specific aspect to a blanket conclusion about all business aspects.
The argument actually does acknowledge that antitrust regulations are intended to help consumers - the owner explicitly states this in the second sentence. The flaw isn't about misunderstanding the purpose of antitrust law but about incorrectly concluding that sports teams don't need such regulation. This choice misses the actual logical gap.
While the argument does assume that strong sports competition leads to business advantages, this isn't really a problematic assumption - it's fairly reasonable that exciting games would drive TV revenues and merchandise sales. The real issue is the logical leap from 'sports competition regulates itself' to 'no business regulation needed at all.' This choice focuses on a minor assumption rather than the major flaw.
The distinction between team-based and individual sports isn't relevant to the argument's main reasoning. The owner is making a general claim about professional sports enterprises, and whether it's team or individual sports doesn't affect the logical structure of the argument. This choice introduces an irrelevant distinction that doesn't address the core flaw.