Goldich answers both objectors: "Fantasy football is entertainment. Back-to-School Night is a parental obligation. This should not require a citation."

Marc Goldich filed a consolidated opposition to the Patel motion to intervene and the Florio amicus brief, and to “all efforts to move the draft back.” It keeps the recaption Patel introduced, “Appellant (Withdrawn)” against “Appellee (Capitulated),” and is dated September 5. It was filed shortly before Florio’s supplemental brief conceding the point, which the opposition therefore does not address and did not need to.

The equities, recounted

Goldich’s central move is arithmetic. Patel and Florio “have now devoted eleven pages to undoing a scheduling accommodation that affects a fantasy football draft,” and describe the 10:00 p.m. time as a private accommodation for two. The record, he says, shows three: Goldich and David Lopez-Kurtz with Back-to-School Night, and the Commissioner, who “supplied his own family-based reason,” his daughter’s bedtime. “Thus, even accepting the Commissioner’s insistence that Appellant’s litigation had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his sudden adoption of the precise relief Appellant requested, family considerations affecting three League households favor the later Draft.”

Against those, “Patel invokes his third wedding anniversary and Florio invokes a 5:30 a.m. alarm. Appellant congratulates the former and sympathizes with the latter. Neither establishes that fantasy football should take precedence over obligations to one’s children.”

The 8:30 alternative

Both objectors proposed 8:30 p.m. Goldich says they “have mistaken the nature of the interest being protected.” He did not seek time “merely to remain physically present until the final scheduled minute and then flee to his vehicle,” but “the entirely ordinary ability to attend his children’s school event, speak with their teachers, leave the school, return home, and thereafter participate personally in a fantasy football draft.” Neither objector “establishes when David’s obligations conclude, where David will be when they conclude, how long David requires to leave and return home, or why either father must begin drafting at the earliest moment he can physically access a telephone.” The 8:30 proposal “is therefore not a finding. It is a guess.”

Then the line the brief was built around: “Fantasy football is entertainment. Back-to-School Night is a parental obligation. This should not require a citation.”

The objectors, individually

On Patel: the anniversary “proves Appellant’s point, not Patel’s. Family obligations sometimes take precedence over fantasy football litigation.” Goldich “congratulates Patel on successfully remaining married for approximately 1,095 days. The achievement does not confer standing.” He also notes that Patel argued Wednesday that two is not a class and now styles himself an absent class member: “The Court need not decide which Patel is correct. Both cannot be.”

On Florio’s request to be treated as “the class representative the appellant forgot to be”: “Appellant did not forget to represent that class. It is not his class.” Persons inconvenienced by relief do not become absent members of the class that sought it; Florio “may believe the 10:00 p.m. Draft creates a different injury supporting a different claim by a different group of League members. He is free to litigate that claim in whatever tribunal the Commissioner has not yet abolished.”

On the merits, Goldich turns Patel’s own theory: if the Commissioner’s discretion is absolute, he had authority to move the draft, and asking the Court to enforce Wednesday’s feelings over Thursday’s “is not a limiting principle. It is nostalgia.”

On the derivatives-market theory: it “is beyond the scope of this proceeding, although Appellant appreciates counsel finally identifying an argument less plausible than the Commissioner’s.”

Conclusion, as filed

“Proposed Intervenors have established that Patel had an anniversary, Florio wakes up early, the Commissioner has a toddler, and Appellant and David have Back-to-School Night. Everyone would prefer that fantasy football conform perfectly to his own schedule.” The requested relief should be denied and the draft should proceed at 10:00. “Appellant should attend Back-to-School Night. David should attend Back-to-School Night. The Commissioner should put his daughter to bed. Patel should remain married. Florio should get some sleep. Everyone else should draft at 10:00.”

The Court’s note

The opposition is the first filing in this case to argue that the Commissioner’s stated reason should be taken seriously, and it was filed by the party the Commissioner ruled against. The Court notes that the appellant, having withdrawn, has now filed three documents since withdrawing, and that “Still Undefeated in Motions Practice” survives on the record for the reason the Court identified earlier: nobody has ruled on anything. That ends Monday.