I was checking out one of my favorite blogs yesterday (UniWatchBlog.com - operated by the obsessive Paul Lukas) and I found myself with a subject for this week's JockStocks. Is the NFL a monopoly? Should the league be exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act?

This all stems from a suit by a company known as American Needle, which sued the NFL in 2000 when the league selected Reebok to be the exclusive provider of licensed NFL apparel. American Needle sued the NFL, stating that the Reebok deal violated antitrust statutes becasue the league and Reebok "conspired to stifle competition and inflate prices."

This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.

Standard Oil (1870 - 1911) was the dominant oil company in the world until it was felled by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. John D. Rockefeller was a business genius of the first order. He used his control over train routes and refineries to buy up oil wells and block competitors from taking market share.

Thanks to journalist Ida Tarbell, Rockefeller's rough business tactics got plenty of publicity. In 1911, the Supreme Court ruled that Standard Oil had violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act through its tactics of using low prices to wipe out competitors. The result, as chronicled in one of my favorite books, Ron Chernow's Titan, was a breakup of the company into what is now Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP).

The lesson: What didn't kill Standard Oil made its offspring stronger.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.