Generally when one refers to “competitors” in the context of protecting trade secrets, it is in regard to business competitors, not competing sports teams...
Recently, however, the worlds of sports and trade secret protection collided on the baseball diamond when the St. Louis Cardinals were accused of hacking into the Houston Astros’ internal computer network and stealing proprietary information. According to the
New York Times,
Cardinals employees gained access to the Astros’ “internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports,” which the Astros no doubt would prefer to keep private. Specifically:
Law enforcement officials believe the hacking was executed by
vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager, who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011.
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