Media & Entertainment Law

India Hoped Commonwealth Games Would Be Its Coming Out Party; Guess Again

Posted on October 03, 2010
International Sporting Spectacles on the scale of the World Cup or the Olympics, and to a lesser extent, the Asian Games, the Pan American Games and the Commonwealth Games have been used for decades to announce a country's entrance to the world of civilized nations...

Cal Cuts Baseball Team and Four Other Sports

Posted on September 30, 2010
ARTICLEURLIn the most jarring example yet of the pressures being felt by athletic departments across the country caused by the Great Recession and the college sports arms race, University of California Berkeley announced it was dropping baseball, a sport which it had fielded a team since 1892...

New Upper Deck Trading Cards Include College Basketball Coaches, Olympians

Posted on September 30, 2010
ARTICLEURLUpper Deck is bringing out a new line of trading cards which will, for the first time, feature more than 30 active college basketball coaches, including Bill Self, Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Tubby Smith, Bobby Huggins and Jim Calhoun. The coaches cards will be part of a 400 card set covering multiple sports and featuring autographs and memorabilia inserted in the packs...

Rachel Alexandra Retired From Racing

Posted on September 29, 2010
One of thoroughbred racing's most illustrious fillies has been retired from racing.  Reigning Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra has been sent to the breeding shed by her owner Jess Jackson before the end of her four year old year, with no explanation other than a reference to her less than stellar 2010 racing performance...

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Marketing the Wizards

Posted on September 27, 2010
Is there any team in the NBA, other than possibly the Knicks, that faced a tougher marketing issue heading into this season than the Washington Wizards.  Last season was a disaster with their star player lost to a 50 game suspension and then the balance of the season in a halfway house for pulling a gun in the locker room...

Weekend Reading

Posted on September 25, 2010
Here are a few links for your weekend reading pleasure:ARTICLEURLNCAA discussing the possibility of losing teams going to bowl games (San Diego Union Tribune)Just how low does the WAC have to reach to replace the schools departing for the Mountain West (Idaho Statesman)Turner gets 14 year deal for digital rights to NCAA championships and management of NCAA...

Carmelo to the Nets

Posted on September 24, 2010
The New York Daily News is reporting that Carmelo Anthony has signed off on a deal that will send him to the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets in the latest of the string of off-season deals reshaping the NBA landscape.  The deal is said to involve four teams and will send Derrick Favors to the Nuggets with Andrei Kirilenko from Utah along with draft picks...

Tuesday Tidbits

Posted on September 21, 2010
ARTICLEURLHere are a few of the things I have been reading:Corked baseball bats don't help power hitters (Scientific American via Abnormal Returns)NFL now caught between its twin monsters: TV ratings and ticket sales (WaPo)Penn State receives $88 million to fund arena and men's and women's hockey teams (PSU); will Big Ten hockey soon follow (Star-Tribune)Muni Bond Watch turns eye on minor league stadium bonds and picture isn't pretty (WSJ via Sports Economist)The next boom in sports television: high school football (Dallas News)What have you been reading?

World Equestrian Games: What Does Being Title Sponsor Mean?

Posted on September 20, 2010
ARTICLEURLThe Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, the olympics for the horse set, open this week in Lexington. It will be the first time the Games have ever been held in North America and Lexington, a rather sleepy town of 250,000 nestled in the Bluegrass of Kentucky is preparing for a worldwide invasion of 800,000 people over the next two weeks...

Tuesday Tidbits

Posted on September 15, 2010
ARTICLEURLI thought I would put up a few links to articles I had been reading lately since it's been a bit hectic around here these last couple of days. Hope you enjoy:Origin of NFL nicknames (CNN), Remember last year's AFL throwback uniforms, you know, the Bronco's vertical stripe brown socks, well here's the story on where they came from (Mental Floss),Reggie Bush returns Heisman Trophy, now what (LATimes)Taxpayers still on hook after stadiums abandoned (NYT)It's matches like last week's Spain v...

NFL Players Association Seeks Right to Decertify if Owners Lockout

Posted on September 13, 2010
The NFL Players Association is circulating cards among players permitting the union to decertify in the face of a lockout by the owners at the end of the current collective bargaining agreement in 2011.  The NFLPA is not leveling decertification as a threat but wants to maintain the option in order to strengthen its hand in negotiations for a new CBA...

Blackouts Loom Large as a New NFL Season Begins

Posted on September 09, 2010
The surest indication of the continuing effects of the Great Recession is that it has even affected the golden league, the NFL.  Up until the Recession first hit in 2008, it was unheard of for the NFL to suffer league-wide drop in ticket sales.  Then came the Recession and ticket sales have dropped in each of the last three years...

Derrick Caracter's, uhm, Light Laker Contract

Posted on September 07, 2010
ARTICLEURLThe oft troubled Derrick Caracter, formerly of the University of Louisville and most recently a post player from the University of Texas El Paso, showed enough promise in the NBA Summer League the champion Lakers gave their second round pick a two year contract, with  at least the first year, or a portion of it, guaranteed...

JP Morgan Chase, Madison Square Garden Said to be in Largest Ever Naming Rights Deal

Posted on September 07, 2010
Madison Square Garden is about to undergo a massive $800 million phased renovation that will not be completed until 2013, but when finished will create an essentially new MSG.  If a recent story by Sports Business Journal is correct, then a significant portion of the financing for the project has been secured in the largest ever sponsor/arena rights deal, as JP Morgan Chase is paying $300 million for a ten year deal to become the marquee sponsor of the new MSG...

Woods, Z. Johnson on Ryder Cup Team

Posted on September 07, 2010
American Ryder Cup team captain Corey Pavin announced his captain's selections for the Ryder Cup team which will take on Europe at Celtic Manor in Wales.  To no one's surprise, Tiger Woods was selected despite his less than stellar play of late.  Joining him as a captain's pick are Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink and Rickie Fowler...

Friday Night Lights: Lingerie Football League Returns to TV

Posted on September 06, 2010
You know you want it.  You know you missed; your Friday nights just haven't been the same.  Well, your wait is finally over.  Friday night lights have gotten brighter as the Lingerie Football League returns to a television near you this Friday, September 10 at 11PM ET on MTV2...

Conference Realignment Western Style: Blood Flows Into the Great Salt Lake

Posted on September 02, 2010
ARTICLEURL It's often said about departmental politics in colleges and universities that the politics is so brutal because the stakes are so small.  Maybe that's why the conference realignment game being played out among the Mountain West, WAC and West  Conference Conference seems to be on a whole other plain of duplicity and hard feelings than even the infamous ACC midnight raid on the Big  East...

MLS Gets Adidas to Up Investment, Continues Hot Streak

Posted on August 31, 2010
When you're on a roll, the rule is to ride the hot dice and MLS is certainly doing that.  Coming on the heels of a very successful men's World Cup with never before seen fan interest in the US, a successful expansion franchise launch in Philadelphia this year and the opening of new stadia in New York and Philadelphia, MLS could rightly consider itself as well on the way to firmly establishing itself in the nation's sporting firmament...

What is a Big XII Network Worth Without Texas?

Posted on August 26, 2010
Eight of the schools that will be remaining in the Big XII next year recently held a meeting with Learfield Sports, a multimedia rights management company which holds contracts with about 50 university athletic departments.  They met to discuss the viability of a Big XII network...

Wednesday Links

Posted on August 26, 2010
ARTICLEURLHow bad is the economy? Bad enough for even NFL teams to go down in value (Forbes)Financial Statements of five major league teams were leaked last week:  Pittsburgh Pirates,Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Marlins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Seattle Mariners,Texas Rangers (Deadspin)It takes cojones; Sosa fumes because Cubs haven't retired his number (Hardball Times)Here's a first, NBC adjust ad breaks to Notre Dame's no-huddle offense (USA Today)Is live streaming the wave of the future in youth recreational leagues? (NYT)Will there be NHL players in the 2014 Olympics: players want it but as usual the ownersled by Bettman are reluctant at best...

It Pays to be Fast; Usain Bolt Reups With Puma for a Record Contract

Posted on August 25, 2010
ARTICLEURLLoyalty is often a strange thing in professional sports. It's often dictated by what have you done for me in the last five minutes especially when you're talking about the relationship between an athlete and a company whose product that athlete endorses...

Utah State Asking for Do Over; Talking to Mountain West About Joining

Posted on August 23, 2010
Utah State found itself in a terrible position last week after it made what it considered to be a principled stand in turning down a bid from the Mountain West Conference to honor an agreement among all of the then current WAC members to stay in the WAC...

Weekend Reading

Posted on August 22, 2010
It's a slow Sunday here in the Bluegrass as not even yesterday's storms have been any help in relieving the oppressive 90+ temps and corresponding 85+ humidity, which has been with us seemingly every day this summer, as my latest electric bill shows.ARTICLEURLGood recap of the twists and turns (and necessity of insiders) to bring Sprint Cup to Kentucky (C-J)Arsenal plans to offer shares to its fans, blunting takeover prospects of Stan Kroenke (Guardian)A pro agent's case for playing college players (WaPo)Profile of Frank McCourt, whose divorce may put the Dodgers on the auction block (LA Weekly via TBL)From Chad Ochocinco, word of a major flaw in the NFL's drug testing policy (NYT)Latest from the Mountain West/WAC soap opera, which makes the ACC raid on the Big East look like a family reunion, Utah State turned down MWC thinking WAC had stabilized (Utah State Aggies)

BYU Does Its ND Imitation; Goes Independent in Football

Posted on August 18, 2010
Brigham Young has not been a very happy member of the Mountain West Conference for a number of years now.  It has complained bitterly since the conference left ESPN and formed its own money losing network with its small reach and the resulting movement of the conference's football games to Versus and the CBS College Network, not exactly America's first, second or third choices to get its college football fix...

Starbury Alive and Well and Living in China

Posted on August 14, 2010
The rumors of the death of the career of Stephon Marbury and with it the demise of his Starbury shoes have proven to be just a bit premature.  Last season found Marbury a free agent searching in vain for a NBA team willing to sign him to even a one year contract at anything approaching what he thought he was worth, or as the season went on, to what the teams thought he might be worth...

Knicks With Amnesia, Hire Isiah Thomas as Consultant; Thomas Stays FIU Coach

Posted on August 11, 2010
There are many reasons that the New York Knicks have been as bad as they were before Mike D'Antoni showed up last season, but surely Isiah Thomas was one of the main reasons, so that makes the recent announcement that Thomas is being hired by the Knicks as a consultant all the more curious...

Catch A Fishing Scholarship to College

Posted on August 09, 2010
We all know how tough it's become to finance a college education and getting an athletic scholarship is harder than ever, what with the economy and, at the major college level, the out of control football and basketball arms race, forcing athletic directors to cut programs left and right...

Kroenke's Bid for Rams Coming to a Vote August 25

Posted on August 06, 2010
The tortuous path to full ownership of the St. Louis Rams by Stan Kroenke should come to a conclusion by August 25.  A special meeting of the NFL owners has been called for that date to vote on his proposed purchase of the team pursuant to the exercise of his option to purchase the sixty percent of the club he didn't own once that was put up for sale...

Kentucky Speedway to Finally Get Sprint Cup Race

Posted on August 05, 2010
Ending a decade long quest, it appears that Kentucky Speedway will finally get a Sprint Cup race beginning in 2011.  Formal announcement of the award of the race to the track is likely to be made at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday by the track's owner, Speedway Motorsports, Inc...

Tuesday Tidbits

Posted on August 03, 2010
A few inks to get Tuesday off to a good start:ARTICLEURLOne aspect of the LeBron economic effect: Heat fire entire 30 person season ticket sales staff as all season tickets have been sold (Sun-Sentinel)PGA Tour is relatively healthy, it's a good time to make a deal on golf course membership but it's a lousy time to be in the golf course business (USA Today)Fox Sports is attempting to get in on bidding for Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers; apparently losing money on the Dodgers wasn't enough for Murdoch (Star-Telegram)The return of the Cosmos (NYT)Two teams in the NBDL have signed jersey sponsorship deals, can the NBA be far behind? (sportspromedia...

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