Media & Entertainment Law
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All things legal relating to the sports world.
Post Frequency: 2.1/day Last Entry: November 19, 2009 at 18:15:00 Recent Entries: 688
By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman
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Reebok files its Brief in American Needle v. NFL
Posted on November 19, 2009This past Tuesday was the deadline for the respondents in American Needle v. NFL to file their briefs with the United States Supreme Court. Although the NFL's brief is not yet publicly available, the brief submitted by Reebok, the NFL's co-defendant in the case, is now available to be downloaded...
Commissioner as Justice or Executive? Thoughts on Zelinsky
Posted on November 17, 2009Mike already mentioned Aaron Zelinsky's new essay (forthcoming in Yale Law Journal Online) arguing that the better baseball analogy is between Supreme Court justices and the baseball commissioner. Aaron sent me a draft of the paper and I made a few comments; he gave me permission to reprint them (in much expanded form) here...
The dangers of consequentialism
Posted on November 16, 2009Everyone is talking about Bill Belichek's decision to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the Pats' own 28 with around two minutes left (sorry Mike). And most people (including the NBC commentators speaking three-and-a-half minutes after the game) have concluded it was a bad decision...
Aaron Zelinsky on Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy
Posted on November 15, 2009Aaron Zelinsky of Yale Law School has just posted on SSRN a draft of his forthcoming piece in Yale Law Journal Online titled "The Justice as Commissioner: Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy". It's an excellent read. Zelinsky traces the judicial history of the judge-umpire analogy since 1886, concluding that it was intended for trial court judges, and meant as a model to be rejected because of an umpire's passivity...
Boise State Athletic Department Selling Stock
Posted on November 12, 2009USA Today is reporting today that Boise State has officially formed a non-profit corporation and will begin selling shares to the public at $100 per share in hopes of raising $20 million (Boise State Athletic Department Hopes Stock Offering Raises $20 Million)...
University Presidents are Not "Powerless" to Control Coaches' Salaries
Posted on November 10, 2009USA Today's latest study released today on college coaches' compensation reveals that at least 25 college head football coaches are making $2 million or more this season, which is slightly more than double the number two years ago, and the average pay for a head coach in the 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision is up 28% in that time and up 46% in three years, to $1...
Follow-up on Buster Olney - Hardy, Hermida, Teahan
Posted on November 09, 2009After posting last week about Buster Olney?s article and comments about arbitration-eligible players and free agents, the Twins traded Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for J.J. Hardy; the Red Sox traded Jose Alvarez and Hunter Jones to the Marlins for Jeremy Hermida; and the White Sox acquired Mark Teahen for Chris Getz and Josh Fields...
The Changing Landscape of Salary Arbitration-Eligible Players and Free Agents in Baseball
Posted on November 06, 2009With the Yankees winning the World Series last night, the off-season officially began this morning. The clock starts ticking on the free agent filing period of 15 days after the end of the World Series. Buster Olney appeared on Mike and Mike on ESPN this morning...
Legal Fallout from Phoenix Coyotes - NHL Saga
Posted on November 06, 2009Over on the American Lawyer Daily, Zach Lowe has a good piece on the legal fallout of the Phoenix Coyotes likely sale to the NHL. He interviews me for his story, and I tie-in the American Needle case. Here's an excerpt:The [NHL] apparently doesn't want the Coyotes for long, and they are already in talks to sell the team to an investment group represented by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft ...
Referees Injured by Tortious or Criminal Behavior of Players
Posted on November 06, 2009Victoria E. Freile and Claudia Vargas of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle have an interesting piece on a sports law topic that we often don't discuss: referees injured by the tortious or criminal behavior of players. They focus on a recent incident in an adult amateur football game played in Rochester which generated a felony charge for a player...
Tulane Law School Baseball Arbitration Competition
Posted on November 06, 2009I am proud to announce that the Tulane Law School Sports Law Society will be hosting its third annual National Baseball Arbitration Competition from January 22-24, 2010. This is a really great and unique event that allows students to argue a baseball arbitration case involving real players and real statistics...
Peter Carfagna's New Sports Law Books
Posted on November 05, 2009There are a number of terrific sports law case books available, and there is a new one that joins them: Peter Carfagna's "Sports and the Law: Examining the Legal Evolution of American's Three 'Major Leagues" (West, 2009).Peter's book is devoted to the sports law of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association...
More on Star Caps
Posted on November 04, 2009As a follow up to Nathaniel?s post on the Star Caps hearing, the written testimony of all of the witnesses and the video of the hearing can be found here (note that the testimony from the witnesses does not begin until about the 1:26:48 mark).Here is the full witness list: Roger Goodell, Commissioner, National Football League; DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director, National Football League Players Association; Rob Manfred, Executive Vice President, Labor and Human Resources, Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, Major League Baseball; Michael S...
Congress Considers the StarCaps Case
Posted on November 03, 2009A Congressional hearing was held today regarding whether to amend the Labor Management Relations Act in order to protect professional sports leagues' performance enhancing drug policies from being attacked under state law. The hearing was held in response to the 8th Circuit's recent decision in Williams v...
U.S. Supreme Court to hear American Needle v. NFL on January 13, 2010
Posted on November 02, 2009The U.S. Supreme Court released its January calendar today, and announced that American Needle v. NFL will be heard on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 (h/t Ryan Rodenberg of Legal Aspects of Sports Blog). For past Sports Law Blog coverage on the case, click here...
Do Pro Athletes Commit Crimes at Unusually High Rates?
Posted on October 28, 2009Lawrence Delevingne of The Business Insider explores athletes and crime in a recent piece. He interviews Geoff, Duke Law Prof Lisa Kern Griffin, and me. Here's an excerpt:But pro athletes aren't actually more likely to commit crimes that the average citizen...
Buzz Bissinger Op-Ed in today's New York Times on NBA's Eligiblity Restriction: From Supporter to Opponent
Posted on October 27, 2009Pulitzer prize winner H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger (author of the famed Friday Night Lights and LeBron James' co-author of Shooting Stars) pens an outstanding op-ed in today's New York Times on the NBA's eligibility rule, which Bissinger admits he thought was a good idea back in 2005 but now believes was a terrible idea...
Sports Law Blog's Joe Rosen Signs Red Sox Reliever Hideki Okajima as Client
Posted on October 25, 2009Congratulations to agent/attorney Joe Rosen, who has guest blogged here on a number of occasions (including in 2005 when he asked "Is NASCAR a Sport?"), on signing as a client Boston Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima. This news has been reported in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, among other media outlets...
Media self-protection?
Posted on October 24, 2009University of Montana football coach Bobby Hauck is getting raked over the coals because he (and the members of the team) are refusing to speak with reporters from The Kamin, the student newspaper, after the paper published a story (the facts of which have not been contested or criticized) about an on-campus assault allegedly involving two players...
Sports Law Discussion today at Harvard Law School
Posted on October 22, 2009Sorry for the late notice, but if you're in the Cambridge Massachusetts area today and are free between 3:15 and 4:30, Boston Celtics Assistant Executive Director of Basketball Operations & Associate Counsel Mike Zarren and I will be co-lecturing on age eligibility restrictions in the NBA and NFL, and also on American Needle v...
Sports Implications of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)
Posted on October 21, 2009Shaun Assel of ESPN Magazine has an interesting article on the sports implications of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which goes into effect Nov. 21, and which explicitly bars employers from using genetic results in hiring and workplace decisions...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on October 19, 2009Recently published scholarship includes: Phyllis Coleman, Note to athletes, NFL, and NBA: dog fighting is a crime, not a sport, 3 JOURNAL OF ANIMAL LAW AND ETHICS 85 (2009)Helmut M. Dietl et al., Governance of professional sports leagues--cooperatives versus contracts, 29 INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 127 (2009) Marc Edelman and Elizabeth Masterson, Could the new Women?s Professional Soccer League survive in America? How adopting a traditional legal structure may save more than just a game, 19 SETON HALL JOURNAL OF SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW 283 (2009)David Fintz, Note, The women?s right to participate in the game of baseball, 15 CARDOZO JOURNAL OF LAW & GENDER 641 (2009)Geoffrey T...
Chris Bosh wins rights to domain
Posted on October 15, 2009Alert reader Devin Black sends along this story about Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors, who successfully sued to recover use of the domain chrisbosh.com from a cyber-squatter named Luis Zavala, who also held domain names of more than 800 other celebrities...
Baseball's Antitrust Exemption Highlighted in a New TV Campaign
Posted on October 14, 2009TheHill.com reports that baseball's historic antitrust exemption has been highlighted as part of a new advertising campaign criticizing the health insurance industry. No doubt hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the baseball playoffs, the group Americans United for Change has launched the TV commercial below, noting that the baseball and health insurance industries are the only two enjoying an exemption from federal antitrust law...
Gillispie v. U. of Kentucky Lawsuit Settled
Posted on October 14, 2009ESPN.com is reporting that former University of Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie has settled his lawsuit against the University for $2.9 million. As I have previously discussed, Gillispie sued the University for breach of contract, among other claims, following his dismissal in March of this year...
Oliver v. NCAA Ends in Settlement
Posted on October 13, 2009Earlier this year, an Ohio state court ruled in favor of Oklahoma State University star pitcher Andrew Oliver in his lawsuit against the NCAA. Oliver had been suspended by OSU after news emerged that, years earlier, he had met with Minnesota Twins representatives with his attorneys while contemplating whether to retain his amateur status and attend college or turn pro after high school...
Baseballs in the stands: End of the tradition?
Posted on October 12, 2009In light of the controversy over Ryan Howard's home run ball, as well as past controversies over other record-setting and significant balls, I wonder if we are heading towards a change in how baseballs hit into the stands (at least fair balls) are treated...
Weekend Reading: Kooky Ideas About Steroids
Posted on October 09, 2009I've uploaded my new essay on steroids in professional sports, Blue Sky Steroids, from a symposium on Sports & Criminal Law published by Northwestern Law School's Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology. You can download the essay free of charge here. Here's the abstract:Performance-enhancing substance use has attracted considerable political and media attention...
Two thoughts on Howard's home run ball
Posted on October 08, 2009Three thoughts on the story Mark discusses about Ryan Howard's home run ball. Because I find this story really sad.First, this seems like a bad trade for Ms. Valdivia and her family. If the Barry Bonds home run ball fiasco taught us anything, it is that "historic" home run balls do not have nearly as much value as many fans assume...
12-Year-Old Gets Home Run Ball Back from Phillies
Posted on October 08, 2009Any student taking basic contract law learns that one makes agreements with minors at their peril, as the minor has the right to disaffirm the contract since it is presumed that the person lacks the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of his/her actions...
Why I hate the wildcard in baseball (a biennial reprise)
Posted on October 07, 2009There is much celebrating this morning (at least outside of Michigan) of last night's amazing one-game playoff game between the Tigers and Minnesota Twins for the AL Central Division title, a 12-inning featuring three comebacks, which the Twins finally won 6-5...
Ted Williams' Frozen Head Used as Batting Practice?
Posted on October 04, 2009Disturbing story this week from Nathaniel Vinton of the New York Daily News about what's allegedly been going on with the frozen head of Ted Williams, who upon dying in 2002 of cardiac arrest had his head, but not rest of his body, frozen in hopes that one day science will be able to bring him back to life...
National Sports Law Institute of Marquette University Law School Sypomsium
Posted on October 03, 2009Marquette Law Professor Paul Anderson passes along information about the National Sports Law Institute's annual conference this year -- it looks to be a great event:* * *On Friday, October 23, 2009, the National Sports Law Institute of Marquette University Law School will host a conference on The Evolution of Sports Law and Business from the 20th to the 21st Century at the Alumni Memorial Union on the Marquette campus...
Legal Issues in the Americn Olympic Movement Symposium at University of Baltimore School of Law
Posted on October 03, 2009Professor Dionne Koller passes along info about what looks to be a terrific symposium on Thursday, Oct. 29th at the University of Baltimore School of Law:* * *What should America's Olympic goals be? How should we ? and can we ? accommodate diversity in the Olympic movement? How does the United States Olympic Committee resolve athlete disputes and deal with allegations of illegal doping? Join the University of Baltimore's Center for Sport and the Law for its inaugural amateur sports symposium on Thursday, October 29...
Stealing signs and breaking the law
Posted on October 02, 2009Dave Hoffman at Concurring Opinions offers some thoughts about players stealing signs and what it tells us about the rule of law. The video of the latest controversy, involving Joe Mauer of the Twins, is below.I mostly agree with Dave's comments. I would add that there is, and always has been, a "frontier justice" element in baseball that umpires (the formal law) have largely been powerless to regulate.
Big Win for NHL as Judge Rejects Balsillie Bid for Coyotes
Posted on October 01, 2009Opening Night for the NHL's new season just became a more festive occasion as bankruptcy judge Redfield Baum rejected Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie $242 million bid for the Phoenix Coyotes, concluding that it would interfere with the league's relocation rights and procedures...
Nike Brings Back Michael Vick
Posted on September 30, 2009Interesting news from Liz Mullen of Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal, as excerpted here:Michael Vick has signed an endorsement deal with Nike, according to Mike Principe, managing director for BEST, the agency that represents Vick. Principe would reveal no other details, but referred other questions to Vick?s personal agent, Joel Segal ...
The $500,000 Diet Seems to Work: Glen "Big Baby" Davis shows up to camp in shape
Posted on September 29, 2009Last month, I blogged about Celtics forward Glen "Big Baby" Davis' new two-year, $5 million contract with the Celtics and the contract's inclusion of an annual bonus of $500,000 if Davis can avoid getting too heavy, which in the past has been a major problem for him...
Sports Law Blog Bowl II: Toledo 41, FIU 31
Posted on September 29, 2009I am happy to report that the University of Toledo (my school) defeated Florida International University (Howard's school) this weekend, 41-31. This avenges last year's loss.
Defining sport: An illustration
Posted on September 28, 2009From Kris Lines, who heads the Sports Law Program at Staffordshire University in the UK, comes this animated video on the issue of defining sport. It pointed out one additional reason for defining something as sport: At least in the UK, financial considerations (lower taxes and subsidies) turn on whether an activity is sport or merely exercise or a pasttime...
Amicus Briefs filed in American Needle v. NFL
Posted on September 28, 2009Friday was the deadline for the filing of amicus curiae briefs supporting the petitioner, American Needle, in American Needle v. NFL. According to the Supreme Court's docket, only two amicus briefs were filed: A joint brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, available here...
The Debate Over Commercial Use of College Players' Identities Continues
Posted on September 27, 2009Nathan Crabbe and Kevin Brockway of The Gainesville Sun wrote some interesting stuff yesterday regarding the profts made by the University of Florida from the commercial use of its players' identities. Crabbe wrote about how the university aggressively works to stop businesses from profiting off Tim Tebow, except when its own products are involved...
Why PETA Shouldn't Blame Roger Goodell for Michael Vick's Return
Posted on September 25, 2009This Sunday marks Michael Vick?s official return to the National Football League?an event that has been widely criticized by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (?PETA?), as well as some sports writers and doggie bloggers. What those who criticize NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for reinstating Vick fail to understand, however, is that the NFL may have ultimately lacked any real choice...
Use of College Players' Identities in the Sale of Jerseys
Posted on September 24, 2009For anybody who questions whether a jersey number constitutes a sufficient indicia of identity for establishing a right of publicity cause of action, check out this snippet from the L.A. Times.
Take Justice Sotomayor Out
Posted on September 23, 2009Justice Sotomayor will throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium this Saturday, prior to the Red Sox-Yankees game. This fits in with a bunch of themes of the moment: She grew up in the Bronx (presumably as a Yankee fan, although I don't know), she famously "saved baseball" with her decision while on the Southern District of New York, and, as the first Hispanic Justice, is being honored as part of Hispanic Heritage Month...
More on American Needle
Posted on September 22, 2009For those of you who just can't get enough of the NFL and antitrust law, I have posted on SSRN a draft of my forthcoming piece in the Wisconsin Law Review, titled, The Puzzling Persistence of the Single Entity Argument for Sports Leagues: American Needle and the Supreme Court's Opportunity to Reject a Flawed Defense...
Petitioner's Brief in American Needle Now Available
Posted on September 21, 2009As Marc noted last week, American Needle's opening brief to the United States Supreme Court in American Needle v. NFL was filed on Friday. The brief is now available to be downloaded from the ABA's website. Based on the Supreme Court's docket, it does not appear that any amicus briefs were filed on Friday.
The Tax Consequences of the Chicago Cubs Sale
Posted on September 19, 2009The Tax Prof Blog posts insight from GWU Law Professor Sarah Lawsky on the tax ramifications of the sale of the Chicago Cubs.
More Cowbell . . . .
Posted on September 18, 2009A few summer observations and other commentary:First, over the summer, I was fortunate to visit for several weeks in Los Angeles and San Diego where I spent my formidable years growing up. I was struck repeatedly by something I had never noticed before...
NBA Locks Out Referees
Posted on September 18, 2009Following up on a post from last week, the NBA formally declared today that it would lock out its referees, after renewed talks collapsed on Thursday. According to the New York Times, there are three major sticking points preventing the parties from reaching an agreement...
Opening Brief in American Needle v. NFL Set for Friday
Posted on September 16, 2009For those who have been following the Supreme Court case American Needle v. NFL, this Friday clothing manufacturer American Needle Inc. will file its opening brief, arguing that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to define the NFL as a single-entity under Section 1 of the Sherman Act...
News That Myles Brand Has Passed Away
Posted on September 16, 2009I just received received an email alert from the Sports Business Daily that NCAA President Myles Brand died from pancreatic cancer. Sports Business Daily reported that Brand was 73, but later reports listed Brand as 67 when he died.
Native Americans File for Cert in Their Challenge to the Washington Redskins Trademark
Posted on September 15, 2009ESPN.com is reporting that the group of Native Americans which challenged the Washington Redskins trademark have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari at the United States Supreme Court, seeking a review of the D.C. Circuit's opinion in May rejecting the challenge on laches grounds...
Coaches teaching civ pro
Posted on September 15, 2009I still am trying to get more legally oriented reports and documents, but it appears that the breach-of-contract dispute between the University of Kentucky and former men's basketball coach Billy Gillespie is going to turn into another object lesson in civ pro...
One of these days . . .
Posted on September 13, 2009one of these lawsuits will finally work and hopefully stadiums and owners, especially over-officious guys like this one, will just stop doing stupid things like this.Three New Jersey high-school students have filed suit in federal court, alleging that they were berated by a team President/Owner and ejected from Newark's Riverfront Stadium for failing to stand during "God Bless America" at a Newark Bears game...
My American Needle v. NFL Piece in the Yale Law Journal
Posted on September 11, 2009I'm going to blog more fully on this next week, but I have just posted on SSRN a draft of my forthcoming piece in the Yale Law Journal titled, "American Needle v. NFL: An Opportunity to Reshape Sports Law." I hope you have a chance to check it out. Have a great weekend.
NBA and Referees' Union Break Off Negotiations
Posted on September 10, 2009The New York Times reported yesterday that negotiations between the NBA and its Referees' Union have broken off, with the league apparently preparing for a lockout to begin later this month. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement with the union expired on September 1st...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on September 08, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Patrick S. Baldwin, Note, Keeping them down on the farm: the possibility of a class action by former minor league baseball players against Major League Baseball for allowing steroid abuse, 43 GEORGIA LAW REVIEW 1195 (2009) Chris Deubert & Glenn M...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on September 07, 2009* I was interviewed on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to discuss Commonwealth of Kentucky v. David Jason Stinson (the trial of the coach who faces criminal charges for reckless homicide for the death of a former player, Max Gilpin, on the practice field)* Daniel Fitzgerald of Connecticut Sports Law has a really good post on the legislative contributions made by the late Senator Edward M...
More on NHLPA
Posted on September 03, 2009The news that a union leader is fired by his members a mere two years after assuming his position is unusual. When the firing occurs before he even begins to negotiate the first collective bargaining agreement and is notified at 3:30 AM after a two-hour nighttime meeting , this event becomes shocking or farcical, depending on one's point of view...
The NHLPA Fires Its Executive Director
Posted on September 01, 2009The National Hockey League Players' Association fired its executive director, Paul Kelly, on Monday. Kelly had served in the position for 22 months. Prior to joining the union, Kelly was a founding member and trial lawyer at the Boston law firm Kelly, Libby and Hoopes...
Jason Chung on Situation of Teenage Basketball Players Who Turn Pro
Posted on September 01, 2009Over on The Situationist, Jason Chung has a thoughtful and provocative article on why the typical life circumstances of U.S. players who would like to seek the NBA right out of high school, and who are capable of being drafted right out of high school, are often missed by advocates of the NBA's age limit...
Submissions for Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law
Posted on September 01, 2009Earlier this month, I blogged on the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, which is a brand new law journal published by Harvard Law School. The Journal's Editor-in-Chief, Aswhin Krishnan, has let me know that the Journal's website is up. He and Josh Podoll (Submissions Editor), also have some additional info on submissions:* * *On behalf of the editorial board, it is my distinct pleasure to announce the formation of the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law (JSEL)...
U.S. v. Comprehensive Drug Testing and The List of 97
Posted on August 31, 2009Last week, I had a column on SI.com on United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the federal government's seizure of computer files which implicated 104 major league players as steroids users violated those players' Forth Amendment rights (Howard discussed this case as well)...
No Deterrence? NCAA Rules and the Men's Basketball and Football Players who Don't Follow them
Posted on August 30, 2009San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Tim Sullivan has a piece on star NCAA athletes who accept gifts from would-be agents (e.g., Reggie Bush; O.J. Mayo) or who otherwise break other NCAA rules (e.g., Derrick Rose/SAT exam) and how, practically, little can be done to stop that from happening...
Commonwealth of Kentucky v. David Jason Stinson: Should Coaches be held Criminally Liable for Athletes' Deaths?
Posted on August 28, 2009I have a column on SI.com concerning the first case in which a high school coach has been criminally charged with a player's death. The trial will begin on Monday. Here's an excerpt of the column:* * *Former Pleasure Ridge High School (Louisville, Ky...
Ninth Citcuit strikes down seizure of BALCO names
Posted on August 26, 2009The en banc Ninth Circuit today held that government investigators violated the Fourth Amendment when, during a raid on BALCO, they seized the names of 104 MLB players who tested positive for steroids, while acting on a warrant targeted at only ten players...
Dryer v. NFL: Retired NFL Players Sue for Use of Identities
Posted on August 25, 2009As detailed by Nooman Merchant of the Associated Press, a group of retired NFL players are suing the NFL under the Lanham Act over the NFL's use (and particularly NFL Film's use) of their identities. Merchant interviewed me for the story. Here is an excerpt and my comments:* * *NFL Hall of Famer Elvin Bethea [#65 above, a defensive lineman who played for the Houston Oilers and recorded a lot of sacks while doing so] and five other players sued the league for using their names and images for profit without their permission...
More Commercialization of the Student-Athlete
Posted on August 25, 2009Sports Business Daily, citing timteblog.com, reports that the Fort Myers Miracle minor-league baseball team is holding a "What Would Tim Tebow Do?" promotion on Wednesday night during its game against the St. Lucie Mets (See Tebow: The Minor-League Baseball Gimmick)...
Instant Replay and Appellate Review
Posted on August 25, 2009Chad Oldfather (Marquette) and Matthew Fernholz (J.D. Candidate at Marquette) have posted Comparative Procedure on a Sunday Afternoon: Instant Replay in the NFL as a Process of Appellate Review to SSRN. The paper considers analogies and distinctions between replay review (for which I have expressed my distaste) and judicial appeals...
3rd Circuit Rejects Delaware Sports Lottery Proposal
Posted on August 24, 2009Gabe has previously discussed the lawsuit filed by the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and NCAA seeking to prevent Delaware from effectively implementing legalized sports gambling as part of the state's lottery program. Earlier this month, the federal district court denied the leagues' and the NCAA's request for a preliminary injunction which would have prevented Delaware from offering single-game betting beginning next month...
Alan Dershowitz: MLB Needs Much Tougher Penalties on Beanballs
Posted on August 21, 2009Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz (of many sources of fame, including being a member of O.J. Simpson's successful legal team in People of California v. Simpson and successfully representing Claus von Bulow in his murder trial), has an interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe on what he considers to be inadequate penalties for big league pitchers who throw at and hit batters, as well as the managers of those pitchers...
Freedom of Information Act & UConn's Self Reported Violations
Posted on August 20, 2009Dave Altimari of the Hartford Courant recently made a Freedom of Information Request to discover UConn's self-reported violations for its big three sports teams: men's basketball, women's basketball, and football. Interestingly, despite the various scandals of the school -- most notably the scandal involving recruit basketball recruit Nate Miles and UConn student-manager-turned agent Josh Nochimson -- UConn only reported 17 minor infractions involving those teams over the last five years...
Burress Pleads Guilty
Posted on August 20, 2009For those following the Plaxico Burress saga, Burress pleaded guilty this morning to one count of criminal possession of a weapon. Under his plea agreement, Burress will receive a two-year prison sentence, along with two years of post-release supervision...
Maple Bats and Antitrust Law
Posted on August 18, 2009Professor Christopher Robinette of Widener University School of Law and TortsProf Blog passes along a provocative student note written by Steve Matzura, who will be graduating from Widener Law next May. Matzura's note, which is being published by the Widener Law Journal, is titled, "Will Maple Bats Splinter Baseball's Antitrust Exemptions?: The Rule of Reason Steps to the Plate...
Alan Milstein on Clarett v. NFL and Prospect of Similar Challenge to NBA Eligibility Restriction
Posted on August 17, 2009Alan Milstein, who litigated on behalf of Maurice Clarett in Clarett v. NFL (I was also part of Clarett's legal team), was interviewed over on Hoop Teens about the prospect of a player challenging the NBA's eligibility rule, which requires that U.S. players be at least 19-years-old by December 31 of the year of the draft and that they be one year removed from high school (In contrast, international players, defined as those who maintain a permanent residence outside of the United States for at least three years preceding the draft, need only be 19-years-old by December 31 of the year of the draft...
Alito on the Baseball Antitrust "Exemption"
Posted on August 17, 2009In 2008, Justice Alito gave a speech to the Supreme Court Historical Society on Major League Baseball's antitrust status, as Howard and Ed Edmonds discussed here and here. Justice Alito's remarks have now been published in the Journal of Supreme Court History, and are available on-line.
What if Rick Pitino Had Been a Woman?
Posted on August 17, 2009Professor Joseph Kohm, who teaches sports law at Regent University School of Law and is a certified MLB agent (and former member of the Syracuse men's basketball team), checks in with an interesting question:* * *My wife [Professor Lynne Marie Kohn] teaches Family Law and Gender in the Law at Regent University and she asked me a very interesting question today...
Glen "Big Baby" Davis and The $500,000 Diet
Posted on August 17, 2009Sports contracts include all sorts of bonuses in order to incentivize behavior, but this one caught my attention:The Boston Celtics are bringing back Glen "Big Baby" Davis, who agreed to a two-year deal that could pay $6 million . . . Davis will receive $5 million in base salary and can earn an additional 500,000 per season for meeting certain weight clauses, a source told ESPN...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on August 12, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Lindsey M. Baldwin, Note, When a goon?s goal is a green card: NHL players and the alien of extraordinary ability immigrant visa category, 22 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL 715 (2008)Erin DeNatale, Comment, FORE: the problem with the LPGA?s proposed language policy, 30 WHITTIER LAW REVIEW 623 (2009)Marc Edelman, The house that taxpayers built: exploring the rise in publicly funded baseball stadiums from 1953 through the present, 16 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 257 (2009)Matthew Epps, Comment, Full court press: how collective bargaining weakened the NBA?s competitive edge in a globalized sport, 16 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 343 (2009)Victor Matheson and Brad R...
Taxi Cab Convictions?
Posted on August 11, 2009Early Sunday morning, Chicago Blackhawks star winger, Patrick Kane, was arrested (along with his cousin) in Buffalo for allegedly beating a cab driver (Jan Radecki) and taking back the fare that they paid ($15). The charges against the Kane's are for Second Degree Robbery (per the NY Penal Code, punishment must be at least 3...
Using Social Psychology to Evaluate Race and Law in Sports
Posted on August 11, 2009I have posted on SSRN a draft of a forthcoming chapter I've written for "Reversing Field: Examining Commercialization, Labor, Gender and Race in 21st Century Sports Law" (andré douglas pond cummings and Anne Marie Lofaso eds, forthcoming).Here is the abstract:This chapter will examine the connection between social psychology and the larger topic of race, sports, and the law...
Coming Soon: The Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law
Posted on August 10, 2009Congrats are in order for a group of Harvard Law School students for receiving their law school's approval for an official new online law journal: the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law. The editors of HJSEL are still putting everything together, but a website should soon be up and it is anticipated that HJSEL will publish one issue in its first year, likely next spring...
Comment on Crespin v. Albuquerque Baseball Club and the Sentencing of Minor League Pitcher Julio Castillo
Posted on August 07, 2009I think that the Crespin court is correct in its assertion in paragraph 13 that ?the question before us concerns the concept of breach of duty.? New Mexico is one of the many states to adopt a form of comparative negligence, yet courts still draw on assumption of risk in baseball foul ball (or in this case a fair ball hit into a picnic area during batting practice) cases...
Topps and Major League Baseball To Announce Exclusive Deal Starting in 2010
Posted on August 06, 2009Topps and Major League Baseball are ready to announce today an exclusive deal starting next year to make Topps the sole licensed producer of baseball cards according to an article by Richard Sandomir in The New York Times. The deal will return baseball cards to the era of exclusivity enjoyed by Topps for many years before Fleer was successful in opening up the market to other companies...
Take Me Out to the Ball Game, to be Injured, in New Mexico
Posted on August 06, 2009Via How Appealing, a New Mexico appellate court has rejected the "baseball rule" which shields stadium operators from liability for injuries to spectators. The opinion in Crespin v. Albequerque Isotopes provides an excellent discussion of the legal issues involved, including the implications of the abolition of "Assumption of Risk" suggested by the authors of the Restatement of Torts (Third) for the long-sacred rule that baseball arenas need only screen the most dangerous areas of the park to protect fans from injury...
Justice Sotomayor Confirmed 68 - 31
Posted on August 06, 2009The Sports Law Blog has followed the nomination, hearings and now confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the past several months. Today, the United States Senate confirmed Justice Sotomayor as the first Hispanic member of the United States Supreme Court and the third woman...
Plaxio Burress Indicted: Will he now turn to D.C. v. Heller?
Posted on August 04, 2009I have a new column up on SI.com on a Manhattan grand jury indicting Plaxico Burress. Here is an excerpt:* * *Today's indictment is a victory for Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has repeatedly advocated that Burress be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law...
Marist University v. Matt Brady: The Legality of Non-Recruit Clauses
Posted on August 04, 2009Over on Sienna Saints Blog, Ryan Restivo has been closely covering a lawsuit recently brought by Marist University against its former men's basektball coach, Matt Brady. Marist claims that Brady violated a contractual obligation to refrain from recruiting Sienna recruits if he were to leave Marist (which he did -- he's now coaching at James Madison University)...
Corporate Executive Compensation and the NFL
Posted on August 04, 2009Bank Bonus Tab: $33 BillionNine Lenders That Got U.S. Aid Paid at Least $1 Million Each to 5,000 EmployeesSplashed across the the front page of the Wall Street Journal Friday (7.31.09) was the news that nearly $33 billion in executive and employee performance bonuses were paid out in 2008 by nine Wall Street banks that had accepted government bailout money through the TARP program...
Debating the Potential Effects of American Needle
Posted on July 31, 2009Following on the heels of Lester Munson?s recent report on the American Needle case for ESPN.com ? which Howard discussed last week ? CBSSports.com National Columnist Mike Freeman has written an article similarly forecasting that a Supreme Court victory for the NFL in American Needle would be a doomsday scenario for sports fans (see Sports Law Blog?s significant previous coverage of the case for more background on the litigation)...
Plaxico Burress: The Jury Nullification Strategy?
Posted on July 30, 2009I have a new column on SI.com concerning Plaxico Burress' unusual decision to testify before a grand jury. Here's an excerpt:* * * Depending upon the prosecutor's style and tactics, Burress may have testified in a very hostile environment. By testifying, Burress may have also unwittingly revealed his potential trial strategy to prosecutors...
Catching Up on Gillispie v. University of Kentucky Athletic Association
Posted on July 29, 2009One increasingly interesting, sports-related lawsuit which hasn't garnered much attention here is Gillispie v. University of Kentucky Athletic Association Inc., the suit filed by former University of Kentucky men's basketball coach Billy Gillispie. As most are probably aware, Gillispie was fired by Kentucky on March 27, 2009, after completing two years of a seven-year agreement valued at $1...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on July 29, 2009* Rick Karcher was interviewed by the New York Times in a recent story on a class action lawsuit filed this past spring by former college football players against Electronic Arts for using their images in video games without permission.* Tim Epstein was recently interviewed on a Chicago station to discuss the Ponzi scheme associated with Mike North?s Chicago Sports Webio, an internet radio site for Chicago sports...
The Fate of Sports Gambling in Delaware Might Rest in the Hands of...Bill Simmons
Posted on July 28, 2009He might now know it yet, but Bill Simmons (aka, espn.com?s ?Sports Guy?) could play an important role in the outcome of the lawsuit filed by the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and NCAA against the Delaware Sports Lottery. The leagues claim that the single-game bets offered by the lottery violate federal and state law...
Rose to be reinstated? Baseball and gambling
Posted on July 27, 2009Reports are coming out that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig is considering reinstating Pete Rose to baseball, this after Henry Aaron spoke in support of Rose at Sunday's Hall of Fame induction. Reinstatement virtually ensures Rose's induction into the Hall, perhaps as early as next year...
Bojko v. Lima: Don't Call Your Kid's Coach a Pedophile
Posted on July 27, 2009Over on Connecticut Sports Law, Dan Fitzgerald has a really good piece on a Connecticut coach who was awarded $88,000 in damages in a libel lawsuit against a parent who defamed the coach. Dan has the details on Bojko v. Lima, a Connecticut case:* * *In Bojko v...
The Next Opponent for Forrest's Killers: A Felony Murder Charge
Posted on July 27, 2009Death Penalty Looms as Possibility for Killers of Former Welterweight and Junior Middleweight Champion Under Georgia?s Felony Murder Laws The emotionally fragile boxing community, still nursing its wounds from the recent untimely deaths of retired legends Alexis Arguello and Arturo Gatti, was rocked again on the night of Saturday, July 26, 2009 when 1992 U...
Update on Pete Rose
Posted on July 27, 2009Late update from my initial post on reports that Bud Selig is considering reinstating Pete Rose. The updated ESPN story suggests that initial reports were overstated and that, while Selig is "seriously considering" the issue, Rose's status is not changed and Selig is not necessarily close to lifting the ban...
Update on MLB's Use of Genetic Testing
Posted on July 24, 2009A brief update to my post from yesterday discussing MLB?s use of DNA testing on Latin American prospects. Jorge Arangure Jr., a senior writer for ESPN the Magazine, writes about the issue today, and notes that MLB?s Dominican operations are technically run through separate entities incorporated in the Dominican Republic...
Herbstreit v. IRS
Posted on July 24, 2009Blog Emperor Paul Caron reports on a lawsuit filed against the IRS by ESPN sportscaster Kirk Herbstreit, after the IRS denied Herbstreit's request for a $ 330,000 tax deduction for donating his house to the local fire department to burn down for training and exercise purposes...
Money laundering in European football business
Posted on July 24, 2009According to the Financial Action Task Force ("FATF"), an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of national and international policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, the multi-billion dollar global football sector has become a vehicle for money laundering and other forms of corruption, requiring an international response...
More on O'Bannon v. NCAA
Posted on July 23, 2009Yesterday I linked to my SI column on O'Bannon v. NCAA.This case is generating a great deal of attention. Here are a variety of commentaries from different perspectives:Pete Thamel, New York Times, O'Bannon v. NCAATim Lemke, Washington Times, O'Bannon Files Suit vs...
MLB Confirms Use of Genetic Testing on Latin American Prospects
Posted on July 23, 2009I would like to thank Professor McCann and the rest of the team at Sports Law Blog for inviting me to participate here.Yesterday, the New York Times published an interesting article by Michael Schmidt and Alan Schwarz, reporting that Major League Baseball has used genetic testing to verify the identity and age of prospects from the Dominican Republic, including 16-year-old Miguel Sano (pictured)...
Opinio Juris Ranks Sports Law Blog 8th "Best Read" Law Professor Blog
Posted on July 23, 2009Roger Alford of Pepperdine University School of Law and Opinio Juris looks at data originally compiled by Paul Caron of the University of Cincinnati College of Law and Tax Prof Blog on average visit length of the 35 most visited law professor blogs and finds that Sports Law Blog is the 8th best-read law professor blog (as Howard noted in June, we are 24th in terms of daily hits)...
Can Michael Vick Sue The NFL For Reinstatement?
Posted on July 22, 2009Yesterday, the Associated Press (via ESPN.com) reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell plans to move slowly on whether to reinstate quarterback Michael Vick into the league. The implication here is that Goodell has full discretion over the length of player suspensions...
When should Congress get involved with pro sports, Part II?
Posted on July 21, 2009Back in June, Mike reported on the letter from U.S. Congressman Steve Cohen urging NBA Commissioner and NBAPA Executive Director Billy Hunter to eliminate the league's age limit. I responded by wondering under what circumstances Congress should become involved with issues relating to governance and operations of sports and leagues...
O'Bannon v. NCAA: Should Former Student-Athletes be Paid for the NCAA's use of their Images and Identities?
Posted on July 21, 2009A few hours ago, former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, on behalf of a class of thousands of former men's basketball and football players, filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California over the NCAA's use and license of former student-athletes' identities in various commercial ventures...
Congressman Steve Cohen's Letter to NBA President Joel Litvin
Posted on July 20, 2009Last month, I blogged about U.S. Congressman Steve Cohen requesting that NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA executive director Billy Hunter eliminate the NBA's age limit, which requires that a player be 19 years old plus one year removed from high school in order to be eligible for the NBA Draft (the rule was negotiated in 2005; previously, players could join the NBA right after finishing high school)...
Munson on American Needle
Posted on July 19, 2009Lester Munson of ESPN has a lengthy column on American Needle v. NFL (see here, here, and here). Among the many law professors he speaks with is our own Barry Law School-bound Marc Edelman.I like Munson's stuff. But this piece suffers from a number of weaknesses that plague much popular reporting and conversation on the judicial system...
Threat of Title IX Lawsuit Causes Florida Athletic Association to Reverse Course
Posted on July 16, 2009State high school athletic officials in Florida recently exempted the lucrative sport of football from widespread scheduling cuts that were aimed at easing the financial burden on schools. However, under threat of a Title IX federal lawsuit, yesterday the Florida High School Athletic Association reversed course and abandoned the scheduling cuts to other sports...
David Cone on Judge Sotomayor
Posted on July 16, 2009Former MLB pitcher David Cone testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nominate of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The video of the full day can be found on the Committee Website. Cone's statement, discussing Sotomayor's decision in the 1995 baseball labor dispute that essentially ended the 1994 strike (and, in Cone's words, "saved baseball") begins at 461:30...
Law Review Essay on Judge Sotomayor and Sports Law
Posted on July 15, 2009Connecticut Law Review will be publishing an essay I've written on Judge Sotomayor and two of her most important sports law decisions: Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee and Clarett v. National Football League.The essay also explores how Judge Sotomayor?s opinions and judicial philosophy may impact other emerging sports law disputes, including whether a player could successfully challenge the NBA's eligibility rule...
MLB Agents Want Union To Take More Active Stance Against Collusion
Posted on July 15, 2009With MLB union leader Donald Fehr planning to soon step down from his post, several MLB player agents are encouraging his likely successor, Michael Weiner, to take a more active stance against player collusion.Unlike most other sports leagues, Major League Baseball has a long and well-documented history of colluding against its players' rights...
Ryan Church - Jeff Francoeur Trade - Salary Arbitration
Posted on July 13, 2009The Ryan Church - Jeff Francoeur trade between the Mets and the Braves on Friday involved two players among the 111 who filed for salary arbitration prior to this season. The Mets also received $270,218 to equalize the salaries. There is already plenty to read on the Internet about the deal, but since my contributions to the Sports Law Blog deal with salary arbitration, I will offer a bit of information and place the rest in comments if anyone is interested in further discussion...
More on the umpire-judge analogy
Posted on July 12, 2009Bruce Weber (author of the outstanding story of the umpiring profession, As They See 'Em) has a piece taking down the judges-as-umpires analogy. What does not come up in the piece is the point that, not only does the analogy misconstrue what judges do, but it denigrates what umpires do--the amount of discretion, perspective, purposivism, and judgment involved in umpiring...
Call for Papers: Third Annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate Athletics
Posted on July 10, 2009Marquette law professor Matt Mitten, who is also Director of the National Sports Law Institute, passes along information on a call for papers:The Third Annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate AthleticsIn Conjunction with the NCAA Annual ConventionJanuary 12th and 13th 2010Atlanta, GeorgiaThe third annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate Athletics will be held on January 12th and 13th, 2010 in conjunction with the NCAA Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia...
Quick Update on Star Caps and the Willams Wall
Posted on July 09, 2009Earlier today, Hennepin County District Judge Gary Larson granted a temporary restraining order that will prevent the NFL from suspending Pat and Kevin Williams or from subjecting them to ?reasonable cause? drug testing until completion of a trial on the merits...
More on the Pat and Kevin Williams Suspensions and the Star Caps Saga
Posted on July 09, 2009As you might recall, five NFL players?Kevin and Pat Williams of the Minnesota Vikings and Charles Grant, Deuce McAllister, and Will Smith of the New Orleans Saints?were suspended for four games last year after testing positive for bumetanide, a diuretic that can be used to mask the presence of steroids...
"God Bless America" lawsuit settled
Posted on July 08, 2009The Red Sox fan who was kicked out of (old) Yankee Stadium when he tried to leave the seating area during the playing of God Bless America back in 2008 has settled his lawsuit against the City and the Yankees. I wrote about the suit here and here.According to news reports, the City will pay Bradford Campeau-Laurion $10,001 and the NYCLU $ 12,000 in attorneys fees...
Diagramming Palin's Metaphors
Posted on July 06, 2009(H/T: Deadspin). Double-click image to enlarge.
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on July 06, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Christopher Bidlack, Comment, The prohibition of prosthetic limbs in American sports: the issues and the role of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 19 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 613 (2009)Daniel Bilsky, From parts unknown: WWE v...
Stephon Marbury Uses Players' Association to represent him as Free Agent
Posted on July 04, 2009Rick has written extensively about the benefits of players' associations retaining the capacity to negotiate contracts on behalf of individual players--meaning that players use the players' association, instead of an agent or agency, to negotiate employment contracts with teams...
The Fortunate 50
Posted on July 02, 2009Jonah Freedman of Sports Illustrated has compiled his annual list of the top 50 earning U.S. athletes, taking into account salary, winnings, and endorsements. Always a fun read. Some interesting points:* Tiger Woods, not surprisingly, ranks first, earning just under $100 million ($92 million of which is from endorsements), followed by fellow golfer Phil Mickelson...
Just Sue It? SportsFuzion v. Nike and Basketball Hall of Fame
Posted on July 01, 2009Deadspin has an interesting piece on a lawsuit brought by a small company named SportsFuzion against Nike and the Basketball Hall of Fame alleging breach of contract, tortious interference with contract, and fraud. The lawsuit concerns the following:* * *Three years ago, a small company called SportsFuzion saw an opportunity...
Should NCAA Adopt Rooney Rule?
Posted on June 30, 2009On our blog, dre cummings and Roger Groves have written extensively about the Rooney Rule, an internal NFL rule which requires that NFL teams interview minority candidates for head coaching positions and which (as Cumberland law prof Marcia McCormick wrote about on Workplace Prof Blog earlier this month), now also requires that teams interview minority candidates for senior football operations positions...
U.S. Suprme Court Grants Cert in American Needle v. NFL
Posted on June 29, 2009Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court released its order list, which included notice that it has granted cert in American Needle v. NFL. The Seventh Circuit held earlier this year that the NFL can enjoy single entity status -- and thus immunity from Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act -- for limited purposes (namely, apparel sales)...
More on American Needle
Posted on June 29, 2009As Mike noted below, the Supreme Court granted cert today in American Needle v. NFL and will review the Seventh Circuit?s holding that the NFL and its teams act as single entity when promoting NFL football through licensing teams? intellectual property...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on June 26, 2009* Brandon Jennings, a 19-year-old who earned over a million dollars playing basketball in Italy last season, was drafted 10th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in last night's NBA draft, ahead of a number of high-profile college players. Significance? Some believed that Jennings risked hurting his draft status by playing abroad and away from the TV coverage that players receive at top college programs...
The New Anti-Tobacco Legislation, Sports Events and Commercial Speech
Posted on June 24, 2009The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed by President Obama's earlier this week contains provisions that should be of more than passing interest to those involving sports sponsorship. As has been widely reported, the legislation (found in 111 P...
Does The New Women's Professional Soccer League Have A Business Model For Success?
Posted on June 23, 2009In the late 1990s, sports consulting firms such as Game Plan LLC advised their clients to adopt centrally-planned league structures. Just ten years later, however, these structures have become relatively obsolete. Not only has the WNBA converted to a more traditional structure, but also the centrally-planned XFL, MISL and WUSA have gone entirely out of business...
Professor Scott Rosner on the 1992 Cable Act and Sports Broadcasting
Posted on June 22, 2009Professor Scott Rosner, the associate director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, has an engaging op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune on sports broadcasting. The op-ed is excerpted below.* * * There are four main ways to receive home video service in the United States: traditional over-the-air broadcast, cable, satellite and now over lines from new competitors such as AT&T and Verizon, who have invested billions in infrastructure and marketing...
Donald Fehr Stepping Down
Posted on June 22, 2009The Street & Smith Sports Business Journal posted a link to an article by ESPN stating that Donald Fehr will be stepping down as Executive Director of the MLBPA "no later than the end of March." Pending board approval, his replacement will be current General Counsel Michael Weiner.
Legal Fallout of New York Times story on Sammy Sosa
Posted on June 17, 2009I have a column up on SI.com on the legal fallout of news that Sammy Sosa was--according to the New York Times--one of the 104 names on the list of steroids users. Here's an excerpt.* * *Regardless of the Ninth Circuit's forthcoming decision (or of an unlikely review by the U...
NHL wins in Coyotes Bankruptcy Litigation
Posted on June 17, 2009Zach Lowe of The American Lawyer has the details on the NHL's victory. He interviewed me for his story. Here's an excerpt.* * *We couldn't wait four our regular sports law column to write about a federal judge's ruling Monday that Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie can't buy the the Phoenix Coyotes out of bankruptcy court and move the team to Canada without permission from the National Hockey League and other league owners...
Will Roger Goodell Let Plaxico Burress Play?
Posted on June 15, 2009I have a new column on SI.com, here's an excerpt:* * *In [Drew] Rosenhaus' defense, Goodell has thus far declined to sanction Burress, who faces criminal charges for the Latin Quarter Club incident that occurred last November. Although the Giants suspended Burress for the last four games of the 2008 season, Goodell has not sanctioned Burress...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on June 11, 2009* I was interviewed on Toronto 590 The Fan yesterday to discuss the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy saga. Geoff up some great links yesterday on the same topic.* I had several interviews on Cold Hard Sports to discuss such topics as whether David Ortiz has been slandered by rumors about using steriods and whether the list of 103 players who tested for steriods can be revealed by compulsion...
Hustlin' Chagaev
Posted on June 11, 2009An Attempt to Unravel the Confusion Surrounding the Cancellation of the Rematch Between WBA Heavyweight ?Champion in Recess? Ruslan Chagaev and ?Champion? Nikolay Valuev On May 30, 2009, Ruslan Chagaev, 25-0-1 (17 KOs), the former Uzbekistani amateur sensation and undefeated World Boxing Association (the ?WBA?) heavyweight champion was scheduled for a rematch with boxing?s own ?Eighth Wonder of the World,? the seven foot, 300 plus pounds Nikolay Valuev, 50-1 (34 KOs), in Helsinki, Finland...
Franchise Relocation Fees, Antitrust, in Phoenix Bankruptcy Court
Posted on June 10, 2009We've given little attention so far to the bankruptcy of the Phoenix Coyotes, pending in federal bankruptcy court in Phoenix. The ongoing dispute over control of the team raises some important longstanding issues relating to franchise relocation and antitrust law...
Law Professors at the Baseball Hall of Fame
Posted on June 10, 2009Last week, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, hosted its annual "Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture". The event featured ten law professors. Congratulations to Patricia Bryan (North Carolina), John Eastman (Chapman), our guest blogger Ed Edmonds (Notre Dame), Kathy Heller (Chapman), Hugh Hewitt (Chapman), Mitchell Nathanson (Villanova), Keith Rowley (UNLV), Alexander Sanders (Charleston), Brad Snyder (Wisconsin), John Tehranian (Chapman), who participated in the event...
NBA and English Premier League discuss commercial cooperation
Posted on June 09, 2009The Premier League, the English soccer competition, and the NBA, the American national basketball association, are discussing a commercial cooperation. Both competitions are generally considered to be the most popular sports competitions in het world...
MLB's First Year Player Draft This Evening - A Thought About Free Agent Compensation
Posted on June 09, 2009The first three rounds of baseball?s First Year Player Draft will take place this evening. The first round of the draft will be shown live on MLB Network. There will be five selections in the first round that constitute compensation for Type A free agents that were signed during the off-season...
Alan Milstein on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Nomination
Posted on June 07, 2009After Ohio State star running back Maurice Clarett won a sweeping victory before U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in his 2004 case challenging the NFL's age eligiblity rule, the NFL appealed Judge Scheindlin's ruling and a three-judge panel on the U...
Tony La Russa Reaches Settlement over Fake Twitter Account Lawsuit
Posted on June 06, 2009Jimmy Golen of the Associated Press interviews several people, including Harvard Law prof Wendy Seltzer and me, over St. Louis Cardinals' Manager Tony La Russa's recent lawsuit against Twitter and subsequent settlement over a guy creating a fake Twitter account, purporting to be La Russa...
Congressman Steve Cohen Takes Aim at NBA Age Limit
Posted on June 04, 2009U.S. Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) has written to NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA executive director Billy Hunter asking them to eliminate the NBA's age limit, which requires that a player be 19 years old plus one year removed from high school in order to be eligible for the NBA Draft (the rule was negotiated in 2005; previously, players could join the NBA right after finishing high school)...
When should Congress be involved with sports?
Posted on June 04, 2009Mike's post about Congressman Cohen's letter to David Stern urging repeal of the NBA's age limit raises an interesting question. Past efforts by members of Congress on the issue of steroids (hearings, letters to the Union and the Commissioner's Office, etc...
Does the NBA Age Limit Violate Age Discrimination Laws?
Posted on June 04, 2009New York labor and employment attorney Louis Pechman of Berke-Weiss & Pechman has a very interesting analysis on the possibility of the NBA's age limit violating age discrimination laws. Here is an excerpt from his piece:Surprisingly lost in the discussion about whether age limits are appropriate for the NBA draft is the fact that many state laws prohibit employment discrimination against individuals who are eighteen or over...
David Price, Francisco Liriano, and the Saga of the Super Twos
Posted on June 01, 2009On Saturday evening, the middle game of a three-game series between the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays, Francisco Liriano and David Price, were the starting pitchers for their respective teams. Price picked up his first regular season win in the game after throwing 108 pitches in five and two-thirds innings, while Liriano dropped to 2-7 and his ERA increased to 6...
Ballpark t-shirt case in Texas?
Posted on May 31, 2009A woman wearing a "Yankees Suck" t-shirt was threatened with removal from The Ballpark in Arlington last week. And the story is drawing some national attention. The Rangers have received a number of complaints about the word sucks and consider it impermissible profanity that is offensive to "many people...
What happens in Delaware...
Posted on May 29, 2009The possibility of sports gambling in Delaware is one step closer to becoming a reality. In March 2009, Delaware Governor Jack Markell requested an opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court regarding the legality of Delaware?s proposed sports lottery. On Wednesday, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that the lottery does not violate the Delaware Constitution...
The StarCaps Saga Continues
Posted on May 27, 2009As you might recall, five NFL players?Kevin and Pat Williams of the Minnesota Vikings and Charles Grant, Deuce McAllister, and Will Smith of the New Orleans Saints?were suspended for four games last year after testing positive for bumetanide. Bumetanide, a diuretic, is banned under the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances (the ?NFL Policy?) because it can be used to mask the presence of steroids...
Perjury in Congressional Hearings on College Bowl System and the BCS?
Posted on May 27, 2009Congress conducted hearings on the college bowl system earlier this month. Now, reporters have raised questions regarding whether bowl defenders committed perjury or acted in contempt of Congress in claiming that most bowl games are organized by charitable groups and that tens of millions of dollars earned by the bowls go to charity...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on May 26, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Scott A. Anderson, A call for drug-testing of high school student-athletes, 19 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 325 (2008)Genevieve F. E. Birren & Jeremy C. Fransen, The body and the law: how physiological and legal obstacles combine to create barriers to accurate drug testing, 19 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 253 (2008)Jonathan F...
Judge Sotomayor's Sports Law Opinions
Posted on May 26, 2009It's official: as Professor cummings predicted earlier this month, the President will nominate Second Circuit Judge and die-hard Yankees fan Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Perhaps more than any Supreme Court nominee in history, Judge Sotomayor has a long record of adjudicating major sports law cases, dating back to her time on the district court...
Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame
Posted on May 25, 2009A commenter to my post on steroids and the Hall of Fame asks about Pete Rose. I thought it warranted a new post, rather than a comment. I actually wrote about this point three years ago.Rose should not be in the Hall, because different rules apply. Rose is ineligible for the Hall under Rule 3E, which bars selection of anyone who is on MLB's permanently ineligible list...
Hall of Fame, Steroids, and Cheating
Posted on May 23, 2009Zev Chafets argues on ESPN that steroid users should not be kept out of the Hall of Fame. His argument is that steroid users are no different than players of past generations, many of whom engaged in questionable activities off the field (consorting with gamblers, the Klan, and gangsters) and were "happy to use any substance they thought would give them an edge" on the field...
"Redskins" Case and the Dangers of "Reply All"
Posted on May 20, 2009After the Washington Redskins won at the D.C. Circuit last week, which I discussed here, the team's law firm learned a valuable lesson in the dangers associated with the "reply all" function of Microsoft Outlook. The legal gossip blog Above-the-Law has a series of e-mails exchanged by lawyers at the victorious law firm.
Will Michael Vick Return to the NFL?
Posted on May 20, 2009I have a new SI.com column on this topic. Here's an excerpt.* * *What will Goodell do? He appears poised to reinstate Vick for the 2009 season, though probably with onerous strings attached, such as Vick facing permanent expulsion should he get into any trouble...
WADA-code in the EU
Posted on May 19, 2009The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is the foundation which has been established to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against doping in all forms of sport. In pursuing this aim WADA cooperates with intergovernmental organizations, governments, public authorities and other public and private bodies fighting against doping in sport...
On Jeremy Mayfield: You?ve Got a Fast Car, and an Unusual Drug Policy.
Posted on May 18, 2009Let me start this post about Jeremy Mayfield?s indefinite suspension for violating NASCAR?s new drug policy with two admissions. First, for many years, my favorite stock car driver was Cole Trickle. Second, I have found myself shouting ?shake and bake?(in my head) after making a good point in class...
"Tie goes to the runner" and other myths
Posted on May 16, 2009I recently have been reading journalist Bruce Weber's book, As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires. It is a fun read, providing great insight into the history, politics, and nuances of umpiring. I was interested in it for the insight it may shed on the much-despised judge-umpire analogy, this time from the umpire perspective...
"Redskins" win (again), for now
Posted on May 15, 2009I've previously blogged about challenges to the trademark registration of the Washington "Redskins". Via How Appealing, the DC Circuit has once again affirmed the dismissal of plaintiffs' challenge to the trademark because of laches in the Harjo case (for a discussion of the issues, see this law...
Andrew Oliver Scores Another Victory in Oliver v. NCAA
Posted on May 13, 2009Back in February, an Ohio state court ruled in favor of Oklahoma State University star pitcher Andrew Oliver in his lawsuit against the NCAA (a decision that the NCAA will undoubtedly appeal once the trial is complete). Oliver had been suspended by OSU after news emerged that, years earlier, he had met with Minnesota Twins representatives with his attorneys while contemplating whether to retain his amateur status and attend college or turn pro after high school...
Are pirate nicknames OK? (Half-serious)
Posted on May 12, 2009The ongoing story of the Somali pirates has brought the serious legal issue of piracy to the fore, with commentators repeatedly noting the heinousness and seriousness of piracy as a crime, which is lost in the mythos of eye patches and bottles of rum and parrots...
Roger Clemens' Interview on ESPN Radio
Posted on May 12, 2009I have a new SI.com column on the legal implications of Roger Clemens' interview this morning on ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike in the Morning. An excerpt of the column is below.* * *Clemens' decision to appear on Tuesday's radio program probably did not please his attorneys...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on May 11, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Steven B. Berneman, Note, One strike and you?re out: alcohol in the Major League Baseball clubhouse, 11 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT & TECHNOLOGY LAW 399 (2009)Paul T. DeRousselle II, Comment, Personal foul! How the Supreme Court allowed the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association to violate Brentwood Academy?s First Amendment rights, 36 SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 173 (2008) Nathaniel Grow, Reevaluating the Curt Flood Act of 1998, 87 NEBRASKA LAW REVIEW 747 (2009)Michael Halper, The tax ramifications of catching home run baseballs, 59 CASE WESTERN RESERVE LAW REVIEW 191 (2008)Casey A...
Release of New Journal on NCAA Compliance
Posted on May 11, 2009On behalf of the Center for Law and Sports at Florida Coastal School of Law, I am pleased to announce our new publication, the Journal of NCAA Compliance. The Journal will be comprised of essays written by Coastal Law students containing detailed summaries of the latest NCAA compliance rulings as well as short articles on contemporary issues in NCAA compliance...
On Being Manny, Part II (the sequel): Can the Dodgers Terminate Ramirez?
Posted on May 09, 2009There have been a lot of questions raised (including in the comments of the previous post) about the possibility of the Dodgers suspending or terminating Manny Ramirez for his use of human chorionic gonadotrophin (?hCG?). I think it?s fairly clear, however, that the Dodgers cannot punish or terminate Ramirez for his use of the banned performance enhancing substance...
On Being Manny.
Posted on May 07, 2009As some of you may have noticed, Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games today for violating Major League Baseball?s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program (the ?MLB Program?). According to reports, Ramirez does not plan to appeal the suspension, but I will go out on a bit of a limb here and suggest that we may be hearing a bit more about this story in the next several days...
Who's Responsible for Collapse of Cowboys' Practice Facility?
Posted on May 07, 2009Earlier this week, I wrote a column on SI.com on questions of responsibility for the tragic collapse of the Dallas Cowboys' practice facility. Below is an excerpt.* * *The second and more worrisome area for the Cowboys is tort law and specifically Texas law on negligence...
Indictments in Toledo Point Shaving Scheme
Posted on May 06, 2009The U.S. Attorney in Detroit has announced the indictment of two Detroit-area businessmen and six former University of Toledo athletes in connection with point shaving between 2004 and 2006. Howard blogged about the story in March, 2007. Coverage from the Free Press here...
Can the NBA and NFL Place Teams in Europe? Exploring the EC Antitrust and 'Free Movement' Risk
Posted on May 06, 2009With talk of the NFL hosting a Super Bowl in London, some sports fans are beginning to wonder if we will soon see U.S. sports leagues place teams in Europe. In a recent law review article, Brian Doyle and I argue that before either the NBA or NFL could expand into Europe, these leagues would need to first abandon their age/education requirements and alter their reserve rules...
Sanctioned Offenses
Posted on May 05, 2009An Attempt to Unravel How Yuriorkis Gamboa Became the ?Interim WBA Ordinary World Featherweight Champion of the World? Boxing fans, meet your ?Interim World Boxing Association Ordinary World Featherweight Champion of the World,? Yuriorkis (El Ciclon de Guantanamo) Gamboa, 15-0 (13 KOs)...
Has NCAA's Investigation in Reggie Bush/O.J. Mayo Changed USC's Recruiting?
Posted on May 05, 2009Ramona Shelburne of the LA Daily News has an in-depth article on the University of Southern California apparently rejecting a verbal commitment by basketball phenom Renardo Sidney to play there. It is possible that the NCAA's investigation into the Reggie Bush and O...
CBS Scores Big Win in Fantasy Case
Posted on May 04, 2009Times are not good for the intellectual property rights of athletes whose names are used for fantasy sports websites. In the wake of the Eighth Circuit's ruling in CBC Distribution v. MLBAM, 505 F.3d 818 (2007) [discussed here], the district court in Minnesota, concluded that CBS Interactive may use NFL players' names and statistics for its fantasy games, without any license agreement from the NFL or NFLPA...
President Obama's First Supreme Court Appointment
Posted on May 02, 2009With yesterday's announcement by Justice David Souter that he will be retiring at the conclusion of this current United States Supreme Court term, speculation has begun by those feverishly anticipating who President Barack Obama will appoint to replace the retiring Souter...
National Sports Law Student Writing Competition
Posted on April 30, 2009Marquette University Law School has announced a new writing competition open to students from any law school. Winners get published in the Marquette Sports Law Review and get to attend the National Sports Law Institute fall conference for free. The deadline for submission is July 17, 2009...
"Tort Law and Journalism Ethics"
Posted on April 29, 2009That's the title of my new law review article that will be published in Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. It can be downloaded from SSRN. You'll appreciate this paper if you're tired of a 21st Century press that disregards individual privacy, infiltrates the news with sensationalized stories, and blames their inaccurate reporting on "getting the story out there first" (in particular with respect to participants in the sports and entertainment industries)...
Jeremy Tyler: High School Junior Basketball Phenom to Play Professionally in Europe
Posted on April 22, 2009The NBA's one-and-done rule requires that a player be 19 years of age plus one year removed from high school (either by graduation or by one's class graduating) in order to be eligible for the NBA draft. It's presumed that a player will attend college in that "one year removed" and save for Brandon Jennings, it's held true...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on April 21, 2009* Joshua Knipp and Michael Miller -- two students at Wake Forest University School of Law -- have posted on SSRN a draft of their interesting paper Finding a Balance: Advocating a Long-Term Solution to the NCAA's Battle with Technology in Recruiting. * The annual Sports Lawyers Association Conference is coming up on May 14 in Chicago...
Local News "Seeks the Truth"
Posted on April 20, 2009I want to commend the Louisville Fox affiliate, WDRB-41, for its decision not to air, or even report on, its interview with Karen Sypher, the woman Louisville coach Rick Pitino asserts has attempted to extort him. According to an ESPN report late last night:Karen Sypher recently did a lengthy interview with the Louisville Fox affiliate, WDRB-41, but the station reported Saturday night that it "has decided not to relate details of her claims at this time...
State action and the Yankees Lawsuit
Posted on April 20, 2009In writing and speaking about fans' speech rights, the speech part always has seemed, to me, easy--of course someone can wear a t-shirt reading "Yankees Suck" and of course someone can jeer a player for making an error. And of course someone cannot be compelled to participate in a patriotic ritual such as singing "God Bless America...
Reaction to Thomas among FIU factulty
Posted on April 18, 2009Not surprised this is happening: The director of women's studies at FIU is organizing protests against the hiring of Isiah Thomas as men's basketball coach, relating to Thomas having been found liable (along with the Knicks and the team owner) for the sexual harassment of a Knicks employee...
Hip Hop Law Blog
Posted on April 16, 2009The West Virginia University College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Society is proud to announce the launch of a new blog that will add texture and content to the entertainment law and interconnected sports law space: HipHopLaw.com. Go to:http://hiphoplaw...
Finally! Fan challenges speech restrictions at publicly owned ballpark
Posted on April 16, 2009A lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York yesterday by a baseball fan named Bradford Campeau-Laurion, who alleges that he was kicked out of Yankee Stadium last summer by two uniformed NYPD officers for trying to go the men's room during the Seventh Inning Stretch and the playing of God Bless America...
Two Sports Law Talks at Mississippi College School of Law
Posted on April 16, 2009If any of you are in the Jackson area, I'lll be giving a talk today at Mississippi College School of Law from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on recent sports law issues and careers in sports law. It will be in Room 251 and directions to the law school can be found here...
Isiah Thomas, FIU Basketball Coach?
Posted on April 15, 2009Beginning when I was around 16, I wanted to be a college basketball coach. I was a student manager in college, worked as a coach at summer basketball camps throughout college, and my first job after college was as assistant coach at a D-III school in Chicago...
Michigan's Contractual Liability if Paulus "Transfers" to Play QB
Posted on April 15, 2009It certainly has been a rough year for Michigan football. The team was simply handled by a then-underrated Utah, embarrassed by mid-major Toledo, all the while beset by its coach's messy divorce from his former school. The latest news from Ann Arbor is that, in spite of its recruitment of heralded quarterback Tate Forcier, the team may be led next year by Greg Paulus...
Edwin Valero: Would an Exception Knock Out the Rule?
Posted on April 14, 2009Whether it Would be Smart for New York State to Lift Its Medical Suspension of Lightweight Champion & Knockout Artist Edwin Valero In 2004, undefeated Venezuelan junior lightweight prospect Edwin (El Inca) Valero applied for a license to box in New York State after scoring 12 first round knockouts in his first 12 professional fights...
A Few Good Links
Posted on April 14, 2009* Darren Heitner at Sports Agent Blog has a good breakdown of how sports bloggers might be impacted by the Associated Press' new strategy to crack down on lengthy excerpts of AP stories on blogs.* William Rothstein of National Sports and Entertainment Blog has a good write-up on Professor Erin Buzuvis' recent talk at Vermont Law School on Title IX...
Florida Coastal Symposium
Posted on April 13, 2009This Friday, we are hosting our annual sports law symposium titled, ?NCAA Coaches? Contracts: Diversity and Negotiating Value in the 21st Century?:FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 200910:30 am - 2:30 pmRoom 405Opening Remarks: Stuart Herman, President of Sports Law Society at Florida Coastal School of Law10:30 a...
2009 Scholarly Conference on College Sport
Posted on April 12, 2009Robert Hayden and Che Mock of the University of North Carolina pass along the following message. We wish Richard Southall and everyone else at the College Sports Research Institute the best for this year's conference, which looks to be a great event...
Colts Redux? Can the Preakness be Seized?
Posted on April 09, 2009Many remember the ill-fated attempt in the mid-1980s by the city of Baltimore to utilize eminent domain to seize the Colts under a law passed by the Maryland Legislature. Colts' then-owner Robert Irsay moved the team in the dead of night to take a deal offered by Indianapolis...
Virginia Law Softball Tourny
Posted on April 08, 2009The 26th Annual Virginia Law Softball Invitational tournament was held last weekend. The series of softball games, featuring both men?s and co-rec divisions, raised $20,000 for Children, Youth and Family Services, a Charlottesville-based nonprofit. Out of the 112 teams that participated in the tournament from 46 law schools across the country, Florida Coastal won the championship in the men's division and Appalachian School of Law won the co-rec division...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on April 07, 2009Recently published scholarship includes: Mark R. Bandsuch, The NBA Dress Code and other fashion faux pas under Title VII, 16 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 1 (2009)Kimberli Gasparon, Comment, The dark horse of drug abuse: legal issues of administering performance-enhancing drugs to racehorses, 16 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 199 (2009)Scott Hollander, Note, Super Bowl hero to bank account zero, 26 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 899 (2009)Michael Huntowski, Casenote, Blades of steal? The fight for control of sports clubs? websites and media rights in Madison Square Garden, L...
Professor Alfred Yen on UConn Scandal
Posted on April 06, 2009Boston College Law School Professor Alfred Yen has a terrific piece on Madisonian.Net concerning the alleged recruiting violations at UConn. Here's an excerpt.* * *Instead, Connecticut appears to have completely flouted important rules in a way suggesting that such behavior was routine...
Examining Josh Nochimson's Role in Alleged UConn Scandal
Posted on April 03, 2009I wrote about the alleged UConn scandal involving Nate Miles last week, a scandal that has raised serious questions about UConn men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun's possible knowledge and involvement in recruiting violations.Today, Michael Rosenberg of the Free Press writes a provocative column and interviews Alan Milstein, who, in addition to writing excellent pieces for Sports Law Blog and speaking at great sports law panels, is representing Detroit Pistons star (and former UConn star) Rip Hamilton in his lawsuit against former UConn student manager-turned NBA agent Josh Nochimson...
Donte Stallworth Facing DUI Manslaughter Charges and Uncertain NFL Future
Posted on April 02, 2009I have a new column on SI.com on Donte Stallworth being charged with DUI manslaughter and what it might mean for his NFL career. Here's an excerpt of the column.* * *Stallworth, who will turn 29 in November, would likely struggle to resume an NFL career after serving several years in prison...
Fordham Sports Law Symposium
Posted on April 02, 2009On April 17th, Fordham Law School is hosting its "13th Annual Symposium on Current Legal Issues in Sports." There will be three panels: (1) Pharmaceutical Liability and Sports, (2) Sports Journalism Ethics, and (3) Gambling in Sports. CLE credit is available...
Dallas Cowboys are America's Team for trademark purposes
Posted on April 02, 2009Via, Colin Miller at EvidenceProf Blog, a federal district court in Texas has held that the Cowboys have trademark priority over the term "America's Team," as against a sports-apparel company called "America's Team Property."
Some of the Parts, But Not the Sum of the Parts
Posted on April 02, 2009A Quick Look at the State of Boxing, Wrestling, and Martial Arts in New York State in the Absence of the Legalization of Mixed Martial Arts and Whether Mixed Martial Arts Fits in With These Disciplines Under Existing or Proposed LawBy Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq...
Michael Vick's Lawyer Tells Bankruptcy Court His Client Will Become a Construction Worker
Posted on April 02, 2009News broke this afternoon that Michael Vick's attorney in bankruptcy proceedings explained to the court his client's plan to work as a $10/hour construction worker after his release from prison. Interestingly, just a few days ago, an attorney for a group of Vick's creditors, praising the jailed athlete's bankruptcy plan, stated:?We think it?s a good plan...
Will Plaxico Burress Avoid Prison and NFL suspension?
Posted on April 01, 2009I have a new column on SI.com on the adjournment of the Plaxico Burress trial to June, with the expectation that he will reach a plea deal. Even if avoids prison, expect him to receive a suspension from the NFL. Here's an excerpt of the column.* * *The desire of some politicians to turn Burress into a poster-child for the law may also dissuade prosecutors from letting Burress avoid jail time...
Pro Leagues Adopt Cylon Detection for Athletes
Posted on April 01, 2009Here again public pressure yields another pesky requirement in leagues' focus on obtaining legitimate scientific data to ensure a level playing field. Today, Major League Baseball and the National Football League announced that league negotiators have reached an agreeement with union representatives to begin subjecting professional athletes to rigorous Cylon detection during both the scheduled season and during respective off-seasons...
Vermont Law School?s Sports and Entertainment Law Society to host two panels at annual Solutions Conference
Posted on March 31, 2009Vermont Law School will host its annual Solutions Conference on April 3rd and 4th. The Vermont Law School Sports and Entertainment Law Society along with the National Sports and Entertainment Law Society will host two panels: Alternative Legal Careers: Sports and the Law Date & Time: Friday, April 3rd, 2009 from 10:30-12pmPanelist:Ed Mattes, Jim Munsey, Andrew Weber, and Michael ZarrenModerator: Michael McCann Keynote Address: Topic TBA Date & Time: Friday, April 3rd, 2009 from 5:30-7:30pmSpeaker: Reggie Hudlin The Solutions Conference is FREE to Vermont Law School Faculty, Staff and Students...
Salary cap for soccer teams in Europe?
Posted on March 30, 2009Nowadays the financial crisis also seems to be hitting the European sports sector. Sport clubs, associations and politicians come up with different proposals to solve the crisis or at least prevent clubs to fall into bankruptcy. One of the topics in the world of European soccer is the introduction of a salary cap which should improve the financial situation of the clubs...
NBA Age Limit Discussion at New York Law School
Posted on March 30, 2009Last week I joined Alan Milstein, Marc Edelman, Paul Haberman and others on a sports law panel at New York Law School. Zach Lowe of the American Lawyer was there to cover it. Here's an excerpt from his piece, which highlighted discussion of the NBA's age limit:* * *NBA officials have hinted they want to raise the age limit to 20 when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in 2011...
Why the Florida Marlins now are state actors in their new stadium
Posted on March 28, 2009The gory details of the stadium deal that my esteemed city, county, and state officials recently struck illustrate how my state-action arguments can work as to fan speech in publicly funded stadiums.If there is anything left to the "symbiotic relationship" test of Burton v...
An Unconstitutional Tax for Traitorous Ballplayers?
Posted on March 26, 2009Via TaxProf blog, a New York lawyer has (humorously) proposed an AIG-bonus-type tax for Manny Ramirez: The Manny Ramirez Lightbulb: Also (2 Ideas in 1 Memo) Putting Pay in Perspective.
UConn Accused of Recruiting Violations for Nate Miles
Posted on March 26, 2009Paul Doyle of the Hartford Courant interviewed me for a story concerning former UConn recruit Nate Miles and possible NCAA violations committed by the university, especially by former student-manager0turned agent Josh Nichomson (who himself may soon be sued for defrauding clients, including Richard Hamilton of the Pistons)...
Marlins New Stadium Deal = Worst in Taxpayer History?
Posted on March 26, 2009On several occasions, I have written about how professional sports teams use monopoly power to demand stadium subsidies from their local governments.Yesterday, at Above the Law, I argued that the new stadium agreement just signed between Miami-Dade County and Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria will prove to be the worst ever for taxpayers...
Indian Cricket League Moves Tournament to South Africa
Posted on March 26, 2009On Tuesday, I was interviewed for the BBC World Radio Service program World Have Your Say, for the story, Is India Showing Weakness in the Face of Terrorism? (podcast of the hour-long program here). After an attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Pakistan earlier this month, India's government informed the year-old Indian Premier League that the government would be unable to provide security for its spring tournament due to competing security obligations in connection with upcoming national elections...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on March 23, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Roger I. Abrams & Alan Levy, The trial of Rube Waddell, 19 SETON HALL JOURNAL OF SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW 1 (2009)James Bamberg, Wrestling with a union: can anyone protect the 6?7?, 300-pound professional wrestler from the sports-entertainment industry?, 2 FLORIDA ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW 1 (2008) Susannah Carr, Title IX: an opportunity to level the Olympic playing field, 19 SETON HALL JOURNAL OF SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW 149 (2009)Anita L...
New York Law School Sports Law Panel this Wednesday
Posted on March 23, 2009I'm honored to be speaking this Wednesday, March 25th, at New York Law School, on a sports panel. Here is info on the event:* * *The Media, Entertainment, and Sports Law Association at New York Law School will host a panel on sports law this Wednesday between 5:00 and 7:00 p...
Justice Jackson on Umpiring and Judging
Posted on March 21, 2009This post was written by John Q. Barrett of St. John's and the Robert H. Jackson Center; it was sent to the Jackson List and was forwarded by my FIU colleague, Tom Baker. Jackson's comments are in line with arguments I have made against Chief Justice Roberts's views of the judge-umpire connection...
Catching Up with Links
Posted on March 21, 2009I have two new columns on SI.com: Roger Clemens Facing Long Year in Court & Unsigned and Unwanted: Is Barry Bonds Building a Case for Collusion?University of Illinois Law Professor John Colombo, who probably knows more about the intersection between tax and sports law than anyone, has posted a free draft of his forthcoming law review article: The NCAA, Tax Exemption and College Athletics...
Shawn Hill Released by the Washington Nationals
Posted on March 19, 2009Bill Ladson of MLB.com reported yesterday that the Nationals placed Shawn Hill ?on waivers Wednesday for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release.? Ladson also reported that Hill will receive one-sixth of the $775,000 that he was awarded last month by an arbitration panel...
Thoughts for the Big Dance: On Duke Hatred
Posted on March 19, 2009Good piece from The New Republic on the venomous hatred of Duke basketball and Duke players and the way that hatred is explicitly and unabashedly expressed in homophobic terms.This really is part of the larger issue of race in college basketball (which the article touches on briefly) and the perception that white players are "soft" spot-up shooters, rather than "tough, strong athletes...
Topps Trading Cards Go Online
Posted on March 18, 20093 1/2 weeks ago, I participated in an ABA teleconference and explained why the Eighth Circuit's decision in the CBC case was incorrectly decided. At one point, I discussed how the development of new technologies does not, and should not, change the right of publicity/First Amendment analysis, e...
FSU College of Law Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Society 6th Annual Conference
Posted on March 18, 2009I look forward to speaking at the Florida State University College of Law Entertainment, Arts, & Sports Law Society's (EASL) 6th Annual Conference this Saturday, March 21, 2009. The conference will commence at 11:00 a.m. in the Florida State College of Law Rotunda in Tallahassee...
Nova Southeastern University Symposium
Posted on March 12, 2009On Saturday, March 28, the Sports & Entertainment Law Society at the NSU Shepard Broad Law Center (co-sponsored by the Florida Bar Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section) is hosting a symposium entitled, Adaptation: ?Staying ahead of legal issues arising in the new digital age?...
Breaking Down Helio Castroneves Tax Evasion Case
Posted on March 10, 2009I have a new column on SI.com -- it is on the government's tax evasion case against Penske Racing's Helio Castroneves, who won the Indianapolis 500 in 2001 and 2002 and Dancing with the Stars in 2007 with dancer/country music singer Julianne Hough. Here is an excerpt:* * *The key for Castroneves, however, is whether the government can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Castroneves had any material role in Seven Promotions...
Suffolk University Law School Sports Law Discussion This Wednesday
Posted on March 08, 2009This Wednesday (March 11th), I'll be speaking at Suffolk University Law School in Boston as a guest of the law school's Sports and Entertainment Law Association.I'll be discussing property interests in statistics, age limits in the NBA and NFL, player conduct policies, and career opportunities in sports law...
New sports blog
Posted on March 07, 2009Jon Pessah of ESPN and Stony Brook University has a new blog, including posts about the government's Javert-like pursuit of Barry Bonds and other steroid users. Jon has done some great recent writing about Jeff Novitzky, the lead federal investigator on many of these matters...
More on the Less Restrictive Alternative
Posted on March 05, 2009Rick?s latest post gives me a perfect opportunity to shamelessly plug my new article, ?The Misuse of the Less Restrictive Alternative Inquiry in Rule of Reason Analysis,? which was recently published in the American University Law Review and can be found here...
BCS and Antitrust
Posted on March 05, 2009USA Today's Steve Wieberg reports this morning that the Mountain West Conference yesterday "unveiled a plan that would recast the BCS' four current bowls ? FedEx Orange, Allstate Sugar, Tostitos Fiesta and Rose ? as quarterfinals in an eight-team playoff, quadrupling the number of teams that get a shot at the national title...
Harvard Law School conference on Free Market Ideology
Posted on March 04, 2009Not sports law related, but possibly of interest to some of our readers:This Saturday, the Project on Law and Mind Sciences of Harvard Law School will be hosting its third annual conference. The topic is "The Free Market Mindset: History, Psychology, and Consequences...
MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference This Saturday
Posted on March 03, 2009I'm honored to be speaking at this year's MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which will be held this Saturday (March 7th) in Cambridge, Mass.It should be an amazing event, with some of the biggest names in sports, including Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Rockets GM Daryl Morey, and ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, as speakers...
The NFL Scored an Antitrust Touchdown in American Needle. Why are they asking the Supreme Court for a Review?
Posted on March 02, 2009As has been narrowly reported, the Supreme Court has asked the Solicitor General for an amicus brief in the American Needle case. Marc Edelman has an excellent new post discussing this development on Above the Law. As I discussed in a post here a few months ago, the Seventh Circuit?s conclusion in American Needle that the NFL and its teams act as single entity when promoting NFL football through licensing teams? intellectual property marked the rebirth of the single entity argument in sports antitrust litigation...
New York County Lawyers Association Sports Law Forum: March 11, 2009
Posted on March 01, 2009Location: NYCLA Building, 14 Vesey Street, New York, New York Time: 6:30 P.M.The forum is about the representation of athletes in individualized (as opposed to team) sports in negotiations and the maintenance of endorsement and sponsorship deals. Among the topics to be covered are the recent Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez scandals and how to handle such matters as they pertain to endorsements and sponsorships, as their attorneys...
A Re-Examination of Jeff Novitsky
Posted on March 01, 2009Jon Pessah of ESPN Magazine and Stony Brook University has a very provocative piece up today on ABC News that re-assesses the decisions of IRS agent Jeff Novitsky in the BALCO investigation, particularly as his decisions pertain to the Barry Bonds investigation...
Vanderbilt Symposium
Posted on March 01, 2009On Friday, March 13, the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law is hosting a symposium at the law school entitled, "Lights, Labor, Action: Labor Controversy in the Sports and Entertainment Industries." CLE credit is available for practitioners and registration information can be obtained at the above link...
Saturday Links
Posted on February 28, 2009* I have a new column on SI.com concerning a "last second" appeal brought by the prosecution in the Barry Bonds trial, which was set to begin on Monday and now likely won't start for weeks, if not months. The prosecution wants the Ninth Circuit to reverse Judge Susan Illston's evidence rulings concerning the exclusion of various BALCO related materials...
The Implications of Kevin Durant's Jersey Retiring
Posted on February 27, 2009Congratulations to Kevin Durant, whose No. 35 was just retired by his alma mater, the University of Texas. Durant's time at UT was admittedly brief; he played just one season before turning pro. But it was quite the season: he averaged 26 points and 11 rebounds per game, leading his team to the second round of the NCAA tournament and earning the honor of 2006-07 National Player of the Year...
Sonny Vaccaro in the Hoosier State
Posted on February 27, 2009For those of you near Indiana University-Bloomington, Sonny Vaccaro will present there on Monday, March 2nd from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. He will discuss the NCAA's treatment of student-athletes, particularly male basketball players, and the relationship between those players contributions to their universities and the income generated by those universities from sports TV contracts and related revenue sources...
2009 Tulane Law School Moot Court Mardi Gras Invitational Sports Law Competition
Posted on February 25, 2009Last week, Tulane Law School hosted the 2009 Tulane Law School Moot Court Mardi Gras Invitational Sports Law Competition. This year?s problem was based on hybrid of the single entity issue raised in the American Needle case and the release issue raised in the MSG-NHL case ...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on February 24, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:Ian C.B. Davis, Note, An analysis of horse racing jockeys riding under Kentucky?s workers? compensation laws, 97 KENTUCKY LAW JOURNAL 173 (2008-2009)Dionne L. Koller, How the United States government sacrifices athletes? constitutional rights in the pursuit of national prestige, 2008 BYU LAW REVIEW 1465 Raymond Shih Ray Ku, Is nominal use an answer to the free speech and right of publicity quandary?: lessons from America?s national pastime, 11 CHAPMAN LAW REVIEW 435 (2008)Michael A...
Law Professor's New Book Argues for Unionization of Minor League Baseball
Posted on February 24, 2009Via the Workplace Law Prof blog and my colleague Joseph Slater, McGeorge Law Professor and labor arbitrator Don Wollett has released a new book, Getting on Base: Unionism in Baseball. The book argues that minor league baseball players should be organized into a union...
The 22nd Sports and Recreation Law Association Conference
Posted on February 24, 2009The 22nd Annual Sports and Recreation Law Association takes place from March 4 - 7 in San Antonio, with presentations and speakers covering a number of issues. SRLA's s conferences focus on issues of school and amateur sports, particularly questions of personal injury and risk management...
Evidence excluded in Bonds case
Posted on February 22, 2009Judge Illston's order is here Download USAvsBondsOpinion021909. Straightforward, but a good review for my Evidence class of a number of concepts--real evidence requires a chain of custody, the chain of custody requires admissible evidence, the search for hearsay exceptions, and the unreviewable discretion that district court judges have on procedure and evidence...
WTA Fines Dubai Tournament for Ban on Israeli Player
Posted on February 21, 2009It is a truism that sports and politics should not mix. It is an equal truism that they do. The question is in the justification. Nations have boycotted the Olympics and the Olympics have boycotted nations, such as Apartheid-era South Africa. Numerous debates as to the wisdom of boycotts and their effect on sports have gone on for years...
2009 Arbitration Season Ends with Settlement
Posted on February 20, 2009The Washington Nationals and Ryan Zimmerman settled early this morning prior to their scheduled hearing at the midpoint figure of $3,325,000. So, the players prevailed in 2 of the 3 hearings this season and that marks the first time since 1996, when the players won 7 of the 10 hearings, that the players defeated the teams in arbitration...
Harvard Law School Sports Law Symposium: Sports Law in an Economic Downturn
Posted on February 19, 2009I'm pleased to be joining Rick as a participant in this year's Harvard Law School Sports Law Symposium, which will be held on Friday March 13th and Saturday, March 14th at the law school.The symposium, which is hosted by the Harvard Law School Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law, is in honor of Harvard Law School Professor Paul Weiler, one of the founders of U...
Catching Up with Some Links
Posted on February 19, 2009* Oliver v. NCAA: Last week, Alan Milstein blogged on an Ohio state court's ruling in favor of Oklahoma State University star pitcher Andrew Oliver, who had been suspended by the NCAA. The NCAA had suspended Oliver after learning that, years earlier, Oliver had met with Minnesota Twins representatives with his attorneys while contemplating whether to retain his amateur status and attend college or turn pro after high school...
Not a Problem or Not Enough Money to Fund the Program: Florida Ends HS Anabolic Steroids Testing Program
Posted on February 18, 2009The Florida High School Athletic Association?s anaboloic steroid testing program, which began in July 2007 for athletes participating in football, baseball and weightlifting, has been put on the back burner, at least for now, due to the economy and the rationale that the money must go elsewhere...
Salary Arbitration Update
Posted on February 18, 2009There were four hearings set for today, and all proved to be unnecessary as settlements were finalized between Corey Hart and the Brewers, Conor Jackson and the Diamondbacks, Mike Jacobs and the Royals, and Josh Willingham and the Nationals. That leaves only the Atlanta Braves and both Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson and Washington and Ryan Zimmerman left for this year...
Yale Law School Sports Litigation Panel
Posted on February 18, 2009Next Wednesday, February 25th, Yale Law School will be hosting a panel discussion on sports litigation.I am honored to be moderating the event, which has some phenomenal speakers.The panel will take place from 4:10 to 6 p.m. and is open to the public...
Can Barry Bonds Receive a Fair Trial?
Posted on February 18, 2009I address that question and some others in a new SI.com column. Here's an excerpt:* * *In addition to avoiding Bonds-haters, counsel for Bonds will seek jurors who are skeptical about the government's decision to prosecute Bonds. A libertarian-leaning person, for instance, might object to the expenditure of millions of tax dollars to prosecute baseball players who used substances to help hit home runs...
ABA Teleseminar this Thursday
Posted on February 17, 2009This Thursday, the ABA Section of Antitrust Law Trade, Sports & Professional Associations Committee, Section of Intellectual Property Law, The Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education are sponsoring a 90-minute teleseminar and live audio webcast titled, Whose Home Run is it Anyway? Practical Advice on Intellectual Property Issues in Sports...
When they say they don't want to politicize sports, . . .
Posted on February 17, 2009Shahar Peer of Israel, the # 48-ranked women's singles player, was denied an entry visa to the United Arab Emirates to play in this week's Barclays Dubai Tournament, citing security fears of having an Israeli playing in Dubai in the wake of the recent military conflict in Gaza...
The Michael Phelps Saga
Posted on February 16, 2009We've somehow ignored the much discussed Michael Phelps situation concerning a certain photo, for which he has apologized. I was recently interviewed by Ed Berliner on Stone Cold Sports to discuss it. Here are my comments:
Two Arbitration Hearings Postponed
Posted on February 14, 2009The Associated Press reported yesterday that the arbitration hearings for Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitcher Ervin Santana and Tampa Bay Rays infielder Willy Aybar were postponed. I cannot remember a postponement of a hearing in recent years, but the general consensus is that the Angels and Rays are close to a settlement with Santana and Aybar...
New Article: The Truth about Collusion in Baseball
Posted on February 14, 2009For those interested in the history of baseball collusion and its implications on the game today, here is a link to my newest article -- "Moving Past Collusion in Major League Baseball: Healing Old Wounds and Preventing New Ones."This article discusses the history of collusion in Baseball, as well as explains how Baseball collusion in the 1980s led to more recent allegations of collusion (A-Rod, Bonds) and other troubling aspects of Baseball's labor-management relationship (for example, drug testing disagreements)...
Diversity and Sports CLE Conference
Posted on February 13, 2009Next month, Widener Law will be hosting "Diversity and Sports: The History, The Challenges, and The Future." The event is part of the school's Dean?s Leadership Forum On Diversity and will take place on March 16, 2009, at the school's Harrisburg, PA campus...
Jon Pessah of ESPN Magazine has
Posted on February 13, 2009Jon Pessah of ESPN Magazine has an interesting investigatory report on the BALCO investigation in the latest online edition of the magazine (Who's on Trial in the Bonds Case? Not Just Barry). Jon is not only a journalist, but he also teaches sports journalism at Stony Brook University and has a unique perspective.
Salary Arbitration Update
Posted on February 13, 2009The Tampa Bay Rays and Willy Aybar are reportedly close to a 2-year deal. According to my hearing dates chart, they need to get this done today prior to their hearing. Here are the dates that I have for hearings next week:Edwin Encarnacion (Reds) - Tuesday, February 17Andre Ethier (Dodgers) - Tuesday, February 17Jeff Francoeur (Braves) - Friday, February 20Corey Hart (Brewers) - Wednesday, February 18Conor Jackson (Diamondbacks) - Wednesday, February 18Kelly Johnson (Braves) - Thursday, February 19Ryan Ludwick (Cardinals) - Tuesday, February 17Nate McLouth (Pirates) - Tuesday, February 17Josh Willingham (Nationals) - Wednesday, February 18I have not yet located the hearing dates for Mike Jacobs (Royals), Ervin Santana (Angels), or Ryan Zimmerman (Nationals)The victory by the Rays over Dioner Navarro lifts the Rays hearing record to 4-0...
Guest Post: How A-Rod Can Still Get to Cooperstown (And Save Baseball)
Posted on February 12, 2009The following is a guest post co-authored by Aaron Zelinsky and Benjamin Johnson of Yale Law School* * *Americans love heroes, and we love to see them fall. Alex Rodriguez was a hero, and now he?s falling fast. Batting clean-up behind Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGuire, A-Rod joins the All-Star Team of the players who shot themselves in the foot ? or the arm, or the thigh...
Ankiel Settles Before Hearing at Midpoint - 13 Still Unresolved
Posted on February 12, 2009Rick Ankiel settled with the St. Louis Cardinals just before his hearing was set to proceed today. Ankiel accepted a salary of $2,825,000, a figure right at the midpoint. Thirty of the exchanged numbers group have now settled with three proceeding to hearings...
I'm leaving (Texas) today . . . New York, New York
Posted on February 12, 2009Roger Clemens' portions of defamation action against Brian McNamee was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, in what sounds (according to the ESPN report) like a very unusual split-the-difference approach. The claims involving the statements to Bud Selig and Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated both occurred in New York, so those claims do not belong in Texas...
Uggla Wins in Arbitration - Ankiel at Bat Today
Posted on February 12, 2009Dan Uggla?s arbitration hearing was held yesterday in Phoenix, and I just read that he won. The Marlins offered $4,400,000, and Uggla countered with a request for $5,350,000. The midpoint is $4,875,000, and the difference between the two exchanged figures is $950,000...
The Evolution of Street Knowledge
Posted on February 12, 2009Webstreaming Live, Today and Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, February 12-13th:The West Virginia University College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Society is proud to present "The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop's Influence on Law and Culture...
Court Blows Fastball Down NCAA Pipe
Posted on February 12, 2009In a long awaited decision, an Ohio state court has ruled in favor of Oklahoma State University star pitcher Andrew Oliver. You might recall, Oliver was suspended by OSU before a critical college tournament game after news emerged that years before he had met with Minnesota Twins representatives with his attorneys while contemplating whether to retain his amateur status and attend college or turn pro after high school...
I'm leaving (Texas) today . . . New York, New York (Updated)
Posted on February 12, 2009Updated and Moved to TopPortions of Roger Clemens' defamation action against Brian McNamee was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, in what sounds (according to the ESPN report) like a very unusual split-the-difference approach. The claims involving the statements to Bud Selig and Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated both occurred in New York, so those claims do not belong in Texas...
A-Rod Aftermath: What about the 103 Other Names?
Posted on February 11, 2009I have a new SI.com column on how the legal process intersects with possible disclosure of the names of the 103 Major League Baseball players (plus Alex Rodriguez) who tested positive for steroids. Here is an excerpt:* * *Through various means, player agents may likewise be aware of at least some of those names, and they could publicly reveal those names over time...
Baseball, steroids, and jurisprudence
Posted on February 11, 2009Here is a question for the jurisprudes and the crim law types out there (or just anyone else with an opinion):In 1991, baseball established by rule that it was against the rules of the game to use a range of drugs, including steroids. There was no testing, no enforcement mechanism, and no determinate punishments for using steroids...
Dioner Navarro's Arbitration Hearing Today
Posted on February 09, 2009Dioner Navarro?s arbitration hearing was today. The Rays offered $2,100,000, and Navarro requested $2,500,000. The midpoint is $2,300,000, and Navarro?s service time is just over three years. He is eligible for the first time this year. There are a couple of good articles on Navarro that are worth looking at, see Tommy Rancel, ?More on Arbitration and Dioner Navarro,? Draysbay...
AM Law Daily Sports Law
Posted on February 09, 2009Zach Lowe of the American Law Daily has a weekly sports law column that is definitely worth checking out -- this week he discusses the growing marijuana epidemic in Japan's sumo wrestling ranks, among other topics. Here's his take on pot-loving sumo wrestlers:* * *By now, you've surely heard about Michael Phelps's marijuana use and all the sponsorship money it's going to cost him...
Can the Yankees refuse to pay A-Rod and argue recission?
Posted on February 08, 2009Dave Hoffman at CoOp lays out the arguments.
Football Rules and Title IX
Posted on February 07, 2009I missed this a few days ago. Calvin Massey at the Faculty Lounge considers what would happen if football rules were changed to limit substitutions so fewer players are needed and fewer will get regular playing time. He argues that fewer playing slots would justify reducing the number of scholarships a school can offer from 85 to 45 or 50...
Shawn Hill Wins In Arbitration Over the Nationals
Posted on February 07, 2009Shawn Hill won the first arbitration hearing of the year over the Washington Nationals. He will receive $775,000 instead of the team's $500,000 figure.
Some Weekend Links
Posted on February 07, 2009Catching up with links:* Tonight I have an SI column up on the legal ramifications of Alex Rodriguez's positive steroids test.* Earlier this week, I was interviewed on the Fox News Channel and KCBS Radio to discuss different legal issues concerning Barry Bonds...
Hill and Nationals are first to go to a hearing in 2009
Posted on February 06, 2009Oft-injured Washington Nationals pitcher Shawn Hill is the first player to go to a hearing this year. Hill, who made $402,000 in 2008 (a figure just above the minimum major league salary), was seeking $775,000 from the panel. The Nationals offered a modest raise to $500,000...
Salary Arbitration Update
Posted on February 05, 2009According to my research, 22 of the 46 players who exchanged figures last month with their teams have settled. Forty-five percent have settled below the midpoint while 6 received multiyear deals from their teams. Keep in mind that settlements below the midpoint are often close to the figure or performance bonuses exist that might ultimately increase the final salary amount paid to the player beyond the midpoint...
New Documents Made Available in Barry Bonds Perjury Case
Posted on February 04, 2009I have a new column up on SI.com regarding today's release of hundreds of pages of court documents related to the forthcoming trial of Barry Bonds for perjury. Hope you have a chance to check it out.
Two posts of interests
Posted on February 04, 2009(H/T: Marc Edelman):First, Mike Colligan comments at the SportsJudgeBlog on the NHL salary cap.Second, Marc himself writes at Above the Law about the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision holding that cheerleading is a sport and the possible implications of that notion for Title IX...
Super Bowl XLIII and Mike Tomlin
Posted on February 04, 2009On Sunday, February 1, 2009, Mike Tomlin became the youngest head coach in the history of the National Football League to lead a team to the Super Bowl title. Tomlin also became the second African American head coach to lead his team to a Super Bowl win...
Title IX and the definition of sport
Posted on February 04, 2009Having read the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision in Noffke v. Bakke and Marc's ATL post on its Title IX implications, let me weigh in.First, the court relied on a dictionary to define sport as an "activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs...
Implications of Positive DNA Test Result for Roger Clemens
Posted on February 03, 2009I have a new column on SI.com regarding an apparent match in the DNA of Roger Clemens and that found on materials containing steroids. Here's an excerpt:Although the DNA evidence -- needles that McNamee said he used to inject Clemens and gauze used to wipe blood off Clemens after a shot -- would likely be deemed admissible, Clemens' counsel would have numerous fronts on which to rebuke it during cross-examination...
Time to Revise the National Letter of Intent?
Posted on February 03, 2009Over on Sports Agent Blog, Marc Isenberg has an excellent piece that proposes a revision of the National Letter of Intent. Here's an excerpt:Some suggest schools are providing more releases today than in the past, especially after a coaching change occurs...
hip hop symposium
Posted on February 02, 2009The West Virginia University College of Law Sports & Entertainment Law Society is proud to present "The Evolution of Street Knowledge: Hip Hop's Influence on Law and Culture," to take place on February 12-13th, 2009, featuring keynote speakers Cornel West and Talib Kweli...
New SI.com Columns
Posted on January 30, 2009Over the last day, I have written three new columns on SI.com -- I hope you have a chance to check them out:Testimony by Bobby Estalella, Giambis Brothers could spell trouble for Barry BondsYankees' Potential Silence Clauses could have Broad Effects on PlayersLatest Barry Bonds Development may not be as Damming as you thinkHope you all enjoy the weekend.
University of Baltimore Law School Sports Law Symposium: "From Rookie to Retirement"
Posted on January 30, 2009The University of Baltimore School of Law has schedules what looks to be an excellent sports law symposium on February 26, 2009. Congrats to Professor Dionne Koller and others for putting the event together. Below are the details.* * *The University of Baltimore School of Law invites you to attend its first annual Sports Law Symposium...
Quick Update on Retired NFL Players vs. NFLPA
Posted on January 29, 2009The Sports Business Daily reports that U.S. District Judge William Alsup upheld the jury?s verdict awarding a class of NFL retired players $28.1 million in its suit against the NFLPA We discussed the case back in November here (as is often the case, the meat of the discussion is contained in the comments).
Media ethics and law prof blogging
Posted on January 28, 2009I am quoted today in an op-ed in the Daily Tar Heel. (H/T: My former colleague Joel Goldstein). The op-ed discusses the motion filed by former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, the main culprit in the Duke lacrosse mess, seeking to dismiss the § 1983 actions against him on absolute prosecutorial immunity grounds (and without seeing the motion, I have argued previously that he has a pretty strong argument)...
A Clarification of My Last Post on Salary Arbitration
Posted on January 28, 2009The two anonymous comments to my January 23 posting offered good observations and questions, and they point out my need to be more precise about my last sentence -?One of my arguments has been that salary arbitration usually works because most of the time the parties agree to a figure at the midpoint or slightly below the midpoint...
"Flyer" Goes Down: Wisconsin Supreme Court Finds Cheerleading to be a Contact Sport
Posted on January 27, 2009Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its opinion in Brittany L. Noffke v. Kevin Bakke. Howard Wasserman discussed this matter on this Blog last month. Also, check my post on the Sports Law Blog for cheerleader injuries from 2006, and discussions on sports injuries from myself and Geoffrey Rapp here, here, and here...
New SI.com Sports Law Column on Kirk Radomski's New Book
Posted on January 26, 2009I have a new column on SI.com on potential legal implications for Roger Clemens relating to Kirk Radomski's new book, Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report. Here is an excerpt from the column:* * *The inconsistency over specific information shared by McNamee to Radomski may seem to be on the periphery of the central question of whether Clemens used steroids and knowingly lied to Congress, but it offers Clemens' legal team a valuable card in a potential trial in which McNamee would be subject to cross-examination: Why should a jury believe McNamee's recollections over those of Clemens when McNamee's account is, at least in part, contradicted by the published words of his friend Radomski? Then again, jurors might dismiss potential inconsistencies in dates and other historical facts as relatively immaterial...
Cubs Suing Former Sponsor Underarmour
Posted on January 23, 2009The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports a suit filed on Thursday by the Chicago Cubs for breach of contract and promissory estoppel against Underarmour. Driven to abandon the sponsorship due to the effect of the economic climate on overpriced polyester sports clothing, the company now faces this $10 million suit...
The Tampa Bay Rays and the "File-and-go Strategy"
Posted on January 23, 2009Bill Chastain, an MLB.com reporter covering the Tampa Bay Rays, wrote an informative piece on January 20 about Willy Aybar and Dioner Navarro?s salary arbitration negotiations with the Rays. (?Aybar, Navarro will go to arbitration; Pair of players unable to come to terms with Rays before deadline)...
Baseball Salary Arbitration - Players and Teams Exchange Figures
Posted on January 21, 2009Over the past few days there has been a flurry of activity between baseball teams and player agents negotiating contracts for players eligible for salary arbitration. On Thursday, January 15, 111 players filed for arbitration. Between last Thursday and yesterday?s deadline for exchanging numbers, 65 deals were finalized leaving 46 players and teams involved in exchanging numbers yesterday...
Bailed-out AIG to drop pricey sports team sponsorships
Posted on January 21, 2009One of the reasons I've been blogging relatively lightly in the past few weeks is that I've discovered the Fox Soccer Channel is part of my digital cable package. Although I've been enjoying a number of great soccer games, it is always a bit jarring to see a team of millionaire soccer players running around in jerseys that proudly display the name of a corporation that has recently come begging for money to the U...
Endowed college coaching positions
Posted on January 16, 2009Something I just discovered this week: The head coaching positions for Stanford's football and men's basketball teams are endowed. Football coach Jim Harbaugh is the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football; Basketball coach Johnny Dawkins is the Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men's Basketball...
The Salary Cap, a Rookie Pay Scale and the NFLPA
Posted on January 15, 2009The week leading up to the Conference Championships, with all of its corresponding movement of coaches and executives, is a good time to take stock of two important bargaining points for the new NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA): 1) a rookie salary cap and 2) the traditional salary cap...
Introducing the National Sports and Entertainment Law Society
Posted on January 12, 2009Two of my students at Vermont Law School -- Andrew Delaney and William Rothstein -- have embarked on creating the National Sports and Entertainment Law Society. It is a national organization for sports law societies across the country.I encourage you to check out the NSELS website and also check out Sports Agent Blog's Darren Heitner's story on the NSELS (and my thanks to Darren for his kind words):* * *From the small northeastern state of Vermont, a couple of law students are determined to start an organization that will unite sports & entertainment law societies in law schools around the country...
New SI.com Sports Law Column on Roger Clemens' Grand Jury
Posted on January 12, 2009I have a new column on SI.com on grand jury proceedings into whether Roger Clemens committed perjury. Here's an excerpt:* * *It is important to not get ahead of ourselves. Clemens has not yet been indicted, let alone convicted. In fact, there are several reasons to believe Clemens would prevail in a trial...
New Board for AALS Section on Sports and the Law
Posted on January 11, 2009This past year, I had the honor of serving as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Sports and the Law.The AALS is a non-profit association of over 170 U.S. law schools and is legal education's principal representative to the federal government and to other national higher education organizations...
New SI.com Sports Law Column on Exemptions in Baseball for Amphetamines
Posted on January 10, 2009I have a new column on SI.com concerning Major League Baseball authorizing nearly 8 percent of its players to use drugs to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.Here's an excerpt:While the clinical link between amphetamines and baseball performance is less established than links between steroids, human growth hormone and performance, it is thought that amphetamines and similar substances improve the focus and concentration of players and also enhance their reaction time...
University of Florida Levin College of Law Sports Law Symposium
Posted on January 10, 2009On Friday, January 23, the Entertainment and Sports Law Society at the University of Florida Levin College of Law will be hosting what should be an excellent sports law symposium. I'm honored to be speaking at it. Here are some more details:SpeakersMarc Edelman - Sports law attorney, author, and professorMax Eppel - Founder, Max Eppel Soccer Agency LLC (MESA) Joshua Golka - Sports Attorney and Consultant at Law Office of Joshua P...
Pepperdine University School of Law Symposium on Arbitrating Sports
Posted on January 10, 2009On Friday, February 27, Pepperdine University School of Law (which is located in gorgeous Malibu, California) will be hosting what should be a terrific symposium entitled, "Arbitrating Sports: Reflections on USADA/Landis, the Olympic Games, and the Future of Sports Dispute Resolution...
University of Oregon Sports Business and the Law Conference
Posted on January 10, 2009On Friday, January 23, the University of Oregon will be hosting its first "Sports Business and the Law Conference." Here's the press release for it:EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 9, 2009) -- Sports industry professionals will meet in downtown Portland on Friday, Jan...
Losers by AKO: Round 2
Posted on January 09, 2009As a New Commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission Begins Her Tenure, The Question is Begged as to Whether Two Former World Champions That Were Placed on Administrative Suspension by Her Predecessor Could Have Done Anything to Reclaim Their Boxing Licenses (Continued)by Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq...
Losers by AKO: Round 1
Posted on January 08, 2009As a New Commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission Begins Her Tenure, The Question is Begged as to Whether Two Former World Champions That Were Placed on Administrative Suspension by Her Predecessor Could Have Done Anything to Reclaim Their Boxing Licenses by Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on January 05, 2009Recently published scholarship includes:E. Jason Burke, Note, ?Quasi-property? rights: fantasy or reality? An examination of [CBC v. MLBAM] and fantasy sports providers? use of professional athlete statistics, 27 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF LAW & POLICY 161 (2008) Timothy D...
The significance of defining sport
Posted on December 28, 2008I have written on several occasions about how to define sport and what qualifies as sport, a common game among ?sports-and-____? academics. A frequent response to these posts has been ?so what, what difference does it make?? And, in truth, it is largely an academic exercise and a fun way to make fun of gymnastics, figure skating, and golf...
Study of NBA Player Charities
Posted on December 28, 2008Paul Caron at Tax Prof Blog reports on a study by the Salt Lake Tribune on the financial documentation filed by 89 NBA player charities. The study found that the average player foundation actually put just 51 cents of every dollar earned towards charitable programs, the rest eaten by administrative costs and inefficiencies...
How Would "Safe" Steroids Impact Sports?
Posted on December 24, 2008University of Pennsylvania bioethics professor Arthur Caplan has a provocative piece in the British Journal of Sports Medicine entitled "Does the the biomedical revolution spell the end of sport?". Here's an excerpt:* * *But, what if biomedical science could put the safety issue [of steroids] aside? Someday, probably soon, there will be drugs that do what steroids do without any real risk of harm to the user...
Sports Law Blog selected as one of the ABA Journal's Blawg 100
Posted on December 23, 2008a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_li4G-Ya5_2s/SVDQlngRDuI/AAAAAAAAADc/v6V8LMOwRt0/s1600-h/ABA+Journal+Blog+Vote.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282951707583647458" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 155px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 160px" alt="" src="http://2...
whither chizik and kiffin?
Posted on December 23, 2008For years, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Division I athletic directors and university administrators have come under intense scrutiny and fire for their repeated failure to hire African American and other minority head coaches for their collegiate football programs...
School Colors Reaffirmed as a Valid Trademark
Posted on December 22, 2008a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jydLw3ctqWs/SU_XQS8c2dI/AAAAAAAAAFc/P0EobrPlVn8/s1600-h/LSU.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282677562892147154" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 116px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 116px" alt="" src="http://3...
Minority Football Coaches and Civil Rights (Updated and Moved to Top)
Posted on December 18, 2008span style="font-weight:bold;"Update, Thursday, 1:00 p.m.:/spanbr /br /Alert reader Michael Nichols has written on this subject in a a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1317545"piece forthcoming/a in the Virginia Sports Entertainment Law Journal...
NFLPA Concerned about Bonuses and U.S. Tax Code Section 409A
Posted on December 18, 2008a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zGTe5MsCVYc/SUqBOKpUuOI/AAAAAAAAA0E/GTQFFbugrZc/s1600-h/Tax+Code.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 266px;" src="http://1...
Interesting tidbit
Posted on December 16, 2008Hall-of-Fame running back Franco Harris was an elector from Pennsylvania for Barack Obama.
Tort Liability for Fans Hit by Soccer Balls
Posted on December 16, 2008Interesting piece by Attorney Mack Sperling on North Carolina Business Business Litigation Report on a new decision by the North Carolina Court of Appeals:All lawyers know, from first year torts class, that if you are hit by a baseball at a baseball game, you are unlikely to have any claim against the operator of the baseball stadium...
Non-Tendered Players Become Free Agents
Posted on December 16, 2008On Friday December 12, all teams had a deadline to decide whether or not to tender a contract offer to a select number of their players. If the player was non-tendered by the deadline, that player was granted free agency. The vast majority of the players impacted by the deadline are eligible for salary arbitration...
Minority Football Coaches and Civil Rights
Posted on December 14, 2008The new-old controversy in college football is the lack of Black head coaches in Division I-A college football. With recent firings and resignations, there are four Black coaches (out of 119 schools) in a sport in which approximately 46 % of players are Black...
Farewell to the Father of Law-and-Baseball
Posted on December 12, 2008The New York Times reported today on the death of William S. Stevens, who arguably started the law-and-baseball movement with his 1975 unsigned student comment Aside: The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule. (H/T: Paul Horwitz at PrawfsBlawg). This was one of the first articles to draw links, humorously or seriously, between baseball and its rule-bound traditions and the law and has sparked all manner of scholarship building on those links.
The Economy Strikes Again (Sabathia not Worried)
Posted on December 10, 2008According to the Denver Post, the Arena Football League ?faces possible dissolution unless it secures an infusion of money by December 19.? Perhaps they can call CC Sabathia, who is reportedly set to sign a 7 year, $161 million contract with the Yankees...
News on Two Members of the 2008 Salary Arbitration Hearing Group - Francisco Rodriguez and Mark Loretta
Posted on December 10, 2008As noted in Gabe Feldman's earlier post today, Francisco Rodriguez has reached a three-year, $37 million agreement with the New York Mets to bring the closer from Anaheim to New York. Rodriguez, who set a Major League record last year with 62 saves, went to a hearing last year and lost when his panel (Stephen Goldberg, Elizabeth Neumeier, Steven Wolf) chose the Angels? figure of $10 million instead of his request for $12...
The Economy Strikes Again (K-Rod not Worried)
Posted on December 09, 2008While Francisco Rodriguez (and his new 3-year, $37 million deal) probably won?t be doing much complaining about a recession, the impact of the tough economic times continues to be felt by major sports entities in the U.S. Today, the NFL announced that it plans to cut more than 10 percent of its staff and that it has indefinitely suspended plans to play a preseason game in China...
Recent Posts of Note
Posted on December 09, 2008Credit Slips, Tribune Bankruptcy a Coup for Mark CubanEmpirical Legal Studies Blog, College Applications & Athletic Prowess
Oliver and Weathers Accept Salary Arbitration
Posted on December 08, 2008Of the 24 free agents offered salary arbitration by their teams last week, only pitchers Darren Oliver of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and David Weathers of the Cincinnati Reds accepted the offer. Thus, both Oliver and Weathers will stay with their current team for the 2009 season...
Let Them Play! (at least on this Sunday)
Posted on December 05, 2008U.S. District Court judge Paul Magnuson granted a temporary restraining order earlier today which will permit Will Smith and Deuce McCallister of the New Orleans Saints to play in their game this Sunday in New Orleans (the TRO also applies to Charles Grant, but he is on the injured reserve list and thus unable to play)...
Free Agents and Salary Arbitration
Posted on December 05, 2008Some of you have not seen a post from me on the Sports Law Blog for awhile. However, salary arbitration season is now in full swing. Earlier this week (Monday midnight ET deadline), 24 free agents were offered salary arbitration by their teams. The split between leagues was identical with 12 in each league...
And you Thought only the Mets were Playing in Taxpayer Field
Posted on December 05, 2008Since the federal government's $700 billion bailout of the banking industry, many taxpayers have demanded that the New York Mets new stadium, Citi Field, be renamed Taxpayer Field. However, low and behold, it's not just the Mets that are enjoying free taxpayer money...
Sentencing of O.J. Simpson
Posted on December 04, 2008I have a new SI.com column on O.J. Simpson, who will be sentenced tomorrow in a Las Vegas court. Hope you have a moment to check it out.
The Legal Woes of Plaxico Burress
Posted on December 02, 2008I have a new SI.com column on Plaxico Burress. I hope you have a chance to check it out.
The Press Provokes Unnecessary Controversy Between LeBron James and Charles Barkley
Posted on November 29, 2008Does today's journalism environment naturally provoke reaction or is provocation itself the real aim? Today's attention-grabbing news headline (and it's all over ESPN this morning), "LeBron James Calls Barkley 'Stupid' for Criticizing Him," demonstrates that oftentimes it's the latter...
Thoughts on Indiana
Posted on November 26, 2008A couple of thoughts on the NCAA's decision to drop the hammer on Kelvin Sampson, but less so on Indiana, particularly in sparing the Hoosiers from a post-season ban (of course, Indiana is not going to the post-season anytime soon, so the end result is the same)...
New Developments in Alleged DNA Evidence Against Roger Clemens
Posted on November 25, 2008I have a new SI.com column out on Roger Clemens and the syringes and other materials provided by Brian McNamee that McNamee claims contains Clemens' DNA. According to today's NY Times and the NY Daily News, federal prosecutors have requested and received the evidence from McNamee and have found readable DNA...
American Bar Association Journal Features Sports Law Blog
Posted on November 25, 2008Our thanks to the ABA for featuring Sports Law Blog as "This Week's Featured Blawg." For those who have discovered us through the ABA, we hope you like what you see. Thanks for visiting.
Indiana University Largely Escapes NCAA Punishment for Kelvin Sampson's Infractions
Posted on November 25, 2008Mark Alesia of the Indianapolis Star has the story:Indiana University will receive three years probation from the NCAA for recruiting violations under former men's basketball coach Kelvin Sampson but will not be further penalized, sources close to the investigation told The Indianapolis Star today...
Can Letters of Intent have Opt-Out Clauses Should Coach Quit?
Posted on November 24, 2008Over on Truth on the Market, George Mason Law Professor Joshua Wright (who's visiting at the University of Texas Law School this year) has an outstanding post on prep basketball star DeMarcus Cousins, who is seeking an opt-out clause in his letter of intent with University of Alabama Birmingham for the possiblity of UAB head coach Mike Davis jumping ship...
Some counts against Bonds dropped
Posted on November 24, 2008United States District Judge Susan Illston dismissed three of the fifteen counts and consolidated two others against Barry Bonds today, although 11 counts (10 perjury, one obstruction of justice) remain in place. Not a big deal; it sounds like she was just cleaning up the indictment to avoid duplicative counts or counts in which either the initial question was ambiguous or the answer was too vague as to reasonably produce a knowingly false statement...
MLB, Japanese Baseball, and US Antitrust Law
Posted on November 20, 2008Today?s NY Times has an interesting article about Junichi Tazawa, the 22-year old Japanese pitching star. Tazawa first drew attention for his 97-mph hour fastball, but has now become the center of controversy because he is the first notable amateur Japanese baseball player to entertain offers from Major League Baseball teams before playing for or even signing with a Japanese team...
IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum (Dec. 10-11)
Posted on November 18, 2008On December 10th and 11th, Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily will host the seventh annual IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum at the InterContinental, The Barclay in New York City.A "must-attend" for anyone involved in the business of college sports, the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum is the one-time each year the NCAA leadership, athletic directors, university presidents, conference commissioners, media partners and corporate sponsors collectively discuss their mutual issues in college sports...
President-elect Obama and College Football Playoffs
Posted on November 18, 2008Tim Lemke of the Washington Times examines President-elect Barack Obama's desire for college football to adopt a playoff system.Tim interviewed me for the story, which covers the economic, legal, and political angles of the President-elect's apparently genuine interest in reforming college football's post-season...
Mark Cuban Accused of Insider Trading
Posted on November 17, 2008I have a new SI.com column on Mark Cuban being sued today by the Securities and Exchange Commission on insider trading charges. I hope you have a chance to check it out.I'll also be interviewed on Houston 790 AM tomorrow at 9:05 a.m. EST to discuss the charges.
Brandon Jennings Update and NBA's Age Limit
Posted on November 15, 2008Luis Fernández and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress have an update on Brandon Jennings--the 19-year-old American basketball star who opted to play professionally Italy while waiting to become eligible for the 2009 NBA Draft--is doing in Rome. In addition to living in a rent-free luxury apartment in downtown Rome, among many other perks, Jennings is earning around $1 million this year, after tax, between basketball and endorsement income (in fact, he stands to earn more in endorsement income this year than any pick from the 2008 NBA Draft, save for the top three players selected, Michael Beasely, Derrick Rose, and O...
Trevor Hoffman Doesn't Get a Gold Watch from the Padres
Posted on November 13, 2008It would be interesting to hear from any sports agent readers of this blog on their reaction to how the San Diego Padres informed Trevor Hoffman--who's pitched for the Padres for the last 15 years--that his contract offer to pitch next season had been rescinded:The Padres informed Hoffman not in person with a one-on-one conversation, or a hand-written note, or even with a phone callInstead, they sent his reps a fax...
New Orleans, Gambling, and the NBA
Posted on November 13, 2008The Times-Picayune has an interesting story up about Phil Jackson?s reaction to an advertisement for Harrah?s New Orleans Casino in the visiting locker room in the New Orleans Arena. Here?s what Jackson said:We talked about this last year?.We thought it wasn't a good message at all...
Retired NFL Players Win Suit Against NFLPA
Posted on November 10, 2008According to an AP report, the jury awarded the class of retired NFL players $28.1 million in damages?including $21 million in punitive damages? in its suit against the NFL Players Association.As the report notes:Hall of Fame cornerback Herb Adderley filed the lawsuit last year on behalf of 2,056 retired players who contend the union failed to actively pursue marketing deals on their behalf with video games, trading cards and others sports products...
Spies are Among Us
Posted on November 08, 2008Ironically, on the same day that I'm at Seton Hall University School of Law (yesterday) speaking about the overly broad discretion afforded the commissioner under the NFL's personal conduct policy implemented by Roger Goodell last year, the Wall Street Journal's Hannah Karp published a really interesting piece on how NFL teams are now spying on the players off the field (Why the NFL Spies on its Players, 11/7/08)...
The political predictors of sports
Posted on November 05, 2008I was thinking this morning about writing something on the boon Barack Obama's victory would be to Oregon State recruiting, but Mike beat me to it. So let me mention some fun links between sports and this election.1) The election to which this one is most-often compared (in terms of potentially marking an ideological and generational sea change behind an eloquent leader) is Ronald Reagan's win in 1980...
Will Likely Increase in Marginal Tax Rates Prompt Rush to Signing Bonuses?
Posted on November 05, 2008Interesting point raised in an Associated Press article:Some baseball agents already are thinking about trying to beat a possible tax increase for their well-paid clients under an Obama administration. President-elect Barack Obama has proposed increasing the top federal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39...
President Obama and Oregon State Recuriting
Posted on November 05, 2008Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg has an interesting column on how Oregon State men's basketball head coach Craig Robinson might benefit by the fact that his brother-in-law is President-Elect Barack Obama. The column is excerpted below.* * *You will end up at Oregon State, even though the Beavers finished 0-18 in the conference last season and even though only one OSU player -- Brent Barry -- is in the NBA...
Lawyers as Athletic Directors
Posted on November 04, 2008Last week, Indiana University hired Fred Glass, an IU alum and Indianapolis attorney, as its Athletic Director. According to the Associated Press, Glass has "no experience in athletic department administration, but does have a long track record of bringing major sporting events to Indianapolis, developing budgets and fundraising...
Decision 2008: Should the BCS Stay or Go?
Posted on November 04, 2008Although there are obviously more important issues at stake in the 2008 Presidential Election, the elimination of the computer-oriented "Bowl Championship Series" system (better known as the BCS) would be preferred by one of the two persons who will become our next President...
The Redskins and the ADA
Posted on November 03, 2008Does the Americans with Disabilities Act require stadium owners to provide hearing-impaired fans equal access to aural content provided in stadiums?That was the question presented to Judge Alexander Williams of the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland in Shane Feldman (no relation), et al...
Chase Utley's F Word
Posted on November 03, 2008Chase Utley, the second baseman for the world champion Philadelphia Phillies could have given some local Philadelphia television stations major administrative and financial headaches when he used the "F word" to describe his elation at his team's accomplishment...
Police Protection from Invasion of Privacy by the Press
Posted on November 02, 2008In its relentless pursuit to verify whether it was former Knicks coach Isiah Thomas who overdosed on sleeping pills on Oct. 23 in the privacy of his home located in the Town of Harrison, New York, the press finally obtained the police report last Thursday evening...
NY Times Examines NBA's Age Limit and Youth Basketball
Posted on November 02, 2008I'm honored to have my study "NBA Players That Get in Trouble with the Law: Do Age and Education Level Matter?" discussed in today's New York Times in a fascinating story by Tommy Craggs on basketball phenomenon Renardo Sidney and the developing business relationship between the NBA and NCAA...
More Discussion on Sports Journalism Ethics
Posted on October 27, 2008NCAA Champion Magazine's Gary Brown wrote an interesting feature article titled, Truth Be Told?, which highlights the sports journalism ethics problem that I have been writing about extensively over the past several months. Here are some excerpts:At no time in history have information, analysis and interpretation been so plentiful in sports journalism...
Recent Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on October 27, 2008Recent scholarship includes:Walter T. Champion, Jr., The O. J. trial as a metaphor for racism in sports, 33 THURGOOD MARSHALL LAW REVIEW 157 (2007) andré douglas pond cummings, Pushing weight, 33 THURGOOD MARSHALL LAW REVIEW 95 (2007)Timothy Davis, Tort liability of coaches for injuries to professional athletes: overcoming policy and doctrinal barriers, 76 UMKC LAW REVIEW 571 (2008)A...
Sports Law Symposium at Villanova University School of Law This Saturday
Posted on October 21, 2008I look forward to joining Howard, Marc, Jeffrey Standen, and others at Villanova University School of Law this Saturday (Oct. 25) for the 2008 Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal's sympsoium on "The House that Taxpayers Built: Stadiums, Speech, and Public Funding...
MLBPA Claims to Have Evidence Baseball Teams Colluded Against Barry Bonds
Posted on October 21, 2008ESPN recently reported that the Major League Baseball Players Association ("MLBPA") claims to have uncovered evidence that certain Major League Baseball teams colluded against Barry Bonds in violation of Article XX(E) of the Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)...
2008 MLB Salary Report Card
Posted on October 20, 2008Since 2005, I have been posting my Annual MLB Salary Report Card, which tends to prove each year a relatively weak correlation between a team's success and its total payroll. [Here are my past reports for 2005, 2006 and 2007.] This year's report leads to the same conclusion (based upon the USA Today salary database and rounded to the nearest million)...
Seton Hall Sports Law Symposium
Posted on October 19, 2008On November 7, the Seton Hall University School of Law Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law is hosting The 2008 Seton Hall Sports & Entertainment Law Symposium: From the Arena to the Streets - The Pressures Placed on Athletes, Entertainers, and Management...
Does anti-discrimination law require ESPN to suspend Lou Holtz over "Hitler" comments?
Posted on October 18, 2008As I was trying to set up my TiVo to record last night's Hawai`i-Boise State game, I was, as most ESPN viewers at the time likely were, shocked to hear Lou Holtz observe, "Hitler was a great leader too." Holtz was commenting on Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez; his comments clearly upset co-hosts Rece Davis and Mark May...
FCC as Race Car Sponsor?
Posted on October 17, 2008Today's issue of Multichannel News reported that the Federal Communications Commission has decided to follow the lead of the U.S. Postal Service and become a sponsor of a team, in this case NASCAR driver David Gilliland, who agreed to use his No. 38 to display an advertisement trumpeting the conversion of the television signal from the sixty plus year old analog standard to digital...
Kansas State Raises the Compensation Bar of Assistant Coaches
Posted on October 16, 2008While much is talked about the exorbitant salaries of college head coaches, Rivals.coms's Bob McClellan has done some interesting research on the salaries of assistant basketball coaches (Kansas State's Hill Earns Surprising Salary). McClellan found one contract that sticks out like a sore thumb -- that of Kansas State's Dalonte Hill who will now be earning $420,000 in total compensation annually for the next four years! For the next four years, Hill will receive a base salary of $150,000 and "additional compensation" of $270,000...
MLS and ?New? Media (and the ice cream of the future)
Posted on October 15, 2008The Sports Business Journal has an interesting article discussing DC United?s decision to develop and maintain its own website rather than use the centralized site created by the MLS (h/t to J Hutcherson over at ussoccerplayers.com). Why the move? Well, according to the article, one reason is the ?growing impatience among MLS teams as the league continues to develop a digital strategy for the future...
MSG New Media Antitrust Claim Survives Motion to Dismiss
Posted on October 13, 2008While another NHL regular season has kicked off (faced off?) with relatively little fanfare, the MSG-NHL antitrust battle continues (see earlier posts by Marc here and here, and by Rick here). MSG can finally claim a victory, as Judge Preska denied the NHL's motion to dismiss with respect to the antitrust claims brought against its "New Media Strategy...
More on Baylor and Age Discrimination
Posted on October 11, 2008Mike's post on the possibility (however remote) that Elgin Baylor was a victim of age discrimination reminds me of some things I wrote after the $10-million verdict against the Knicks and Isiah Thomas for sexual harassment. I criticized the NBA's refusal to take any action action Thomas or the Knicks, and particularly its rationale that this simply was a "civil matter...
Was Former LA Clippers Executive Elgin Baylor Discriminated Against Because of Age?
Posted on October 11, 2008I attempt to answer the legal implications of that question on ClipperBlog, which is run by ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz. Hope you have a chance to check it out.
Job Opportunities in Sports Law
Posted on October 07, 2008Clay Chandler of the Mississippi Business Journal recently interviewed me to discuss job opportunities in sports law and how while a career in sports law is commonly viewed as a career as a sports agent, there are a variety of sports law fields that go less noticed -- sports litigation, NCAA compliance work, IP work work at a firm that involves sports law, working as counsel to a team, including a minor league team etc...
Luke Walton Stalked by Woman
Posted on October 07, 2008When the subject of "stalking" comes up, normally it's in the context of a male stalking a female. But with celebrities, it often seems to be the other way around, with the male being stalked by a female--David Letterman being stalked by Margaret Mary Ray and Richard Gere being stalked by Ursula Reichert-Habbishaw being two prime examples...
Monday Morning Sports Law
Posted on October 06, 2008Some Monday morning links:* Pete Thamel of the New York Times has a really interesting piece on how Brandon Jennings--the 19-year-old American basketball star who opted to play professionally Italy while waiting to become eligible for the NBA Draft--is doing in Rome...
Chicago Cubs and the Curse of Legal Formalism
Posted on October 05, 2008On Saturday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cubs 3-1, completely a dominating three-game sweep in the National League Division Series in which they outscored the Cubs 20-6. Thus will it be more than 100 years between world championships for the Cubs, who famously last won in 1908...
Court Orders Rehearing in CDT Case
Posted on October 01, 2008The New York Times reports that yesterday a federal appeals court ordered a rehearing of a 2006 ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. (CDT). In 2004, search warrants were issued authorizing the seizure of drug test records and specimens for ten named Balco-connected players...
Catching Up With "Failed" Prep-to-Pro Jonathan Bender
Posted on October 01, 2008A couple of years ago, I blogged on the retirement of Jonathan Bender from the NBA ("Not Being Randy Livingston: The Jonathan Bender Story"). Bender, routinely cited as a failed high schooler-turned-NBA player, retired at age 25, due to chronic knee problems...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on October 01, 2008Recently published scholarship includes:Ashley J. Becnel Student article, Friday night lights reach the Supreme Court: how a case about high school football [Brentwood] changed the First Amendment, 15 SPORTS LAWYER'S JOURNAL 327 (2008)Brett Celedonia, Student article, Flying objects: arena liability for fan injuries in hockey and other sports, 15 SPORTS LAWYER'S JOURNAL 115 (2008)Kristin Jo Custer, Note, From mice to men: genetic doping in international sports, 30 HASTINGS INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW 181 (2007)Jonathan B...
Just Win (or get fired for cause), Baby.
Posted on September 30, 2008Espn.com is reporting that Al Davis has fired Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin. The news isn?t surprising, but what has caused a stir is that Raiders announced that they do not plan to pay Kiffin the remainder of the salary due under his three-year, $6 million contract...
UCLA Sports Law Panel Today on NCAA Compliance
Posted on September 30, 2008Nate Jones, a 2L at UCLA Law School and author of Jones on the NBA, lets me know about a panel discussion today hosted by the UCLA Sports Law Federation on NCAA compliance and other legal issues surrounding amateur sports, including those involving Brandon Jennings, O...
The NFL Loses its Voice
Posted on September 29, 2008Although fans of the NFL may not recognize his name, most fans can immediately recognize the distinctive voice of John Facenda. For many years, Facenda was the voice of the NFL, narrating weekly highlights for NFL films with his deep baritone voice. Along with a great soundtrack, Facenda?s narration transformed ordinary NFL action into an extraordinary television event (here?s one of his best)...
Upcoming Sports Law Conference at Marquette University Law School
Posted on September 29, 2008Marquette University Law School Professor Paul Anderson, who is Associate Director of the National Sports Law Institute, has let me know of what should be an excellent sports event coming in October at Marquette Law:On Friday, October 24, 2008 the National Sports Law Institute of Marquette University Law School will host a conference on Professional Sports: Current Issues and Their Future Implications...
Sports Law Blog Bowl
Posted on September 27, 2008The big sports law news is from college football:Florida International University 35, Toledo 16, with FIU scoring 21 unanswered points in the second half. Put another way: Howard Wasserman's school 35, Geoffrey Rapp's 16.Pursuant to our government-official-style wager, I think Geoff owes me some Tony Packo's sausage.
Sports Media Ethics (or lack thereof), Part III
Posted on September 26, 2008Steve Donohue of SportsBusiness Journal has an interesting piece this week in which he discusses the recent trend of news outlets cutting costs on sports coverage, for example by reducing headcount in recent years, slashing travel budgets and not allowing beat reporters to cover as many away games (Newspaper Cutbacks Slice into Sports Coverage, 9/22/08)...
Pirates sign draft pick, avoid labor confusion
Posted on September 22, 2008A couple of weeks ago, I linked to commentary on a brewing dispute between the Pittsburgh Pirates and their top draft pick, Pedro Alvarez, that threatened to raise some open issues of the labor agreement. Well, the question is moot (the car is mine); the Pirates and Alvarez have agreed on a contract worth approximately $ 6...
Kobé
Posted on September 20, 2008Stevc Dilbeck writes in the L.A. Daily News that Kobe Bryant may decide to leave the NBA and sign with a European club. Our good friend Sonny Vaccaro agrees this is a distinct possibility. Sonny said on a local LA sports talk radio show: "I think there is a great possibility, if for no other reason than he will make his value worth much more than anyone can imagine...
We're Number 119! More on Duke Football
Posted on September 18, 2008It?s time for the latest update on Duke football. Back in June, Mark wrote about Duke?s victory in court over Louisville. Here?s a quick recap: Duke and Louisville agreed to play each other in 2002, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Louisville won the 2002 game by a score of 40-3 (though the final score could very well have been 40-6 if not for a questionable call by the ref), and Duke decided not to play the final three games agreed upon in the contract...
Chicago Sports Law CLE
Posted on September 18, 2008Illinois readers might be interested in the "Sports Law Pairing" CLE event, scheduled for November 6 in Chicago. The agenda features a number of interesting topics. Sports lawyer Eldon Ham, who has taught Chicago-Kent's sports law class for years, will be speaking at the event.
Great New Article on Morals Clauses
Posted on September 14, 2008I've always found morals clauses in player and endorsement contracts to be interesting. Morals clauses give the employing team/company the right to suspend or terminate a contract with a player who engages in "immoral" conduct. Defining what counts as "immoral" can vary considerably by contract; sometimes a criminal conviction is required, other times just an arrest, and still other times non-criminal, yet embarrassing behavior can count (such as someone getting drunk at a charity function)...
Sports Media Ethics (or lack thereof), Part II
Posted on September 13, 2008Today will be remembered by me as the day in which journalism ethics in sports reporting officially died. Jim Wyatt of The Tennessean (and reprinted in USA Today) publishes deeply personal and private discussions between Vince Young and his psychologist regarding contemplations of suicide that Wyatt obtained from a police report...
Re-examining the Place of Race in Sports
Posted on September 11, 2008A webstream of "Re-examining the Place of Race in Sports" featuring John Carlos, Tim Davis and andré douglas pond cummings can be viewed at:http://law.wvu.edu/raceinsportsforumThe West Virginia University College of Law and the Sports and Entertainment Law Society sponsored this fall forum.
USOC Apologizes to 'Masked' Athletes
Posted on September 11, 2008Admitting the impropriety of its demands to four U.S. Olympic athletes to apologize to Beijing Olympic officials for wearing anti-pollution masks, the U.S. Olympic Committee is now apologizing to those athletes. As noted in my earlier blog, the four cyclists -- Sarah Hammer, Jennie Reed, Bobby Leafter and Mike Friedman -- were castigated by the USOC for wearing the masks upon arrival at the Beijing airport...
Update on CBS - NFL Players Fantasy League Dispute
Posted on September 11, 2008In response to the lawsuit filed by CBS against the NFLPA in Minnesota that I mentioned last week, NFL Players Inc., the entity that handles the group licensing and marketing for the players, has filed its own lawsuit this week against CBS in federal court in Miami...
Another Statistic to Measure a Batter's Future Performance
Posted on September 10, 2008If you are one of those people convinced that future performance at the plate can be predicted by using some creative formula and crunching a bunch of numbers, Ron Shandler of USA Today mentions a statistic that I had never heard of before, the "Expected Batting Average" (Batters Don't Always Live Up (or Down) to Expectations):It does start with a batter's ability to distinguish between balls and strikes, which we can measure using his walk/strikeout rate...
Video Evidence and Sporting Events
Posted on September 10, 2008I suppose this was inevitable: Video evidence of alleged public police unconstitutional conduct hits the sports world. Last weekend, East Carolina beat West Virginia in football. ECU fans rushed onto the field to celebrate the victory, encountering police along the way...
New tales of sport and free expression, Part III
Posted on September 09, 2008The new Sports Illustrated reports on the involvement of a number of professional athletes as supporters and activists on behalf of both presidential candidates and suggests we are seeing the return of the activist athlete, thought dead-and-buried in the 1980s and 1990s by players more interested in commerce than politics...
Re-examining the Place of Race in Sports
Posted on September 09, 2008The West Virginia University College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Society is proud to sponsor its Fall Forum, Re-Examining the Place of Race In Sports, to be held this Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. in the Marlyn Lugar Courtroom at the WVU Law Center in Morgantown, West Virginia...
Did Inaction Lead to The Worst Performing U.S. Olympic Boxing Team in History?
Posted on September 09, 2008Whether U.S.A. Boxing Could Have Done More to Get Medal Favorite Gary Russell, Jr. the Opportunity to Compete in the Beijing Gamesby Paul Stuart Haberman, Esq. During the early morning of August 8, 2008, United States Olympian Gary Russell, Jr., the boxing team?s bantamweight (119 lbs...
The Pittsburgh Pirates, Scott Boras, and Pedro Alvarez
Posted on September 09, 2008Mark Fenster (Florida), guesting at PrawfsBlawg, has a great analysis of the ongoing dispute between the Pittsburgh Pirates and their top draft pick (and purported savior) Pedro Alvarez, represented by Scott Boras. Check it out; the situation has gotten very ugly.
New tales of sport and free expression, Part I
Posted on September 07, 2008Some new stories of sport and speech this week. I originally was going to discuss them in one post, but it got too long, so I decided to break it up over the next few days.A blurb in the new Sports Illustrated reports that a fan was kicked out of Yankee Stadium when he tried to leave his seat and go to the bathroom while "God Bless America" was playing during the Seventh Inning Stretch...
New tales of sport and free expression, Part II
Posted on September 07, 2008This one is about two weeks old, but I just heard about it. Rick Reilly at ESPN.com writes about the new policy at the University of Virginia banning all signs at sporting events. The policy apparently was triggered by University objections to students last season wielding signs critical (and calling for the firing) of football coach Al Groh, in violation of a policy against signs bearing derogatory comments, and by the school's a desire to keep the game environment "positive...
The Best Bargains in College Football
Posted on September 05, 2008Winning in college football is one thing, but who's winning without breaking the bank on their coach's salary? Darren Everson of the Wall Street Journal compiled some interesting data on this question. Everson ranks the BCS teams that received votes in last season's final AP poll in order of how big a bargain their coaches were, based on an average of a coach's salary and the "cost per vote" (coach salary divided by the number of AP votes each team received)...
LPGA Rescinds English-Only Suspension Policy
Posted on September 05, 2008Today, the LPGA announced that it would revise its English only language policy to eradicate the draconian consequence of suspension, as reported here earlier this week. According to LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens, the LPGA was enlightened by the serious criticism it came under after announcing its policy...
CBS Sues NFLPA for Demanding Licensing Fees
Posted on September 05, 2008Eric Fisher of SportsBusiness Journal reports today that CBS Interactive Inc. sued the NFLPA earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, claiming that the NFLPA is wrongly pressuring CBS to pay licensing fees to operate fantasy football games this season...
Where did the best sports agents go to law school?
Posted on September 03, 2008At Moneylaw, Louisville law dean Jim Chen discusses a profile of football agent Ben Dogra from today's New York Times. Dean Chen notes:Scott Boras attended McGeorge School of Law. Theo Epstein went to law school at the University of San Diego. Dogra...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on September 02, 2008Recently published scholarship includes: Phillip C. Blackman, Student Article, The NCAA?s academic performance program: academic reform or academic racism?, 15 UCLA ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW 225 (2008)Deborah L. Brake and Verna L. Williams, The Heart of the Game: putting race and educational equity at the center of Title IX...
Building a Successful Franchise Takes Time...and Patience
Posted on August 30, 2008In yesterday's edition of the Washington Times, Thom Loverro rips the management of the Washington Nationals for its poor performance, including Nationals president Stan Kasten for not achieving in two years the level of success he had as president of the Atlanta Braves (Kasten's Impact Not Visible):If Kasten is not steering this ship - and it's difficult to believe that he is - then he needs to find a life preserver and jump because, as the great Micheal Ray Richardson once said, "The ship be sinking...
Knight Commission on NCAA, College Player Publicity Rights, and Fantasy Sports
Posted on August 30, 2008Knight Commission co-chairs William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the university system of Maryland, and R. Gerald Turner, president of Southern Methodist University, have an interesting op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times on college athletes being used in fantasy sports (a topic which Rick blogged about in July)...
LPGA English Only Requirement
Posted on August 28, 2008The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has been at the center of a media firestorm for the past several days. On August 20th, it announced that it was adopting a policy that requires its member golfers to speak English proficiently or face suspension...
Two (Resold) Tickets to Paradise
Posted on August 27, 2008As a NY Jets fan, the start of a new NFL season brings new hope. Hope that this might be the first time that the Jets make it to a Super Bowl in my lifetime, and hope that someone I know (let?s call him, ?Fabe Geldman?) does not buy counterfeit tickets outside the stadium...
The NCAA's "No Agent" Rule Discriminates Against Baseball Players
Posted on August 27, 2008Aaron Fitt of Baseball America wrote an excellent article this week that really delves into the issue of the impracticality of the NCAA's "no agent" rule in the sport of baseball (Secret Agent Deals: NCAA Has Rules on Agents, But They're Rarely Enforced, subscription only)...
When young players are "too good"
Posted on August 26, 2008No time to analyze this, but I wanted to call attention to this story about a youth baseball league in New Haven that has prohibited a 9-year-old on one team from pitching because he is "too good" (he throws 40 MPH, apparently with control) and now has taken steps to disband the team...
NFL Seeking Congressional Support to Exempt Top Exec Salaries from Public View
Posted on August 25, 2008As Howard and TaxProf Paul Caron noted last week, the NFL is fighting public disclosure of top league executive salaries (other than that of the commissioner). According to an article published on BNA today, the NFL will continue this effort. The article features comments by attorney Martin Gold (Covington & Burling), who explained:"Discussions are ongoing to see if there is a consensus among parties in Congress who have taken an interest in this matter...
Separate marathons
Posted on August 23, 2008Why don't they run the men's and women's Olympic marathons together? They run every other world-class marathon together. And this is the one sport (or event) in which space, rules, and logistics allow the separate competitions to be played simultaneously...
Tom Crean Better be "Mr. Clean"
Posted on August 20, 2008Tropical storm Fay is getting closer and has caused us to shut down school today and tomorrow. So it's a good time to blog about IU's new contract with head basketball coach Tom Crean signed last week and announced yesterday -- a 10-year deal that could be worth up to $23...
The Return of The Single Entity Defense for Sports Leagues
Posted on August 19, 2008The Seventh Circuit ruled yesterday in American Needle v. NFL (No. 07-4006) that NFL teams act as a single entity ?when promoting NFL football through licensing teams? intellectual property? and are therefore not subject to scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act...
Two Olympic thoughts . . .
Posted on August 15, 2008sort of related to law and public policy.1) This week, I watched the women's beach volleyball (a sport I actually have enjoyed watching) match between USA's Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh (they of the frolicking with W while Russia invaded Georgia) and a team from Cuba...
The NCAA is at it again
Posted on August 15, 2008The NCAA is at it again, committing what a parent to a 20 year old college athlete calls ?Gestapo tactics? by interviewing his son without an attorney late into the night prior to his getting ready to pitch in a crucial regional championship game. Hours before the game, and presumably as a result of the interview, Oklahoma State declared Andy Oliver ineligible...
Pro Sports Team Owners' Contributions to McCain and Obama
Posted on August 15, 2008The political leanings of owners of NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL teams are often unknown. To the extent the media reports on those owners, it's normally sports reporters who do so, and normally in the context of the team they own or the league in which they are associated...
Executive Compensation and Professional Sports
Posted on August 13, 2008Paul Caron (TaxProf) and Verity Winship (guesting at Prawfs) both discuss recent efforts by the NFL to avoid federal rules requiring not-for-profit organizations to disclose all executives earning in excess of $ 150,000. The New York Times story on the NFL is here...
Blogging the Olympics
Posted on August 12, 2008At Opinio Juris, a top international-law blog, they have a bunch of posts on the Olympics, including excellent commentary on Olympic arbitration procedures, the role of citizenship in Olympic-team membership, and the influence of professionalism. They will be doing this throughout the Olympics, so it might be worth checking over there periodically...
Recent Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on August 11, 2008Recent scholarship includes:James R. Devine, The Duke lacrosse matter as a case study of the right to reply to prejudicial pretrial extrajudicial publicity under Rule 3.6(c), 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 175 (2008)Aaron Brooks and David Davies, Exploring student-athlete compensation: why the NCAA cannot afford to leave athletes uncompensated, 34 JOURNAL OF CITIES & URBAN LAW 747(2008) Todd Crosset and Lisa Masteralexis, The changing collective definition of collegiate sport and the potential demise of Title IX protections, 34 J...
Presidential Debate Moderators as Umpires
Posted on August 11, 2008Over on The Presidential Debate Blog, Aaron Zelinsky has a really interesting piece entitled Debate Moderators as Umpires. Here is an excerpt:* * *The problem is that a debate moderator, like a judge, (and as Professor Howard Wasserman points out in attack on the judge-umpire analogy at Sports Law Blog , the role of an umpire and almost any other decision maker) is more complicated than merely applying a fixed set of rules...
The Web Olympics
Posted on August 08, 2008Apologies to NBC, but I have just seen the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Online and Live. Superb picture quality. Without commercials.And if you wish to brush up on your high school German, German television coverage of the ceremony would help...
Academic Free Agency and Sports Free Agency
Posted on August 08, 2008Apropos of the most recent example of college coaches signing long-term contracts that are not really long-term and the broader question of movement of players and coaches and comparisons to academics, comes Clayton Gillette's Law Faculty as Free Agents...
The "Pay-for-Play" Debate
Posted on August 07, 2008Matt Winkeljohn of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution wrote an excellent article 10 days ago that debates the issue of paying amateur athletes, including the use of players' likenesses in video games (Advocates, NCAA Take Sides on Paying Student-Athletes, 7/27/09)...
No Negotiation Required Between KU and Self
Posted on August 07, 2008It is reported today that Kansas and basketball coach Bill Self reduced to writing a contract extension announced last April, which we debated at length here on the blog. It's a 10-year, $30 million contract, and KU athletic director, Lew Perkins, said it was easy to work out:I wouldn't even use the word "negotiate...
Unanimous Jury Upholds ATP's Tournament Restructuring Plan
Posted on August 06, 2008Yesterday, it was reported that jurors unanimously decided "the ATP did not enter into any contract or conspiracy that might have harmed competition, and that there is no market that it monopolized or attempted to monopolize," when it reorganized its tournament structure whereby top-ranked ATP players would be required to play in each of eight top-tier tournaments, known as the Master Series 1000, and four of 11 tournaments in the second-tier Master Series 500...
United States Olympic Committee's Behavior Policies
Posted on August 06, 2008Let's call this column a tale of two behavior policies. Part I -- The USOC's Charm School In a move that reminded me of attempts of my seven-year-old son's counsellor's to ensure good behavior at summer camp, the USOC began an "ambassador program" to teach all U...
More against the Judge-Umpire Analogy
Posted on August 05, 2008Some recent discussion of the analogies between judges and umpires (or other sports officials) over the past few days at the Volokh Conspiracy (here, here, here, and here) and Erike Lilliquist at CoOp (here). Ilya Somin calls the analogy "a good shorthand way of emphasizing the judge's duty to set aside his policy preferences and be impartial between litigants...
Interview on Celtics Stuff Live to Discuss Tim Donaghy Scandal
Posted on August 03, 2008Quick scheduling note: I'll be a guest tonight on Celtics Stuff Live to discuss the legal fallout from the Tim Donaghy sentencing, a topic which I recently discussed on CNN and wrote about on SI.com. I'll be on from about 8:00 to 8:30 p.m. Hope you can listen.
Jim Brown's Lawsuit Against Video Game Company Puts Fantasy League Ruling to the Test
Posted on August 03, 2008Bloomberg News reports that Jim Brown filed a lawsuit last week against Sony and Electronic Arts alleging that the unauthorized use of the character in the "Madden" football video game, part of the "Real Old School Teams and Players'' series -- a muscular, African-American running back wearing the number 32 jersey who is featured in the game's "All Brown's Team" -- violates his right of publicity...
Obama v. MacCain: No one is leading because the game has not started yet
Posted on August 01, 2008The line between politics and sports frequently is blurred, but rarely more so than in the "horse-race" coverage of political campaigns, which treats the campaign as an ongoing game. Thus, the constant story, besides criticism of the MSM, is the narrative, based on polls, that Obama is "winning" and McCain is "losing" and the question is by how much and whether Obama should be leading by more and who is gaining or losing ground...
More on Duke Lacrosse at SEALS
Posted on August 01, 2008For those interested, the audio of my SEALS panel is here. Download DukePanel0730.mp3 I thought it went very well, an excellent, vibrant discussion. We managed to hit almost all the points and issues I wanted to hit, although not necessarily in any expected order; in fact, we got knocked out of expected order after the first answer...
Fantasy Leagues Now Profiting from the Likenesses of College Athletes
Posted on July 30, 2008Of course, I couldn't withhold my thoughts on today's press release that CBSSports.com has decided to make millions using the names and performance statistics of college football and basketball players in a fantasy league game without paying for it. There are a couple of points in the press release that I need to address:1...
Tim Donaghy Sentencing
Posted on July 30, 2008Much has been written about yesterday's sentencing of disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy to 15 months in prison. Here are some stories that may be of interest:* I wrote a piece on SI.com on the sentencing. My thanks to the folks on Celtics Blog for their nice words about it...
IOC lifts Iraq's Olympic Suspension
Posted on July 29, 2008Last week, Aaron Zelinsky argued that the IOC should reverse its ban on Iraqi players from the Olympics. Today, the IOC did just that (though only two of the seven banned athletes remain eligible to participate in the Olympics, meaning the other five won't benefit from the IOC's reversal).
Duke Lacrosse at SEALS
Posted on July 28, 2008Tomorrow I will be at SEALS, hosting and moderating a panel titled The Phases and Faces of the Duke Lacrosse Controversy. This will be a moderated conversation about the multiple facets, details, and issues of this still-ongoing legal controversy. Panelists include KC Johnson of Brooklyn College (author of a bestselling book on the case), James Coleman of Duke Law (who chaired a University committee that investigated the case), Michael Gerhardt of UNC Law, Lyrissa Lidsky of Florida Law, and Angela Davis of American/Washington College...
Minor League Pitcher Charged With Felonious Assault in Brawl
Posted on July 26, 2008The AP reports that Peoria Chiefs pitcher Julio Castillo will be charged with felonious assault in the aftermath of a brawl between the Chiefs and the Dayton Dragons. Castillo has been arraigned and ordered to give up his passport.During a bench-clearing brawl (which you can view in its lengthy entirety here or here, Castillo seems to have thrown a baseball towards a member of the opposing team, or perhaps (as some reports suggested, but as the video seems to contradict) towards the opposing team's dugout...
Testimony of Expert Witness for Hamburg Almost Leads to a Mistrial
Posted on July 25, 2008SportsBusiness Journal's Daniel Kaplan reports that during the ATP-Hamburg trial yesterday, one of Hamburg's expert witnesses, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, took with him to the witness stand a 17-page document on which he apparently based his testimony, even though witnesses are not allowed to bring notes up to the stand (Zimbalist Testimony Almost Results in Mistrial in ATP-Hamburg Trial, 7/24/08, subscription only)...
Two Good Links
Posted on July 24, 2008Eric McErlain of The Sporting News has an extensive article on Russia's nascent Kontinental Hockey League, which may soon rival the NHL in attracting top players, including those from Canada and the United States. Eric considers, among other points, the legal and economic significance of the lack of player transfer agreement between the NHL and the KHL...
Aaron Zelinsky's "Let Iraq Play"
Posted on July 24, 2008We received an excellent submission from Aaron Zelinsky, a rising 2L at Yale Law School, concerning today's IOC decision to ban Iraq from Olympic participation.* * *Let Iraq Play After months of public outcry, with the Olympics mere weeks away, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took dramatic action...
IASL Congress on Sports Law
Posted on July 24, 2008On November 28th and 29th, the International Association of Sports Law (IASL) will be hosting its 14th International Congress on Sports Law in Athens, Greece. Papers on various international sports law topics may be submitted, and selected papers will be announced at the Congress...
Where's the Harm to the Consumer?
Posted on July 23, 2008This week the ATP Tour is in court defending its recently-adopted scheduling format against Hamburg. A jury, who reportedly appears to possess very little knowledge of professional tennis, will soon determine whether the anticompetitive effects of the ATP's scheduling changes for 2009 outweigh its procompetitive effects...
Top Twenty
Posted on July 22, 2008Paul Caron of TaxProf released his ranking of the Top 35 law-prof-edited blogs, by visitors and page views. Sports Law Blog was number 20, with more than 304,000 visitors and more than 512,000 page views from June 2007 until June 2008.Thanks to all of you for helping to make this site successful and fun.
NY Times Story on ATP Antitrust Lawsuit
Posted on July 22, 2008Michael Brick of the New York Times interviews Geoff for a story today on the ATP lawsuit. The story is excerpted below.* * *The antitrust lawsuit in United States District Court promises to reveal financial arrangements of a plan known as Brave New World, an effort by the ATP Tour to reinvigorate the sport...
Third Circuit Vacates 'Wardrobe Malfunction' Fine
Posted on July 21, 2008In a long-awaited and hardly surprising ruling, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out the Federal Communication Commission's $550,000 fine against CBS for the now-infamous Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake breast-bearing (all 9/16 of a second) 2004 Super Bowl halftime show...
Catching Up with Some Links
Posted on July 21, 2008I've been meaning to post on these stories, hope you have a chance to check them out:~ USA Today's Douglas Robinson interviews Rick and me for his story on the ATP antitrust lawsuit, the trial for which began today in the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on July 18, 2008Recently published scholarship:Robert Ambrose, Note, The NFL makes it rain: through strict enforcement of its conduct policy, the NFL protects its integrity, wealth, and popularity, 34 WILLIAM MITCHELL LAW REVIEW 1069 (2008) Robert M. Bernhard, Comment, MLS? designated player rule: has David Beckham single-handedly destroyed Major League Soccer?s single-entity antitrust defense?, 18 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 413 (2008)Michael E...
Max Mosley's S&M Escape Leads to Privacy Lawsuit
Posted on July 17, 2008You have to give Max Mosley, the President of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), credit for fighting back. After secretly-recorded videos revealed him in a sado-masochistic role-play with five women (paid about $5,000 in cash for a five-hour session), he has decided to sue and hold on to his position at the helm of the organization...
Final thoughts on WVU v. Rodriguez
Posted on July 12, 2008Cross-Posted at WVU v. Rodriguez: The Legal PerspectiveSo WVU v. Rodriguez ends (as most cases do) with the whimper of settlement. I want to mention three significant and potentially lasting lessons and questions from the case.The importance of forum selectionWVU filed suit in December 2007 and the case settled in July 2008, meaning it was alive for just over six months...
Boston Globe Feature Article on Marvin Miller
Posted on July 11, 2008Stan Grossfeld of the Boston Globe has an excellent feature today on Marvin Miller, the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association (he ran it from 1966 to 1982). Miller, 91, explains why he doesn't want to be in baseball's Hall of Fame...
Baseball on the International Front
Posted on July 10, 2008Kevin Baxter, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, has an interesting piece in Baseball America this week about an ongoing federal investigation into bonus skimming in the Dominican Republic involving MLB club personnel. Federal investigators are interviewing personnel from all 30 teams...
Rich Rodriguez settles with WVU
Posted on July 09, 2008Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez and West Virginia University, his former employer, have settled the school's lawsuit over the $ 4 million buyout. WVU will receive the entire $ 4 million, $ 1.5 million from Rodriguez in three annual payments beginning in January 2010 and $ 2...
New SI.com Column on Rogers Clemens' Legal Woes
Posted on July 08, 2008I have a new column on SI.com entitled "Answering Key Questions about Clemens' Growing Legal Problems." I examine the FBI and IRS' investigations into Clemens and evaluate recent developments in his civil litigation with Brian McNamee.Hope you have a chance to check it out.
Vick Files for Bankruptcy
Posted on July 08, 2008Yesterday, Michael Vick filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in Newport News, VA. For those of you with PACER access, click here. The filing number is 08-50775-FJS (Michael D. Vick). He is represented by Paul Campsen and Dennis Lewandowski of Kaufman & Canoles, P...
Umpires, Judges, and Interpretation
Posted on July 08, 2008Like many commentators, I thought John Roberts' suggestion at his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing that judges are simply baseball umpires--calling balls and strikes and not making any value or policy judgments and exercising no discretion-was, at best, fatuous...
What impact will the ATP antitrust lawsuit have on non-team sports governing bodies?
Posted on July 07, 2008Two months ago, I argued that sound policy reasons exist to support the application of an antitrust exemption for professional tennis and golf relating to rules and decisions of the governing bodies with respect to playing conditions and other issues that primarily affect the players, such as format of play, the number and location of tournaments, how they are going to be ranked, etc...
More on Defining Sport
Posted on July 07, 2008A while back, I wrote about defining sport as a concept, focusing on objectivity in scoring as the key limiting characteristic. At the Sports Economist, Rodney Fort (a sports economist at Michigan) offers a four-part definition in the Comments that I think can almost fully endorse (with some caveats and questions):1...
Situationist Torts
Posted on July 07, 2008Jon Hanson and I recently posted on SSRN a draft of our forthcoming law review article, Situationist Torts, 41 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review _ (forthcoming, 2008). Our article?s abstract is excerpted below. * * * This Article calls for a situationist approach to teaching law, particularly tort law...
OSU Pitcher Sues NCAA and Former Advisor
Posted on July 05, 2008On June 17th, I discussed the situation involving Oklahoma State pitcher Andy Oliver and the NCAA's decision in late May to declare him ineligible after he received a bill for $113,000 from his advisor, MLB certified agent Robert Baratta, whom Oliver recently terminated...
Re-examining the Place of Race in Sports
Posted on July 02, 2008The West Virginia University College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Society is proud to present its Fall 2008 Sports Law Forum, "Re-examining the Place of Race in Sports." This event will take place on September 11, 2008 in Morgantown, WV at the West Virginia University Law Center...
KSRO Interview on Floyd Landis
Posted on July 02, 2008Yesterday I was interviewed on KSRO News Talk (California) to discuss the Floyd Landis decision. The interview can be heard at this link. Hope you have a chance to listen.
Sanity in Seattle
Posted on July 02, 2008About 45 minutes before the scheduled release of a verdict in the case pitting the City of Seattle and the owners of the SuperSonics, the parties announced a settlement, whereby the team would pay the city a sum of at least $45 million, with a possibility of another $30 million payment if the city does not secure a new NBA franchise within the next five years...
CAS Disqualifies Landis and Strips Him of Tour De France Title
Posted on July 01, 2008On June 30th, cyclist Floyd Landis lost his final climb -- an attempt to retake his Tour de France title. Not only was not he not exonerated, but the three member panel rendered a ruling that at times, bordered on the hostile. [The 58-page opinion is found here]After winning the most famous of all cycling events in 2006, he tested positive for performance-enhancing substances...
Justice Alito?s Comments on Holmes?s Opinion in Federal Baseball
Posted on June 25, 2008"That to which it is incident, the exhibition, although made for money would not be called trade or commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words. As it is put by the defendants, personal effort, nor related to production, is not a subject of commerce...
Hank Steinbrenner, Chien-Ming Wang, Salary Arbitration and the DH
Posted on June 25, 2008On Sunday, June 15, New York Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang tore a tendon in his right foot and suffered ligament damage while rounding third base during a 13-0 victory and the finale of a series sweep against the Houston Astros. Wang improved his record to 8-2 for the season while lowering his ERA to 4...
Green Bag Call for Papers: Baseball and the Law
Posted on June 25, 2008We are seeking submissions for our 2010 Almanac & Reader, which will have a baseball-and-the-law theme.We want scholarly essays on topics related to baseball and the law. We hope to select 12 essays, each between 1500 and 5000 words long. Topics in which we are particularly (but not exclusively) interested are: (a) baseball and ? civil rights law; criminal law; defamation law; intellectual property law; international law; labor law; media law; property law; tax law; tort law; transportation law; (b) baseball players who were or became lawyers; and (c) roles played by lawyers in baseball...
Bad Duke Football Team Wins in Court
Posted on June 25, 2008Being a bad football team paid off for Duke University, which won a breach of contract lawsuit because in large part because of its unsuccessful track record and a contract clause that required the plaintiff, the University of Louisville to find an adequate substitute school after Duke backed out of a obligation to pay the better school...
Does Shaq Have First Amendment Claim Against Phoenix Sheriff Who Took Away His Badge Over Kobe-Rap?
Posted on June 24, 2008We've blogged before about Shaq's amusing part-time role as a volunteer reserve sheriff (see my post here and Mike's post here). After moving from Miami to Phoenix as part of the "worst trade ever", Deputy Diesel resumed his part-time law enforcement career with the Maricopa County Sheriff...
Book Recommendation: Money Players
Posted on June 23, 2008I recently enjoyed reading Marc Isenberg's Money Players: A Pro Athlete's Guide to Success in Sports, Business & Life. I enthusiastically recommend it to any sports fan, but particularly any player, team executive, agent, or prospective agent.Over the course of 23 chapters, Money Players thoughtfully details every imaginable business aspect of becoming and being a professional athlete--from selecting an agent to maximizing media relations to understanding the duties and rights of being a member of a players' union--and does so in very clear and precise ways...
More on Sonics Lawsuit
Posted on June 23, 2008Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times has a terrific new piece on the increasingly-acrimonious lawsuit between the Sonics and the city of Seattle. The article is entitled "Sonics Trial: What's Under All the Drama?" He interviews my good friend Professor Al Brophy and me, along with others, for the story...
George Carlin and some sports
Posted on June 23, 2008Comedian George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure at age 71.At Concurring Opinions, Deven Desai links to one of Carlin's funniest routines--comparing baseball with football. Worth a watch.
The New Republic's Feature Article on Sonny Vaccaro
Posted on June 23, 2008In this week's The New Republic, Jason Zengerle has a terrific, in-depth (nearly 6,000 words) article on basketball legend Sonny Vacarro and his arguments against the NCAA and the current age eligibility rule for the NBA draft. I was interviewed for the article, which is entitled The Pivot...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on June 22, 2008Recently published scholarship:James J. LaRocca, No trust at the NFL: league?s network passes rule of reason analysis, 15 UCLA ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW 87 (2008) Mitchell Nathanson, What?s in a name or, better yet, what?s it worth? Cities, sport teams and the right of publicity, 58 CASE WESTERN RESERVE LAW REVIEW 167 (2007)Justin F...
The Essence of Success - Sports and Otherwise
Posted on June 21, 2008Every now and then we get a glimpse of the essence of something ? that special ingredient among many that is most responsible for whatever it is. Without malt powder, it?s only a milk shake kind of stuff. Tiger Woods by all accounts is a successful golfer...
Article on Coach Liability in Pro Athlete Injury Cases
Posted on June 19, 2008From the Tort Law Professor Blog:Sports law casebook author and Wake Forest Professor Timothy Davis has posted Tort Liability of Coaches for Injuries to Professional Athletes: Overcoming Policy and Doctrinal Barriers. Here's an abstract of the article:The resolution of seemingly straightforward disputes that arise in sports often require courts to invoke rules from several substantive areas of the law...
NCAA "Singles Out" Baseball Player for Not Paying Advisor
Posted on June 17, 2008Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal (OSU Case Raises Questions About NCAA Rules for Agents, 6/16/08) reports that Oklahoma State University pitcher Andy Oliver was declared ineligible late last month by the NCAA after he received a bill for $113,000 from his "advisor," MLB certified agent Robert Baratta...
Seattle Pins Hopes on Specific Performance to Keep Sonics in Town
Posted on June 16, 2008Specific performance is one of those rarely-invoked contract remedies that makes for interesting reading. Because the remedy is limited to contracts involving "unique" items, it forces courts to determine the level of irreplacability and scarcity before imposing the remedy...
A Good Walk Spoiled Even More
Posted on June 11, 2008With the United States Open ready to begin this week, the man some Europeans think is the quintessential American is making news across the pond in the birthplace of golf. Donald Trump is in Scotland this week testifying before the equivalent of a zoning board and trying to calm the local furor over his plans to build a monstrous golf resort on a pristine piece of Scottish coastline called Aberdeenshire...
Comparing Agent Regulation in the United States and Europe
Posted on June 08, 2008On Thursday, I had the unique opportunity of guest lecturing in The Hague, The Netherlands at a seminar hosted by the Asser International Sports Law Centre of the T.M.C. Asser Institute, which is a center for research and postgraduate education in the field of international and European law...
Justice Alito on the Antitrust Exemption
Posted on June 03, 2008Fun report of a talk by Justice Samuel Alito, about the Supreme Court's 1922 decision in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the case that first held that Major League Baseball was not covered by the Sherman Act (which, Alito argues, is not the same as giving it an antitrust exemption) and that was affirmed purely on stare decisis grounds in the more-famous Flood v...
Will the Red Sox Sign Barry Bonds?
Posted on June 03, 2008With David Ortiz out at least a month with a wrist injury, there is speculation that the defending World Series Champions Boston Red Sox might consider signing the still-unsigned Barry Bonds to be the team's designated hitter.The upside to such a move would be clear: despite all of the controversy surrounding Bonds last year, and despite having little protection in the Giants' lineup, he still managed to hit 28 home runs in just 340 at bats...
The rationales for banning steroids
Posted on June 03, 2008Michael Dorf, a top con law theorist, offers (link fixed) a few thoughts on steroid use and the rationales underlying banning performance-enhancing substances. He actually does a pretty good job of knocking down everything but the "role-model" argument, an argument which I never have accepted anyway...
Supreme Court Denies Cert in Baseball Fantasy Case
Posted on June 02, 2008I was surprised by the Supreme Court's decision not to grant cert in the so-called "fantasy baseball" case, officially known as C.B.C. Distribution v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM). The facts have been discussed in Rick's excellent prior blog and the failure of the high court to consider the case means: (1) a confused right of publicity standard with varying standards and "tests" in jurisdictions all over the country; (2) a confusion of whether right of publicity claims in similar to unfair competition clause to be "pre-empted" by federal law; (3) a lack of national standard; and (4) no precise balancing test between the First Amendment and the right of publicity...
"Friendly" Confines = Confines with a Civility Code?
Posted on May 30, 2008Yet another fan speech controversy is brewing, this one in the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field. Cub fans have been booing Alfonso Soriano for his poor defense, which prompted Cub officials to warn fans that "any profane or inappropriate comments" toward Soriano would result in immediate rejection...
Intentional Tort of Last Resort Alert: Clemens Adds "Outrage" Claim to McNamee Suit
Posted on May 29, 2008Yesterday, Roger Clemens added a claim for "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress" to his lawsuit against former trainer Brian McNamee. Prior to this, Clemens claim was based on defamation (false statements harming his reputation).Intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"), also known as the tort of "Outrage", is the new kid on the intentional tort block...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on May 27, 2008Recently published scholarship, including a symposium on Title IX:Omar Hafez Ayad, Note, Take the training wheels off the league: Major League Soccer?s dysfunctional relationship with the international soccer transfer system, 10 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT & TECHNOLOGY LAW 413 (2008) Sen...
The Bioethics of Oscar Pistorius Competing in the Olympics
Posted on May 27, 2008Last week, Geoff wrote an excellent post on whether double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius should be able to compete in the Olympics. Over Blog Bioethics, Dr. Arthur Caplan, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has a compelling analysis that largely argues against allowing Pistorius to compete...
Two from The Times
Posted on May 26, 2008Two interesting sports-related op-eds in The New York Times:First, former major leaguer Doug Glanville (a Penn grad and a very thoughtful person) discusses the "unwritten rules" of baseball, mostly as the relate to players' obligations to fight.Second, Francis Clines considers what he sees as the new practice of fans booing their own players.
Sports Media Ethics (or lack thereof)
Posted on May 24, 2008Bonjour from France. I am teaching an international sports law course in France, so my blogging will be limited during the next several weeks. But I wanted to mention the panel on sports media ethics that I moderated last week in San Francisco at the Sports Lawyers Association annual conference...
California's Miller-Ayala Act and the O.J. Mayo Situation
Posted on May 20, 2008Most states have a statute regulating agents that is modeled after the Uniform Athlete Agents Act. The one in California is not based upon that model, but section 18897.6 of the California Business and Professions Code does seem to apply to the Mayo allegations:?18897...
Labor-management conflict brewing in the NFL (in 2011)?
Posted on May 19, 2008The Workplace Prof blog links to the ESPN stories.
Are aluminum bats an unreasonably dangerous product?
Posted on May 19, 2008The Tort Law Professor blog has details (and links) regarding a products liability lawsuit filed over an injury to a little league baseball player hit in the chest by a batted ball against, among other defandants, the manufacturer of the bat.Under the "risk-utility" test for products cases, the plaintiff will have to show that the "usefulness" of the bat's design (aluminum, as opposed to wood), is not outweighed by the higher risks to players in the field that aluminum bats pose...
Double-Amputee Pistorius Wins Right to Run with Cheetahs; Most Offensive Metaphor in a Disability Case Ever?
Posted on May 18, 2008Oscar Pistorius has become "the first amputee to successfully challenge the notion that his carbon-fiber prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage and assured his right to race against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics . . ." The full text of the Court for Arbitration of Sport ("CAS") panel's decision can be downloaded here...
The Cost of College Sports
Posted on May 15, 2008A new article in the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals that from 2004-06, only 17 out of 330 Division I athletic departments operated at a profit, with universities making up the difference, usually out of general operating revenues. This marked the first time the NCAA had reported budgetary numbers by focusing on revenues allocated to athletics departments by the school, rather than on revenues generated by athletics themselves.
Why is this necessary
Posted on May 14, 2008Senator Arlen Specter has called for an independent investigation (a la the Mitchell Commission) into the New England Patriots' videotaping practices, apparently dissatisfied with the inquiry conducted by Commissioner Roger Goodell. Specter is particularly upset with the fact that an attorney for the Patriots sat-in on Tuesday's meeting between Goodeel and former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh and that Goodell's prior investigation was not candid or complete, was marred by a conflict of interest, and did not serve the public interest...
College Education: Hold the Mayo
Posted on May 14, 2008Here is an interesting article from the New York Times about O.J. Mayo, the ?freshman? basketball talent at the University of Southern California. The article argues against the absurd age eligibility rule of the NBA enacted with an eye and ear toward what David Stern admits was the mutual back scratching interests of the NBA and the NCAA...
More on Steroids....
Posted on May 14, 2008Sarah Kellogg has an excellent piece in this month's issue of Washington Lawyer magazine, Juiced: Congress, Steroids, and the Law. Here are a few probing questions and comments from people she interviewed:Washington Times sports columnist Tim Lemke: ?Most people look at sports simply as entertainment, and they don?t really get emotionally tied up in it...
Professors Thomas Hazlett and Joshua Wright on Insuring Top College Basketball Players
Posted on May 08, 2008George Mason University School of Law professors Thomas Hazlett and Joshua Wright have published a provocative and engaging op-ed in today's Chicago Tribune that proposes insurance as a way of offsetting the risk to players and schools that the players leave early for the NBA Draft...
Mike Zarren: The Growing Importance of Statistical Analysis in the NBA
Posted on May 06, 2008Great piece by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt on the NY Times' Freakonomics on my good friend and former law school classmate Mike Zarren, who is the Boston Celtics' associate counsel and also, more significantly, the team's statistical expert.Here is an excerpt from their piece, which highlights the growing importance of "Moneyball" - type thinking in basketball:* * *But the team also employs what the general manager, Danny Ainge, calls his ?secret weapon,? a 32-year-old named Mike Zarren, who seems to know every data point about every N...
Defining Sport
Posted on May 06, 2008I jokingly have been interested in trying to define "sport." I have toyed with a definition that requires objectivity in scoring and determining winners. Thus, if it is about objective questions such as who runs faster or who scores more points, it is a sport; if it is about getting a 5...
Applying Antitrust Labor Exemptions to Professional Golf and Tennis
Posted on May 05, 2008Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal (subscription only) has an interesting piece in this week's edition in which he reveals that The ATP World Tour is losing millions of dollars because of steep legal expenses tied to an antitrust lawsuit brought by one of its tournaments against the men?s circuit (5/5/08, Mounting Legal Expenses Add to ATP's Losses)...
The Economics of Baseball Fandom
Posted on May 05, 2008From Daniel Hamermesh at Freakonomics:A recent article notes that attendance in Major League Baseball parks is actually above last year, despite, so the story says, the economic downturn (recession?). But despite is incorrect ? it should be ?because? of the economic downturn...
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Posted on May 04, 2008At Saturday's "dramatic" Kentucky derby, runner-up Eight Bells broke both ankles and had to be put down.Two years ago, when Barbaro suffered the injury that eventually ended his life, I asked, Was Barbaro Abused?Imagine if every year, one player died in the Superbowl...
A Different Way to "Hold" Coaches to Contracts
Posted on May 04, 2008We have had some discussion here lately about colleges using injunctions to try to keep coaches who are under contract from jumping to other schools.Well Memphis, fresh off its Championship Game appearance (and almost victory) gave Head Coach John Calipari a five-year extension, averaging $ 2...
Clemens and the Rules of Evidence: A More Absolute View
Posted on May 03, 2008The whole Roger Clemens story has been a big Claude Raines Moment: "I'm shocked, shocked, to find that a Major League Baseball player cheated on his wife."But I am going to take a more absolute view than Michael did: There is no way, if the judge is not asleep at the switch, that any evidence about Clemens' alleged affairs with McCready or Paulette Dean Daly is admissible...
Implications of Mindy McCready Affair Allegation on Roger Clemens' Defamation Lawsuit
Posted on May 02, 2008Earlier this week, I wrote a column for SI.com on the implications of Roger Clemens' alleged sexual relationship with a then 15-year-old Mindy McCready on his defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee. I was also interviewed by Russell Goldman for his piece on the same topic for ABC News...
Judge Rules in Favor of NCAA in Alabama Football Booster's Defamation Lawsuit
Posted on May 02, 2008In my post last November, "Alabama Jury Gets Revenge Against NCAA," I discussed a jury's $5 million award in favor of former Alabama football booster Ray Keller on his defamation claim against the NCAA alleging that the NCAA slandered and libeled him during the announcement of penalties against the Crimson Tide by referring to Keller and others as "rogue boosters," "parasites" and "pariahs...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on May 02, 2008Recently published scholarship:Anthony N. Cabot and Louis V. Csoka, Fantasy sports: one form of mainstream wagering in the United States, 40 JOHN MARSHALL LAW REVIEW 1195 (2007) Peter Charlish and Stephen Riley, Should Oscar run?, 18 FORDHAM INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 929 (2008)A...
Constitutional law in unexpected places
Posted on April 25, 2008For example, in George Clooney cinematic homages to His Girl Friday, every Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn comedy, and movies depicting the minor-league backwaters of professional sports.One of my colleagues was approached by a student in his Con Law I class, who had just seen the movie...
U. of Hawaii Enforces Contract Against Breaching Coach
Posted on April 24, 2008In the first week of January, Hawaii football coach June Jones terminated his 5-year contract that expires on June 30 of this year and accepted a job worth about $2 million per year at Southern Methodist. Hawaii claims it is entitled to damages for his early termination in the amount of $400,008 (which amount represents half of his annual salary)...
Another victim of sports mascot violence
Posted on April 24, 2008In a previous post, I discussed the interesting role of sports mascots in spectator injury cases. Assumption of risk usually bars spectators injured by batted balls at baseball games from suing the team or arena. However, there is a split on whether a spectator distracted by a mascot should be able to get around this ordinary bar...
Sonny Vaccaro to Speak at Columbia University Tomorrow Night
Posted on April 23, 2008For those of you in the New York City area, Columbia University will be hosting its second annual Sports Ethics Symposium tomorrow night from 6:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.. The keynote speaker will be basketball legend Sonny Vaccaro, who has recently delivered talks at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Memphis, and the University of Maryland...
Sports Leagues and the New Media
Posted on April 21, 2008Good story in The New York Times (free subscription required) on the way that sports leagues are attempting to deal with changing sports media. The piece touches on some issues that we have discussed here in the past: credentialing independent bloggers and allowing them access to the locker room and other places; restricting audio and video clips on media web sites and blogs; and live blogging the games...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on April 21, 2008Recently published scholarship includes: Jon Boswell, Note, Fantasy sports: a game of skill that is implicitly legal under state law, and now explicitly legal under federal law, 25 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 1257 (2008) Jesse Crew, Note, In Irabu?s footsteps: baseball?s posting system and the non-statutory antitrust exemption, 7 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 127 (2007)Christian Dennie, White out full grant-in-aid: an antitrust action the NCAA cannot afford to lose, 7 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 97-125 (2007)Robyn R...
Those who don't learn from history . . .
Posted on April 21, 2008(H/T: Andrew Sullivan)Twice actually--history has forgotten that the 1936 Winter Games also were in Nazi Germany, in Garmisch-Partinkirchen. We also let a brutally repressive totalitarian Communist regimes host: the Soviet Union (Moscow) in 1980 (my mistake as to Munich), plus a "less repressive" Communist regime in Yugoslavia in 1984...
Congrats to Florida Coastal and UVA Law School Softball Teams
Posted on April 20, 2008Via TaxProf: For the second year in a row, Florida Coastal School of Law and the University of Virginia have won the annual and only mildly corrupt UVA law school softball tournament in the co-rec and men's divisions, respectively. One suspects that a certain Sports Law blogger may have contributed to the Florida Coastal victory.
Legal Fallout from Sonics Move to Oklahoma City
Posted on April 19, 2008I was interviewed by NPR to discuss the legal and economic implications of the Sonics upcoming move from Seattle to Oklahoma City. By a vote of 28-2 (with Dallas' Mark Cuban and Portland's Paul Allen voting no), the NBA owners voted to approve the move...
Long-Term Contracts and the Coaching Carousel
Posted on April 19, 2008Rick is right that the college coaching carousel flies in the face of everything we think we know about contract law. On the other hand, job mobility is an element of many white-collar professions, including within a university setting. If another law school needs someone to teach civil procedure, the administration might contact me about moving or visiting there and I might at least consider leaving my current school and making that move...
Breaching Contracts: It's Just Part of the College Coaching Biz
Posted on April 17, 2008One week ago, Travis Ford signed a contract extension to remain at UMass for the next seven years and said, "I am excited to know that UMass is committed to building the men's basketball program back to one of the best in the East and that I will have the chance to be at the helm for many years to come...
David Ortiz's Curious Start to the 2008 Season
Posted on April 16, 2008On Monday, Geoff wrote a great piece about the legal issues of the Red Sox fan who buried a jersey of David Ortiz under the new Yankees stadiumOver on The Situationist, Jon Hanson and I take a stab at trying to explain David Ortiz's hard-to-fathom early season struggles...
David Throws Two Punches at Goliath
Posted on April 15, 2008A year ago last April, it was reported that Houston Baptist University (HBU), an NAIA school, made an application to rejoin the NCAA at the division one level, on a provisional basis. At that time, it was also reported that, because HBU was an NCAA division one school previously from 1973 to 1990, HBU would be required to wait only three years instead of the normal seven to become a full-fledged member of the NCAA...
Trespassing to Lay a Curse
Posted on April 14, 2008An amusing story from the new Yankee stadium, where construction crews jackhammered through concrete to retrieve a David Ortiz Red Sox jersey buried there in an effort to hex the bronx bombers by Red Sox fan (and one-day stadium construction worker) Gino Castignoli...
Florida Coastal School of Law Skills Practicum
Posted on April 14, 2008On Friday, April 18th, the Sports Law Society at Florida Coastal School of Law will be hosting a "Skills Practicum for the In-House Counsel". The practicum will consist of three separate seminars focusing on the every day legal issues faced by in-house counsel working for professional sports organizations, and the seminars will be taught by the very people who face them...
Harvard Law School Panel on Acquiring a Sports Franchise
Posted on April 13, 2008The Harvard Law School Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law will be hosting a panel tomorrow (Monday, April 14) at 7:30 p.m. in Hauser 102 entitled "Acquiring a Sports Franchise." (directions to Harvard Law School/campus map). Panelists include three transacation attorneys:Adam Klein from Katten Muchin RosenmanLarry Silverstein from Bingham McCutchenJon Bernstein from Bingham McCutchen...
Did Clay Bennett Lie About His "Good Faith" Intent to Keep Sonics in Seattle?
Posted on April 11, 2008Jim Brunner and Jonathan Martin of the Seattle Times have an interesting piece today on new e-mail evidence suggesting that Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett and other members of his SuperSonics ownership group violated the "good faith" contractual pledge to keep the franchise in Seattle...
Newly Posted Paper on Racist Sports Fans
Posted on April 10, 2008Dr. Lawrence McNamara, a Professor at England's University of Reading School of Law, has posted Sport, Spectator and Traditions of Hatred: Responding to Racist Abuse on SSRN (the article was published in 2001 in the Griffith Law Review). Here's an abstract:This article is primarily concerned with racist abuse by spectators that is targeted at indigenous Australian footballers...
False/Positives: The Current State of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports
Posted on April 09, 2008The West Virginia University College of Law is proud to present its Spring 2008 Forum entitled "False/Positives: The Current State of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports." The event will take place Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. at the WVU Law Center in Morgantown, West Virginia...
Is dousing the Olympic torch a crime (or a tort)?
Posted on April 09, 2008On the Olympic torch's path around the world to the site of the 2008 summer Olympics, the torch has been a target of protests directed at the repressive actions of the competition's host government. China's recent crackdown on Tibetan monks has been a subject of particular concern for demonstrators, but one suspects that even without recent events, China's history (and continuing practice) of human rights violations would have spurred demonstrations...
New SI.com Column on Implications of Tammy Thomas Guilty Verdict for Barry Bonds
Posted on April 08, 2008I have a new column on SI.com relating to the guilty verdict last Friday in the trial of former U.S. Olympic cyclist Tammy Thomas, who was convicted on perjury charges stemming from the government's investigation into BALCO. I discuss the verdict in the context of the likely trial of Barry Bonds for perjury...
Kansas, You Need to Play Hardball Now
Posted on April 08, 2008It hasn't even been 24 hours since Kansas won the national championship and Bill Self is already talking about his contract situation -- and one that still has four years remaining on it! In an interview after the game last night, Self told ESPN that he wouldn't rule out listening to an offer from Oklahoma State: "That's my alma mater...
Rock chalk, Law Talk: Finality, Accuracy, and Appellate Review
Posted on April 08, 2008I am against the recent over-emphasis on video evidence in court, for reasons that I and others have discussed. For me, that objection has carried over (for reasons both similar and different) into a general dislike for instant replay in sports.Well, the difference in last night's NCAA Basketball Championship, besides Memphis' horrid free-throw shooting down the stretch, was the use of instant replay and, in essence, appellate review of a single decision...
slavery and liquidated damages clauses
Posted on April 07, 2008Marvin A. Robon, one of University of Michigan head football coach Richard Rodriguez?s attorneys, made an astonishing claim in Morgantown, WV, during hearings being held there in connection with West Virginia University?s lawsuit against its former head coach...
NFL Backtracks on Debt Reduction Plan
Posted on April 07, 2008Back in February, I discussed the NFLPA's collusion claim in response to a vote by NFL owners to lower the debt ceiling (how much money a team can borrow) by $30 million and to cut $1 billion of league and team debt over the next three years. Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal (subscription only) reports today that the NFL has surprisingly agreed to suspend its controversial initiative to reduce team debt, and in return the NFLPA has withdrawn its collusion complaint...
David Katz on Effects of the NFL's CBA on Young Reserves and Veteran Journeymen
Posted on April 07, 2008David E. Katz, a 3L at Harvard Law School, has posted an excellent article on SSRN on the NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining agreement and how it economically disadvantages young reserves and veteran journeymen. He examines why the league and players' association would pursue such a framework and what it may suggest about their next CBA, which could expire as early as 2010...
Can Large Buyouts Keep College Coaches from Jumping Ship?
Posted on April 06, 2008How many millions does it take to keep a college coach from leaving? A $1.... A $2.... A $3.... (crunch) -- A $3. I don't know what made me think of that owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial, but that's how much new Indiana University basketball coach Tom Crean must pay IU if he leaves within the first three years...
When animals attack...are baseball stadiums liable?
Posted on April 04, 2008In a sign that a new curse may have descended on Fenway Park, a raptor attacked a 13-year old fan at Fenway park yesterday. The hawk descended upon the fan, who was on a tour of the park, and drew blood from her scalp.Birds of prey have harmed fans at games before (and been sued for doing so), but those birds have generally been of the fluffy costume variety...
Facilities, Merchandising and NCAA Issues To Be Discussed at Fordham Law School Symposium
Posted on April 03, 2008Fordham Law School's Sports Law Forum, in association with the New York State Bar Association's Section on Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law will host its 12th annual sports law symposium on Friday April 11th.The panel topics are:Financing and Structuring Acquisitions of Sports Teams and Stadiums (I'll serve as moderator)Sports Merchandising and MemorabiliaAmateurism and the NCAA (Sports Law Blog contributor Marc Edelman is a panelist)Keynote speaker: New York Giants CEO John K...
March Madness Gambling Reaches a Different Level
Posted on April 03, 2008Michael McCarthy of USA Today reports that Las Vegas sports books are now offering "prop bets" on the Final Four game performances of individual players such as Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington of UNC, Derrick Rose and Joey Dorsey of Memphis, Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers of Kansas, and Kevin Love and Josh Shipp of UCLA (Las Vegas' Slate of Final Four Wagers Grows, 4/2/08)...
A Coach's Liability for On-Ice Violence
Posted on April 01, 2008After our discussion of the appropriate standards for criminal sanction of on-ice/court/field violence in class this week (which included a discussion of Regina v. Bertuzzi, which Greg discussed here and here), several students brought to my attention the latest developments in Steve Moore's civil action against Todd Bertuzzi (discussed in earlier posts here and here)...
State Government Jumps into the Steroid Mess
Posted on April 01, 2008A legislator in Missouri plans to introduce a bill that would deny state tax credits to professional sports teams that fail to suspend players found using steroids for at least one year. Jeff Roords, a Democrat, explains that:This bill attempts to send a message to Major League Baseball and to all other professional sports leagues that if they want to continue to ignore the problem that they have with steroids, that we're not going to continue to underwrite their activities with tax dollars...
much ado about . . . ?
Posted on March 31, 2008Perpetuating stereotypes is nasty business. One of the more prevalent and damaging stereotypes in collegiate and professional sports in that of the criminalized African-American athlete. According to Kinesiology Professor Damion Thomas at the University of Maryland, ?Images of black male athletes as aggressive and threatening ?reinforce the criminalization of black men...
Ballpark construction, public culture, and public resources
Posted on March 28, 2008In the current Sports Illustrated, S.L. Price, an SI writer and resident of DC, offers some thoughts on the soon-to-open Nationals Park. The park cost almost $675 million, 97 % of which (an absurdly high percentage compared with other ballpark deals) is public money...
Second Circuit Affirms Denial of Preliminary Injunction in MSG v. NHL Antitrust Lawsuit
Posted on March 28, 2008Last fall on the blog, Marc Edelman discussed (here and here) the pending antitrust lawsuit brought by Madison Square Garden, L.P. (MSG), the parent company of the N.Y. Rangers, against the NHL. On November 2, 2007, the district court denied MSG's request for a preliminary injunction against the NHL?s effort to ban the Rangers from operating an independent website, holding that MSG had failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success or a sufficiently serious question going to the merits...
Congress and Sports
Posted on March 25, 2008Daniel Libit of the Politico has an informative piece today that provides some highlights of Congress? historic interest in sports (Timeline: Politicizing America's Pastimes, 3/25/08). Although Congress has recently focused its attention on issues that affect the "integrity of the game" such as steroids and videotaping of team signals, the bulk of its attention through the years (and where it has arguably had the most impact) is in the antitrust arena...
NBA to Raise Minimum Age Limit to 20?
Posted on March 24, 2008Over on ESPN's TrueHoop, Henry Abbott discusses my law review article Illegal Defense: The Irrational Economics of Banning High School Players from the NBA Draft. I also respond to Commissioner David Stern's recent comment that he hopes to raise the age floor for entry into the NBA to age 20, and to do so through the next round of collective bargaining with the Players' Association...
New Article on Recklessness
Posted on March 24, 2008The tort standard of "recklessness" is essential in sports injury cases. At least until the Illinois Supreme Court's decision last month in Karas, the universal rule was that participants in contact sports could not recover for personal injuries from other participants for mere negligence...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on March 24, 2008Recently published scholarship:Derek Marks, Casenote, One for twenty-five: the federal courts reverse a decision of the NFL?s disability board for the first time since 1993 in Jani v. Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan, 15 VILLANOVA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 1 (2008)Jonathan M...
Supreme Court Grants Cert in 'Fleeting Expletive' Case
Posted on March 19, 2008In a case that has application to sports broadcasters, the Supreme Court will hear an appeal involving the validity of the FCC's "fleeting expletive" standard for determining broadcast indecency. As I wrote in prior blogs (and in Sports Business Journal), the new standard -- which treats the accident airing of a single profanity as within the definition of indecency -- may be especially risky for live sports broadcasts...
Are Steroids Ethically Good for Athletes?
Posted on March 17, 2008Really interesting piece in Science Progress by Dr. Arthur Caplan, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, on the ethics of steroids. In short, he argues that the commonly-endorsed logic of "steroids are evil" is at least partly misguided, if not altogether wrong...
What Happens When a Video Game Gets a Player's Race Wrong?
Posted on March 17, 2008Sports Law Blog reader Scott Timmerick checks in with an interesting question (between the asterisks):* * *I just started playing MLB 2K8 on PlayStation 2. Facing off against the great Tampa Bay Rays and their ace Scott Kazmir, seven innings later I found myself taking pitches from Gary Glover, a (understandably) unknown relief pitcher whose 5...
Harvard's Women-Only Gym Hours Begin Today
Posted on March 10, 2008Last week, my undergraduate alma mater made the Fox News hitlist for announcing that it had decided to make a campus gym, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center (QRAC) closed to men for a few hours a week. As the Harvard Crimson's former editorial chair Andrew Fine wrote, this story wouldn't have been news (or all that controversial) were it not for the source of and justification for the request: a group of female Muslim students requested women-only hours because they must otherwise be fully clothed when working out alongside men...
Chicago Marathon Study
Posted on March 10, 2008During the recent Sports and Recreation Law Association conference, I presented a paper on the legal and risk management issues involving last year's LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. The race, run under unusually warm weather in Chicago, resulted in the cancellation of the race after one entrant died and hundreds were taken to hospitals...
UNC-Duke and Cheering Speech
Posted on March 09, 2008Last night's UNC-Duke game provides a good opportunity for two quick thoughts on cheering speech. The game was another chapter in what is supposedly the nastiest and deepest rivalry in all of college sports, played at the arena whose fans get the most attention for their clever/rude (depending on your point of view) cheering speech...
USA Today on Fan Behavior
Posted on March 07, 2008I provide the Opposing View in a debate in USA Today over speech and behavior by college basketball fans. Nothing new from either side, but a quick distillation of competing positions.
Ethics and Agent Fees
Posted on March 07, 2008In this month's issue of the ABA Journal, Kathryn Thompson has a very informative piece about the ethics standard for lawyer fees pursuant to Rule 1.5 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which simply prohibits fees that are "unreasonable" ("Let's Be Reasonable: Client consent to a fee agreement doesn't mean it's ethical")...
Clemens v. McNamee: Your Civil Procedure Exam
Posted on March 06, 2008Apparently, the new goal of sports figures is to educate the public about civil procedure (not a bad thing, actually). First came the lawsuit between West Virginia University and Rich Rodriguez, its former football coach, which taught us about removal and the difference between a citizen of a state and an arm of the state for purposes of diversity jurisdiction and now is going to demonstrate just what the discovery process looks like...
Sports Lawyers Association Annual Conference
Posted on March 06, 2008The Sports Lawyers Association 34th Annual Conference will be held at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, May 15th - 17th. The three-day conference is a premier event each year for sports law attorneys, agents, professors of sports law, students, and personnel from professional sports teams, leagues, player associations, governing bodies and companies tangentially involved with professional and amateur sports...
Three Clemens-Related Stories for Monday
Posted on March 03, 20081) Darren Rovell has an excellent piece on CNBC's Sports Biz examining how Rusty Hardin's business may be hurt by his representation of Roger Clemens. Here is an excerpt:Now I'm hardly suggesting that if the public decides that Clemens is guilty his lawyer Rusty Hardin, who has had a distinguished career, should call it quits...
Recent Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on March 03, 2008Recently published scholarship:Kathryn Keen, Note, The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act: does it really improve the gender equity landscape?, 34 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY & URBAN LAW 227 (2007) Dionne L. Koller, Frozen in time: the state action doctrine?s application to amateur sports, 82 ST...
Sports and Recreation Law Association Conference
Posted on March 02, 2008Many law professors center their sports law classes on professional sports league issues, notably labor law, antitrust and contracts. However, many sports law teaches and practitioners focus on amateur and recreational sports issues, such as personal injury, risk management, disabilities and gender discrimination...
Why did the Committee Turn on Clemens?
Posted on March 02, 2008Mike has written a couple recent SI pieces (here and here) on the unraveling of Clemens' legal strategy and the resulting referral from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Particularly in the second piece, he describes the way that committee Republicans, who had staunchly defended him and attacked Brian McNamee mercilessly and personally during the hearing, have joined Democrats in wanting to investigate Clemens further...
Happy Anniversary: Why Write Here?
Posted on March 02, 2008To mark what apparently is this blog's 203d post, I want to add my own spin to much of what Geoff writes here and in his comments to The Sports Law Professor.When I was interviewing for teaching jobs five years ago, I frequently was asked why sports law was not part of my teaching package, given my sports background: student manager for a Big Ten basketball program; a short-lived career as a small-college coach; a love of most things sports; and early work on my fan-speech project...
Happy 2000th Anniversary, Sports Law Blog!
Posted on March 01, 2008Rick's post on Thursday represented a milestone of sorts for this blog: It is our 2000th published post! Four and a half years and 2000 posts ago, Greg wrote:Since there is no such thing as 'Sports Law,' this blog will be dedicated to the law and the role it plays in the sports industry...
New Sports Illustrated Piece on Roger Clemens and his Legal Strategy
Posted on February 28, 2008I have a new SI.com piece tonight on Roger Clemens. It examines how the House Oversight Committee regarded Clemens' legal strategy for the proceedings. Hope you have a chance to read it.
Baseball and Union Ask Supreme Court to Review Eighth Circuit's Fantasy League Ruling
Posted on February 28, 2008Eric Fisher of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Daily reported today that MLBAM and the MLBPA have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that a series of prior lower court rulings involving First Amendment and right of publicity issues have created an inconsistent mess, and that "the appropriate legal test for balancing state-law publicity rights and First Amendment interest is a recurring and important question on which this Court's instruction is needed...
Second Annual National Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium
Posted on February 28, 2008I am honored to be speaking at the Second Annual National Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium, to be held at the University of Virginia School of Law next Thursday and Friday, March 6-7. The event is sponsored by the Virginia Continuing Legal Education and the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal...
Alan Milstein to Speak at Syracuse University College of Law
Posted on February 28, 2008The folks at the Entertainment and Sports Law Society at Syracuse University College of Law have let us know about a couple of upcoming speaking events: one with our friend and colleague Alan Milstein, the other with ESPN college basketball analyst Len Elmore, who is also an attorney...
Rusty Hardin Needs to Stop Talking
Posted on February 28, 2008The latest from Rusty Hardin, Roger Clemens' lead attorney and possibly the worst example of the grandstanding lawyer we have seen in a while. Upon learning that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had requested that DOJ open an investigation into possibly perjury or obstruction by his client, Hardin said:Now we are done with the circus of public opinion, and we are moving to the courtroom, ...
Would Legislation Providing for Mandatory Drug Testing of Professional Athletes Pass Constitutional Muster?
Posted on February 27, 2008The answer to that question could be, and has been, the subject of an entire law review article. But I want to touch upon it today because the timing is right in light of today's hearing in front of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection...
Duke Lacrosse II: Some First Amendment Issues
Posted on February 27, 2008Continuing my thoughts on the latest Duke lacrosse lawsuit.One interesting feature is the role that the First Amendment might play for the defendants. Much of the conduct described in the complaint, and much of the conduct that presumably forms the basis for the players' claims against Duke and Duke officials (and to law-enforcement officials to a lesser degree), centers on all sorts of public statements that stated or suggested that some or all the players had done something wrong...
WSJ Law Blog Interview of Lawyer with NCAA Enforcement Practice
Posted on February 27, 2008The Wall Street Journal Law Blog features an interview with attorney (and former IU quarterback) Mike Glazier. Glazier took his law degree and sports background and joined the NCAA enforcement team for several years. He's subsequently built a practice representing colleges involved in NCAA investigations...
Student Fans Acting Badly
Posted on February 27, 2008Grant Wahl at si.com decries this basketball season as the "ugliest in years" and calls on schools and conferences to take some action to get fans and fan speech under control. I have written enough about fan speech in this and other spaces that my views are pretty obvious...
Yale Law School Panel on "The Mitchell Report and Beyond: Steroids, HGH, and the Future of Baseball"
Posted on February 26, 2008I am honored to be speaking at Yale Law School next Tuesday as part of a panel on "The Mitchell Report and Beyond: Steroids, HGH, and the Future of Baseball." The panel was put together largely through the work of Aaron Zelinsky, a 1L at Yale Law School who wrote a terrific guest entry here last month entitled "Three Strikes for the National Labor Relations Act...
Another Duke Lacrosse Suit
Posted on February 26, 2008Back in October, I wrote about the § 1983 lawsuit filed by the three Duke lacrosse players who were indicted in 2006 on charges of gang-raping an exotic dancer, then exonerated when it became clear the woman had fabricated the story and the district attorney (subsequently disbarred and convicted of criminal contempt) had repeatedly lied to the court and attempted to conceal exculpatory evidence...
The Mets in Salary Arbitration
Posted on February 25, 2008Marty Noble, the Mets beat reporter for MLB.com, posted an interesting story, "Perez wins arbitration case: Hearing was first for Mets since Cone?s 16 years ago" on Friday analyzing the Perez decision. Noble provided a chart with all of the Mets? hearings while noting that the team had not participated in an arbitration hearing since 1992...
Full Contact: The Illinois Supreme Court Elaborates on the Contact Sports Exception in Karas
Posted on February 25, 2008On February 22, 2008, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered an opinion found here in Karas v. Strevell, et al. Karas was injured during an ice hockey game after he was body checked from behind by two opposing players Strevell and Zimmerman (my client)...
Covington & Burling's Representation of both Major League Baseball and Roger Clemens
Posted on February 25, 2008Andrew Longstreth of The American Lawyer has a very interesting piece on concerns by Major League Baseball that one of its lawfirms, Covington & Burling, has represented Roger Clemens in his current matter with the Mitchell Report and Congress. Lanny Breuer, one of the Covington's litigation partners and former special counsel to President Bill Clinton in his impeachment proceedings, has led his firm's efforts in representing Clemens...
Analyzing Kelvin Sampson's Settlement: A Good Business Decision for IU
Posted on February 23, 2008Last week on the blog, I discussed Kelvin Sampson's contract situation in the wake of Indiana's receipt of a Notice of Allegations two weeks ago from the NCAA's enforcement staff. Yesterday's $750,000 settlement between IU and Sampson, of which $550,000 is coming from an anonymous donor, is a really good business decision for IU...
Thoughts on the IU Player Boycott
Posted on February 23, 2008What should we make of the almost-boycott by six senior members of the IU Basketball team? The six, including star forward D.J. White, did not show at practice Friday, to protest both the dismissal/buyout/force resignation of Head Coach Kelvin Sampson in the wake of allegations of major NCAA rules violations and the hiring of Assistant Dan Dakich, rather than assistant Ray McCallum, as interim head coach...
Split Decision on the Final Day of Salary Arbitration
Posted on February 22, 2008Oliver Perez won his arbitration decision today when panel members Robert Bailey, Elizabeth Neumeier, and Steven Wolf selected his figure of $6,500,000 over the Mets offer of $4,725,000.Neumeier and Wolf were also busy yesterday with Stephen Goldberg hearing the Francisco Rodriguez case...
Francisco Rodriguez Case - Arbitrator Stephen Goldberg
Posted on February 22, 2008The case for and against Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels was presented yesterday to the panel of Stephen Goldberg, Elizabeth Neumeier, and Steven Wolf. Prior to this hearing, Goldberg?s panel and individual record was 24-17 in favor of the team.Goldberg?s decisions prior to three-arbitrator panels included the cases of:Dann Billardello (1992-Padres-team won)Jose Lind (1992-Pirates-player won)Barry Bonds (1991-Pirates-team won)Paul Gibson (1991-Tigers-player won)Greg Swindell (1991-Indians-player won)Shawon Dunston (1990-Cubs-player won)Billy Hatcher (1990-Pirates-player won)Bo Jackson (1990-Royals-team won)Steve Balboni (1989-Mariners-player won)Glenn Davis (1989-Astros-player won)Andre Dawson (1988-Cubs-team won)Greg Harris (1987-Rangers-player won)Charlie Leibrandt (1987-Royals-player won)Bill Dawley (1986-Astros-team won)Julio Franco (1986-Indians-team won)Leon Durham (1985-Cubs-team won)Juan Bonilla (1984-Padres-player won)The record of these 17 cases is 7 for the team and 10 for the players...
New Sports Illustrated Piece on Roger Clemens
Posted on February 21, 2008I have a new column on SI.com: The Road From Here: What's Next for Clemens? Probably an Indictment. I hope you have a chance to read it.
NFLPA Says NFL is Colluding
Posted on February 21, 2008Last November, the NFLPA launched an investigation into whether the NFL?s decision to lower the debt ceiling of its 32 clubs constitutes collusion to reduce competition for players or players? salaries (which I previously posted on the blog). In October, NFL owners voted to lower the debt ceiling (how much money a team can borrow) by $30 million, which reduces the debt ceiling to $120 million from $150 million, and to cut $1 billion of league and team debt over the next three years...
Howard Wins in Arbitration
Posted on February 21, 2008Ryan Howard won his request for $10,000,000 from the Phillies. This represents the first hearing loss ever for the Phillies. The arbitration panel was Stephen Goldberg, Robert Bailey and Jack Clarke. According to my research, Goldberg?s panel record is 24-17 in favor of teams, and Bailey?s panels are 2-2...
NFL Reverses Position on Church Super Bowl Parties
Posted on February 21, 2008According to my colleague Howard Friedman's Religion Clause blog, the NFL has reversed its position on whether churches could host "family friendly" Super Bowl parties without infringing on the league's IP rights. I blogged about the underlying dispute here...
Howard Decision Today - Perez and Rodriguez
Posted on February 21, 2008Yesterday at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in St. Petersburg, Florida, Ryan Howard, his father Ron, and agent Casey Close squared off against Astros president Tal Smith to see which side could convince a majority of three arbitrators that Howard either deserves the highest figure ever awarded to a first-year arbitration-eligible player ($10,000,000) or a modest raise from $900,000 to the Phillies offer of $7,000,000...
State Law Barrier to the Marlins New Stadium?
Posted on February 20, 2008Marc Edelman, a guest here and now the perma-sports-blogger at the always-entertaining Above the Law, yesterday wrote that the new deal among the Florida Marlins, the City of Miami, and Miami-Dade County to build a ballpark for the Marlins might violate the Florida Constitution...
'Tis the Weekend: University of Miami Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium
Posted on February 20, 2008If you are not in Philadelphia or Tallahassee (coincidentally, the two cities in which I lived before I hit Miami), come to Miami (Coral Gables, actually) for the University of Miami Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium, also on Saturday.I will be on a panel titled "Balancing Justice within Anti-Doping Regulation: Equality of Competition v...
Villanova Sports Law Symposium This Weekend
Posted on February 20, 2008If you aren't in sunny Florida to hear Mike this weekend, I will be participating in the Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal's Symposium, "Sports and Technology: Internet Subs Out Traditional Media." I'll be sitting on a panel alongside The Sports Law Professor Jeff Standen and Professor Matt Parlow (soon to be of Marquette Law School)...
FSU College of Law Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Society 5th Annual Conference
Posted on February 20, 2008I look forward to speaking at the Florida State University College of Law Entertainment, Arts, & Sports Law Society's (EASL) 5th Annual Conference this Saturday, February 23, 2008. The conference will commence at 11:00 a.m. in the Florida State College of Law Rotunda...
Ohio Supreme Court Won't Hear Former Coach O'Brien's Case
Posted on February 20, 2008The Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the Ohio State University's appeal of a verdict in favor of former coach Jim O'Brien. For previous coverage of this dispute, see Rick's posts here and here.
Management Moves to 5-0 in Hearings With Houston Win Over Loretta
Posted on February 19, 2008The Houston Astros won their second hearing in five days by defeating Mark Loretta in salary arbitration today. The owners now hold a spotless 5-0 record against the players this year, and they could easily win the final three cases. Regardless of those results, the win against Loretta means that management now has a twelve year winning streak...
More on the Death of Thomas T. Roberts
Posted on February 19, 2008As noted earlier today in a post by Geoff Rapp, Thomas T. Roberts died Wednesday, February 13, at his home in Palos Verdes Peninsula, California. Roberts was 84. Roberts was the first baseball salary arbitrator to choose a $1,000,000 request when he sided with Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela in 1983...
Did Derek Jeter Receive Preferential Treatment from the NY Department of Taxation and Finance?
Posted on February 19, 2008Professor Edward Zelinsky, a distinguished tax law expert at Cardozo Law School, has a terrific post on the Oxford University Press Blog questioning why Derek Jeter's tax settlement has not been made public.Jeter recently entered into a deal with the NY Department of Taxation and Finance on income taxes he owed the state...
Baseball Arbitrator Roberts Obituary
Posted on February 19, 2008The New York Times published the obituary today of Thomas T. Roberts, a famed baseball arbitrator. According to the obit:In August 1986, Mr. Roberts was fired by the baseball owners? labor arm after he ruled that teams could not negotiate drug-testing clauses with players individually; they had to deal with the players union on that issue, under a collective arrangement, he said...
Sports Law Blog vs. Other "Law Professor" Blogs
Posted on February 19, 2008Cincy Law's Paul Caron has posted a ranking of "top" law professor blogs by traffic over the past twelve months. Only those blogs around for one year were considered, and only those with public sitemeters. Since our blog doesn't have a public sitemeter feature, we didn't make the list, but based on our traffic statistics over the past year (around 350,000 visits), we would have finished 17th on the list of law professor blogs (just behind the business law blog Conglomerate, and ahead of blogs like Opino Juris, the University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog, and the Workplace Professor Blog)...
Astros and Loretta Today in a Hearing - Three More Slated for This Week
Posted on February 18, 2008Representatives for Mark Loretta will argue his case before a panel of arbitrators today in the fifth hearing for this year. The teams hold a 4-0 edge, and I predicted last week that Loretta will win this one. My predictions so far are 3-1. I did not pick the Yankees-Chien-Ming Wang correctly...
wvu v. rodriguez law blog
Posted on February 18, 2008The West Virginia University College of Law's Sports and Entertainment Law Society has launched a new law blog: WVU v. Richard Rodriguez: The Legal Perspective. Attempting to clearly delineate the legal issues that have arisen and continue to arise in connection with WVU's lawsuit filed against former head football coach Richard Rodriguez is the goal of the blog which seeks a neutral examination of the issues...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on February 18, 2008Recently published scholarship:Erin E. Buzuvis, Reading the pink locker room: on football culture and Title IX, 14 WILLIAM & MARY JOURNAL OF WOMEN & LAW 1 (2007)Jennifer L. Donatuti, Note. Can China protect the Olympics, or should the Olympics be protected from China? 15 JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW 203 (2007)Gabriel A...
NFL Asserts Bias in Judge's Ruling in Vick Contract Dispute
Posted on February 18, 2008After pleading guilty to federal charges in a dogfighting operation, the Falcons tried to recover about $20 million in bonuses Michael Vick earned from 2004 to 2007. Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge David Doty ruled that Vick cannot be forced to repay $16...
NCAA Diversity Rule: Progress, But Without Teeth, the Rule Has No Bite
Posted on February 17, 2008The NCAA has just adopted a rule that requires Division 1-A schools (the largest and most powerful) with a football head coaching vacancy to interview at least one minority candidate. This is modeled after the ?Rooney Rule? imposed in the NFL[1]. The NFL version of the policy achieved and continues to achieve measurable success...
Bogus Lawsuit of the Day: Former Rams Player Suing Patriots over "Fraudulent Videotaping"
Posted on February 15, 2008His lawyers must have been playing tackle football without helmets. According to the Wall Street Journal's new law blogger Dan Slater:Lawyers for a former St. Louis Ram, Willie Gary . . . filed a complaint today against the New England Patriots and the Patriots? coach, Bill Belichick...
Rockies Win Over Fuentes
Posted on February 15, 2008The Colorado Rockies were successful in their arguments before arbitrators Robert Bailey, Dan Brent, and Elliot Shriftman and defeated pitcher Brian Fuentes in salary arbitration providing teams with a 2-0 record in hearings this year. Fuentes will be paid $5...
More on the Politics of the Clemens Hearing
Posted on February 15, 2008Following up on the strange (and inappropriate) political divide in Wednesday's hearing is this piece in The New York Times. (H/T: Paul Horwitz).Several things to highlight, which confirm or address comments to the earlier post:1) Rep. Souder (R-IN) said word got back to him prior to Wednesday's hearing that Clemens is a Republican and that he has met and spoken with President Bush...
"Prosecutors Say Bonds Failed Drug Test in 2000"
Posted on February 15, 2008That's today's big news headline? What's the new "news"? When prosecutors charged Bonds with perjury and obstruction of justice, the indictment stated that they "have a blood test from November 2000 that shows a "Barry B" testing positive for two types of steroids...
IU Dug Its Own Grave
Posted on February 14, 2008It was only 19 months ago that I posted on Indiana University's questionable hiring of Oklahoma University's former head basketball coach Kelvin Sampson. Immediately following the ruling of the NCAA Committee on Infractions that Sampson had made 233 of 577 "impermissible" phone calls to recruits while at Oklahoma from 2000-04, IU athletics director Rick Greenspan and then IU President Adam Herbert publicly commented that Sampson is a man of "highest integrity" who simply made an error in judgment...
Seeking Legal Resources for Starting Health Club
Posted on February 14, 2008A friend of mine is an attorney working for a client that plans to open a health club. She wants to know if there are any legal resources available to help in that pursuit. I am unaware of any, other than what might be found on the websites for the National Gym Association and the National Health Club Association...
Now This is what Congressional testimony Should Sound Like
Posted on February 14, 2008Back in the day, it was not necessary for committee members to attack sport-related witnesses to derive humor and entertainment from the hearing. It was enough to invite Casey Stengel to testify, as the Senate Antirust and Monopoly Subcommittee did in a 1958 hearing on Major League Baseball's Antitrust Exemption...
Felipe Lopez Hearing Today
Posted on February 13, 2008Chris Needham noted that my earlier post today missed the first hearing of the season between the Washington Nationals and Felipe Lopez. Lopez and the Nationals presented their arguments to Christine Knowlton, Elliott Shriftman, and Steven Wolf today in St...
The (Party) Politics of Steroids
Posted on February 13, 2008I will leave to others to discuss who came out better in Wednesday's hearings, except to note that you can find as many opinions as you can find voices. Some "Clemens looked better" voices are here (where commenters already are weighing in) and here; some "Clemens is toast" voices here and here...
My Verdict
Posted on February 13, 2008As I wrote earlier, this hearing was not going to be like the last one. We heard some tough questioning, though hardly skillful cross-examination; we saw previously obtained affidavits; we heard the opinions of differing medical experts; and we learned there were syringes and gauze that are yet to be examined for their authenticity and probative weight...
Salary Arbitration Update - Tomorrow Could Produce the First Hearing
Posted on February 13, 2008Tomorrow could produce the first hearing of the 2008 salary arbitration hearing. The Yankees do not want to offer Chien-Ming Wang a long-term deal. That is apparently what Wang and his agent are seeking. The position of the Yankees is that pitchers are too risky at this stage of their career because of the potential for arm injuries...
College Sport Research Institute 2008 Scholarly Conference on College Sport
Posted on February 13, 2008Contrary to what some individuals and organizations would have folks believe, there is a great deal of critical college-sport research, both academic and journalistic, being conducted today. In addition, while the NCAA has held a BCS style, invitation only, colloquium on college sport, the College Sport Research Institute (a grassroots organization of college-sport researchers) http://csri...
Restricting Athlete Expression at the Olympics
Posted on February 12, 2008Devan Desai at CoOp writes about an attempt by British and Australian officials to require athletes to sign a provision in their contracts agreeing not to engage in expression at events and venues in criticism of China's human-rights record or other problems with China and its government...
Darren Rovell's "Swoosh! Inside Nike"
Posted on February 12, 2008On CNBC right now you can watch Swoosh! Inside Nike: An Unprecedented Look Inside Nike's $16 Billion Empire, an expose by CNBC's business reporter Darren Rovell on Nike and its labor practices. About halfway in so far, it's been truly fascinating to watch, though with some disturbing images from the treatment of Nike's Southeast Asian workers...
Preview of Tomorrow's Congressional Hearing on Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee, and Steroids in Baseball
Posted on February 12, 2008* Bob Cohn of the Washington Times has a piece entitled Throwing High, Tight. He interviews Alan, Howard, and me for the story.* I have a new SI.com column up: Law and Disorder: Answering Questions from the Wild Legal Saga. It provides a preview of tomorrow's hearings...
A Different View
Posted on February 11, 2008Let me disagree with Howard. I think this week is the Super Bowl or should I say World Series of Sports Law. When Roger Clemens faces off against his accusers and testifies before Congress, all of us get to be jurors and render judgment on his guilt or innocence and on the quality of the work of the DLA Piper lawyers who served as prosecutors...
Another Reason Not to Take Congressional Hearings Seriously
Posted on February 11, 2008I will listen to this Wednesday's hearing before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, that will include Roger Clemens and his former trainer and alleged steroids source, Brian McNamee. I already thought the whole thing would be a substantively meaningless exercise involving little more than political grandstanding by committee members and posturing by witnesses, especially Clemens; that view is based on having watched prior hearings involving professional athletes...
Complicated Legal Questions Make Terrible Surveys
Posted on February 11, 2008Last week's edition of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal revealed the results of a Turnkey Sports Poll taken in January, in which more than 800 senior-level sports industry executives spanning professional and college sports were asked the following:Who should own the intellectual property of a PLAYER?S NAME?Player 47...
WVVU v. Rodriguez sent back to state court
Posted on February 11, 2008It looks as if West Virginia University and former head coach Rich Rodriguez will fight over the $ 4 million buyout payment in state court in West Virginia, rather than federal court, which is where Rodriguez had tried to move the case.Judge Bailey in United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia today remanded the action to state court, based solely on the legal conclusion that WVU is an arm of the state of West Virginia and a state is not a "citizen of a state" for purposes of diversity jurisdiction...
More on Racism Behind Home Plate
Posted on February 08, 2008An economics study documenting apparent racial preference in how umpires call baseball games (at least when they aren't under a microscope), which Mike discussed in his post last September, can now be viewed here for free or downloaded (for a charge) here.
Should churches be able to ignore the NFL's I.P. rights?
Posted on February 08, 2008My emeritus colleague Howard Friedman has a post on his Religion Clause blog about Senator Specter's effort to exempt churches from federal copyright law in connection with rebroadcasting NFL games:Bill Introduced In Congress To Permit Church Super Bowl Parties As previously reported, the National Football League again this year told churches that the copyright law limited their ability to host Super Bowl parties in auditoriums larger than 2000 square feet if the bowl game was shown on TV screens larger than 55 inches...
New SI piece on Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee, and Congress
Posted on February 07, 2008I have a new piece for Sports Illustrated.com: Burden of Proof: Examining the Latest Twist in the Roger Clemens Saga. I hope you have a chance to check it out.
Bloody Sock, Meet Bloody Gauze
Posted on February 07, 2008The WSJ Law Blog reports (H/T: Paul Horwitz) that, in his meeting with committee staffers today, Brian McNamee has turned over evidence he says is from the steroid injections he gave Roger Clements back in 2000-01, including bloody gauze, syringes, and vials...
Is there a difference between Cockfighting and Dogfighting? (or Bullfighting?)
Posted on February 07, 2008A video apparently uploaded to Youtube - but now gone from the site - shows Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal participating in a cockfight in the Dominican Republic (where cockfighting is legal). According to ESPN: Martinez and Marichal laugh before releasing the roosters...
Salary Arbitration Update
Posted on February 07, 2008As we get closer to the hearing stage of salary arbitration, 26 of the 48 players and teams who exchanged numbers, or slightly over one-half, have agreed to contracts according to my research. So far, there are eight multiyear deals, one above the midpoint, four at the midpoint, and 13 below the midpoint...
Dispelling the Myth about HGH
Posted on February 06, 2008At the Congressional hearing last month, Congressman John Yarmouth twice challenged the notion whether performance enhancing substances do in fact enhance performance. Mitchell said "a lot of it is psychological" as well as "speeding recovery time" and Selig's response was that most people and trainers believe these drugs enhance performance in baseball...
Potential Sale of Yahoo may have Huge Implications in the Market for Hosting Fantasy Sports Games
Posted on February 06, 2008On Friday Febuary 4, Microsoft Corporation made a $44.6 billion hostile bid to take over Yahoo. Since the bid was announced, Yahoo bankers have begun to seek rival bids to acquire the Yahoo business either in its entirety or in subparts.While most antitrust experts have discussed potential hurdles to either a Microsoft or Google acquisition of Yahoo based on purported anticompetitive effects in search engine markets, it is also worth noting the potential hurdles to such a transaction in fantasy-sports hosting markets...
Jeffrey Levine on IP rights in China and Sports
Posted on February 06, 2008Jeff Levine, a recent graduate of Tulane Law School and former legal intern at the Cleveland Cavaliers Operating Company, has a new law review article on the intersection between intellectual property rights in China and sports. Here's the article's abstract: The article focuses on various aspects of intellectual property law, international law and sports law...
After the Super Bowl Euphoria: How Bad Does The Economy Have To Get Before They Share Ad Money With the Rest of Us?
Posted on February 05, 2008The title is obviously a rhetorical question laced with ironic humor, but the American reality is not so funny. With the opulence of the Super Bowl still in our consciousness, we are teetering on the brink of a nationwide recession. We just finished January 2008, and one of our major stock exchanges (NASDAQ) had the biggest drop (10%) in its history...
The Exploitation of the College Athlete Continues....
Posted on February 05, 2008In this week's edition of SportsBusiness Journal, Eric Fisher writes that college football?s national signing day, which is set for tomorrow, is projected to generate some of the largest traffic and ad buys of the year for several prominent sports internet sites (Web Sites Gear Up for Signing Day, 2/4/08, subscription only)...
Questioning the "Just Desserts" of the Patriots Losing
Posted on February 05, 2008Over on The Situationist, Jon Hanson and I wrote a short piece that examines the many commentators who believe that the New England Patriots losing the Super Bowl was somehow a "just" outcome, be it because the team broke rules earlier this season when video tapping the Jets, because the team seemed to relish running up the score on the some of the NFL's worst teams, or, most recently, because Bill Belichick walked off the field early in the Super Bowl, a topic Howard examined yesterday...
Super Bowl Law
Posted on February 04, 2008Scott Dodson at Prawfsblawg wonders what procedural and legal goals or values were served by requiring the teams to run the last snap with :01 left in the game (besides the benefit of giving the media one more thing for which to criticize Bill Belichick)...
"Integrity of the Game" vs. Integrity of the Legal System
Posted on February 04, 2008Hats off to Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas, who summed it up perfectly in his dissenting opinion in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., which was handed down 10 days ago:In discussions of the use of alleged use of steroids by baseball players, much is made about ?the integrity of the game...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on February 04, 2008Recently published work:Jeremy J. Geisel, Comment, Disbarring Jerry Maguire: how broadly defining ?unauthorized practice of law? could take the ?lawyer? out of ?lawyer-agent? despite the current state of athlete agent legislation, 18 MARQUETTE SPORTS LAW REVIEW 225 (2007)Martin J...
University of Florida Sports Law Symposium This Friday
Posted on February 04, 2008Darren Heitner, a student at the University of Florida College of Law and one of the authors of Sports Agent Blog, passes along a note about his school's upcoming sports law symposium entitled "From the Locker Room to the Board Room." The symposium will examine topics relating to student-athlete recruitment, coaching, agency, and management...
Second Circuit Rejects Eminent Domain Challenge in Brooklyn Redevelopment
Posted on February 02, 2008It was half a century ago when the fate of the Brooklyn Dodgers rested on building a proposed new stadium on Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, a fading transportation hub in the central area of the borough. Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley wanted the city to seize some of the land for the stadium (which he would build with private money), but Robert Moses, the legendary master builder, balked, claiming that the government could not justify seizing land for the purpose of a private baseball stadium...
Blue and White?
Posted on February 01, 2008To say this is an interesting time for the field of Sports Law is a bit of an understatement.Now we learn Major League Baseball in its never-ending quest to taint its own product has been sending investigators out into the south to inquire whether neighbors and acquaintances of umpires know whether the men in blue have ever donned the white robes of the KKK...
Arlen Specter Kicks His Dog
Posted on February 01, 2008The New York Times reports that Sen. Arlen Specter wants NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain and justify the league's destruction of the videotapes that the New England Patriots took of opponents' sideline signals, a violation of league rules that resulted in fines and a loss of a draft pick earlier this year...
Tulane Law School's "February Madness" Tournament
Posted on February 01, 2008A special congratulations to College of William and Mary for winning this year's prestigious Mardi Gras National Sports Law Moot Court Competition, which is sponsored by Tulane and held in New Orleans each year during Mardi Gras. Today was the last day of the three-day competition, which fielded 36 teams...
10th Circuit: Paralympics are not entitled to same support as Olympics
Posted on February 01, 2008Alan Milstein of Blog Justice and our blog passes along a note that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has affirmed a district court's dismissal of a claim by a group of Paralympic athletes against the United States Olympic Committee ("USOC"), which is the federally-chartered and taxpayer-funded corporation that has exclusive jurisdiction over U...
Baseball's "Secret Police" as Unfair Labor Practice?
Posted on January 31, 2008The Umpires' union is upset about Major League Baseball's agressive background investigations of its members. According to ESPN, MLB began to conduct checks on umpires in the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal in the NBA.The union has not decided whether or not to pursue legal action...
Salary Arbitration - Most Deals Are Below the Midpoint
Posted on January 31, 2008It has been a quiet few days on the arbitration front. Since my last posting, two $1 million deals were signed (Esteban German - Kansas City Royals and Todd Wellemeyer - St. Louis Cardinals). Wellemeyer?s deal includes $100,000 in performance bonuses...
NCAA Convention Session Videos On-Line
Posted on January 30, 2008Anyone with an interest in the regulation of college athletics may want to check out the NCAA's web site, which now includes videos from the NCAA Convention earlier this month. There are a number of panels of potential sports law interest, including Sports Wagering and Legal, Medical and Treatment Aspects of Student-Athlete Pregnancy.
The Strange New Offering from the Clemens Team
Posted on January 29, 2008Yesterday, in an effort to undercut suggestions that the longevity of Roger Clemens could only have been the product of steroid use, Clemens's agents released the "Roger Clemens Report." According to the New York Times:His agents, Hendricks Sports Management, issued a 45-page statistical analysis Monday arguing that Clemens prolonged his career by making adjustment in his pitching, not by drug use...
Baseball Salary Arbitration - Second Post - With a Particular Emphasis on the Houston Astros
Posted on January 28, 2008After a little over a week since 48 players exchanged numbers with their teams, and according to my research 13 players have signed if you include the Robinson Cano deal with the Yankees. The recent discussion about a trade involving Erik Bedard puts one of the players who exchanged numbers with his team in a position of negotiating with a different general manager...
Tribute to Harvard Law School Professor Paul Weiler
Posted on January 27, 2008I was recently asked by Harvard Law School to write a tribute for Professor Paul Weiler, my former sports law professor who is retiring from teaching this year. I was deeply honored by the request. My tribute appears in the most recent issue of the Harvard Law Bulletin and I have excerpted it below...
Florida Coastal Database of College Coaches Contracts
Posted on January 26, 2008In December of 2006, I wrote a post titled, "Lawyers in Demand at University Athletic Departments?" At the 2006 Street & Smith's Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, NCAA president Myles Brand and other panelists were asked what they thought would be the most important story to follow in 2007, and they said "coaches' contracts"...
The Substance of WVU v. Rodriguez
Posted on January 25, 2008In an interview yesterday about West Virginia's suit against Rich Rodriguez, I made two points to a reporter (prior posts here and here). First, I think the case is going to end up back in state court--the university is an arm of the state and not subject to diversity jurisdiction in federal district court, not to mention the uncertainty about where Rodriguez was living on December 27...
Agent-Author Ron Shapiro at Toledo Law on Monday
Posted on January 25, 2008For anyone within driving distance, I'll be introducing famed Baltimore baseball agent and author Ron Shapiro on Monday, January 28 (at 11:55 am) at a public event at the University of Toledo College of Law. Known for his books and instruction on negotiation ( The Power of Nice: How to Negotiate So Everyone Wins, Especially You; Bullies, Tyrants & Impossible People: How to Beat them Without Joining Them, and Dare to Prepare: How to Win Before You Begin), Shapiro has represented the likes of Kirby Puckett, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, and Brooks Robinson...
Baseball Salary Arbitration
Posted on January 25, 2008I am pleased to have the opportunity to share with Sports Law Blog readers some of my insights and research concerning baseball salary arbitration. Going back to my time teaching a seminar on the regulation of the sports and entertainment industries at Loyola New Orleans in the 1990's, I have been interested in the arbitration process...
A Catholic Perspective on Rick Majerus
Posted on January 25, 2008Rick Garnett at Notre Dame, who blogs at the Catholic-legal-theory site Mirror of Justice, offers some thoughts on the Majerus matter.Two points on Rick's post. First, he wonders whether the reaction from SLU or much of the sports-media world would have been different if Majerus had "appeared at a Tom Tancredo rally and complained about immigration, or at a League of the South rally and complained about Emancipation...
More on Rick Majerus
Posted on January 24, 2008The story, first mentioned here, of Saint Louis University Men's Basketball Coach Rick Majerus' comments at a Hillary Clinton rally supporting reproductive choice and stem-cell research, and the calls by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke for university sanctions against Majerus, is becoming a national controversy...
Proposed Three-Prong Anti-Steriod Strategy for Baseball
Posted on January 23, 2008University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt has a good post over on Freakonomics that discusses a plan by Aaron Zelinsky (who last week on our blog wrote a guest piece on steroids in baseball) for a three-prong anti-steroid strategy for Major League Baseball...
Sports Mixing With Religion and Politics: Majerus, Abortion, Basketball Arenas, and Tax Abatements
Posted on January 22, 2008This morning at the March of Life in Washington, D.C., St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke criticized Majerus' support of Hillary Clinton, publicly stating that he supports stem cell research and abortion rights (Majerus was interviewed by KMOV Channel 4 in St...
More on WVU v. Rodriguez
Posted on January 22, 2008Last week I talked about West Virginia University's lawsuit against former football coach Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez removed the case to federal court based on diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction, arguing that he became a citizen of Michigan prior to the filing of the lawsuit on December 27...
ESPN Relies (in part) on CDM Fantasy League Case to Renegotiate Licensing Fees
Posted on January 21, 2008In today's edition of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal (subscription required), John Ourand and Eric Fisher report that ESPN is renegotiating its digital rights deal with MLB Advanced Media, looking to pay a significantly lower fee after finding several pieces of the original agreement it signed in 2005 no longer cost effective ("ESPN Seeks Better MLBAM Terms")...
Attorneys for Gabbibo Respond
Posted on January 20, 2008Last month, I blogged about an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by Western University University in an Italian court against Mediaset, an Italian company, for trademark and copyright infringement, claiming that Gabibbo, the mascot for the satirical show "Striscia la Notizia," is a carbon copy of Big Red, the Western Kentucky mascot since 1979, and which is depicted to the left...
Playing for the Coach or Playing for the School? A Modest Proposal
Posted on January 19, 2008While I recognize that college sports are a corrupt and unfair sewer in many ways, I never have been on the bandwagon for radical changes such as paying players. But I would support the proposal that NPR's Frank Deford makes in this NPR commentary arguing that student-athletes should be able to transfer freely, without having to sit out a year, if the coach who recruited them leaves mid-contract to go to another school or to coach in the pros...
Not Exactly Nostradamus
Posted on January 19, 2008In December 2006, I predicted in this space that George W. Bush would be the next commissioner of baseball. Bud Selig had just signed a new contract but basically had promised to step down in 2009--right about when W would be out of his current job.So much for accuracy...
Aaron Zelinsky's "Three Strikes for the National Labor Relations Act"
Posted on January 18, 2008We received an excellent submission from Aaron Zelinsky, a 1L at Yale Law School, concerning the National Labor Relations Act and the steroids scandal in baseball. Without further adieu . . .* * * Three Strikes for the National Labor Relations Act It?s baseball season again in Washington...
Golf Week and the Noose: Context Matters
Posted on January 18, 2008Dre Cummings discusses the new wrinkle in the Kelly Tilghman/Lynching controversy--the Golf Week magazine cover featuring a photograph of a noose and the headline "Caught in a Noose." Dre asks whether this "represent[s] a collosal lapse in judgment on the part of Golfweek editor Dave Seanor or is this a merely a nefarious attempt to grab attention ...
golfweek magazine and judgment
Posted on January 18, 2008As the Kelly Tilghman maelstrom had begun to abate in connection with her Tiger Woods "lynch him in a back alley" blunder, Golfweek has just published the image of a noose in connection to Tilghman's ignorant commentary in this weeks edition of its magazine...
Randy Moss Hit With Temporary Restraining Order
Posted on January 17, 2008Last wrote, I wrote a piece on SI.com concerning New England Patriots' wide receiver Randy Moss' newfound legal troubles. I hope you have a chance to check it out.
When Academic Interests Meet: Thank you, Rich Rodriguez
Posted on January 16, 2008I got involved in this forum because of the overlap between sport and one of my primary scholarly interests--free speech. It is nice to see one time in which sport meets my other scholarly interest--civil procedure geekiness.West Virginia last month sued former football coach Rich Rodriguez in state court in West Virginia seeking to recover on a $ 4 million buyout clause in Rodriguez's contract, after the coach left WVU to become head coach at Michigan...
Illinois Joins NJ, FL, and TX With High School Drug Testing
Posted on January 15, 2008Yesterday, the Illinois High School Association's Board of Directors voted to implement a performance enhancing drug testing program beginning this fall for state championship competitions. The Board's vote came after reviewing the results of a survey sent to all 765 member schools on December 11, 2007...
Preview of Tomorrow's Congressional Hearing with Major League Baseball
Posted on January 14, 2008Earlier today, I wrote a 12-part Question/Answer for SI.com that previews tomorrow's Congressional hearing featuring former Senator George Mitchell, Bud Selig, and Donald Fehr.I address such topics as:The types of questions likely to be asked of Mitchell, Selig, and FehrWhether there will be finger-pointing by Selig and FehrWhether Roger Clemens' name and situation will come upWhether Donald Fehr will argue against new testingWhether other pro sports leagues will be following the testimonyWhether Congress should be spending its time on the topic of steroids and baseball and how might this topic influence the 2008 Presidential ElectionIt's lengthy (about 2,500 words), but I hope you have a chance to check out the Q/A...
The thorny and challenging issue of disabled track and field athletes
Posted on January 14, 2008Track and field competition presents unique challenges when it comes to how to handle disabled athletes. The latest example is the international track and field governing body's decision to bar from the Beijing Olympics "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius, a South African double-amputee who participates in sprint racing using prosthetic limbs...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on January 14, 2008New this week:N. Jeremi Duru, Friday night ?lite?: how de-racialization in the motion picture Friday Night Lights disserves the movement to eradicate racial discrimination from American sport, 25 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 485 (2007) Arturo J...
Sad Injustice
Posted on January 12, 2008Another African American superstar athlete has been prosecuted by the Justice Department for perjury arising from the Balco Grand Jury. Now Marion Jones, winner of five Olympic medals and probably the best female athlete of our time, has been sentenced to 6 months in prison by a federal judge in New York...
Should Role Model Status Influence Sentencing Decisions?
Posted on January 12, 2008I woke up this morning and read a very disturbing quote made by Federal Judge Kenneth Karas who gave Marion Jones the maximum sentence recommended under Jones' plea deal: The use of performance-enhancing drugs "sends all the wrong messages to all who follow the athlete's every move," Karas said, apparently referring to children...
Did Clemens' Attorneys Violate Ethics Rules with Phone Conversation?
Posted on January 11, 2008Attorney Paul W. Schwarzenbart of the Madison, Wisconsin-based law firm Lee, Kilkelly, Paulson & Younger e-mails me a really interesting thought:I am curious why no question has been raised (that I have seen anyway) as to whether Roger Clemens' attorneys violated attorney disciplinary rules by (apparently) engineering and participating in (by listening in) on the subject telephone conversation with Brian McNamee...
Rebuking Excuses to Lynching Tiger Woods Jokes
Posted on January 10, 2008The Golf Channel reporter Kelly Tilghman stated the only hope young professional golfers have in competing with Tiger Woods would be to ?lynch [him] in a back alley.? The three common excuses have risen again to urge that such comments are not really such a big deal: (1) Tiger Woods is not offended so neither should we, (2) the comment was a joke, without ill-intent, and (3) any punishment is only misguided mislabeled ?political correctness?...
Lynching Tiger Redux
Posted on January 10, 2008As the story has enlarged nationally, the Golf Channel announced yesterday that it would suspend Kelly Tilghman for two weeks in connection with her casual statement that the only hope for young up and coming professional golfers to compete with the great Tiger Woods would be to "lynch [him] in a back alley...
BCmesS: The 2008 Edition
Posted on January 09, 2008The BCS has gotten old, or at least talking about it has. No, it's still not legal. No, the accomodationist reforms introduced in 2006 have not solved things. No, it's not all that interesting. After crowning a two-loss "champion" this week, the BCS system is something not even its creators and enablers seem to love...
"Lynching Tiger Woods"
Posted on January 09, 2008The issue of race and sports law was a hot topic in 2007 and continues to be in 2008. At the beginning of each new year, along with personal resolutions, I optimistically hope beyond hope that our nation, the United States of America, can take transcendent steps toward alleviating our festering race problem...
Kentucky Speedway's Antitrust Suit Against NASCAR Dismissed
Posted on January 08, 2008Yesterday, a federal court judge dismissed Kentucky Speedway's antitrust lawsuit claiming NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. (ISC) conspired to monopolize and restrain trade in auto racing at the premier racing circuit level. Kentucky Speedway alleges that the two entities, which are both controlled by the France family, conspired to preclude Kentucky Speedway and other tracks from hosting the Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup) series despite their superior amenities...
Roger Clemens' Press Conference
Posted on January 07, 2008Earlier this evening, I wrote an SI.com piece on Roger Clemens' press conference. Hope you can check it out. I also hope you check out our Special Report on Roger Clemens, which includes a number of great pieces, including an exclusive interview by Jon Heyman with Brian McNamee, who tells Jon that he is standing by his story.
Thoughts on the Clemens Defamation Suit
Posted on January 07, 2008As everyone probably knows, Clemens today filed a defamation action in state court in Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston). Story (including a link to the Complaint) here. ESPN's Outside the Lines will have a program on Clemens at 2:30 E.S.T...
Forget Bin Laden. Can he Pitch?
Posted on January 07, 2008What was most fascinating about last night?s 60 Minutes Program was the hype. For days we have been seeing the promos for the blockbuster face-off between Roger Clemens and Mike Wallace. The interview was so newsworthy the New York Times leaked its highlights a few days before the show aired...
Initial Thoughts on the Roger Clemens Interview
Posted on January 06, 2008Mike has some excellent comments on Roger Clemens' "60 Minutes" interview, particularly on the prospects of a defamation suit by McNamee (I basically agree with what Mike says here ) and of Clemens testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform later this month...
"Discrimination Issues in Sports: Race, Gender & Sexual Orientation" at Loyola Marymount (L.A.)
Posted on January 04, 2008For all those interested, Loyola Marymount's Law School is sponsoring a seminar on discrimination in sports. Below is the relevant information. Apologies if this has already been posted on.Discrimination Issues in Sports: Race, Gender & Sexual OrientationFriday, Jan...
Giants-Pats Simulcast Results in Bar's Lawsuit
Posted on January 04, 2008It was reported that an Ohio sports bar filed suit against DirecTV for damages because it charged the facility for showing last week's Giants-Patriots game, despite the fact that it was simulcast on two terrestrial networks. That circumstance was discussed in a previous blog...
Defamation and Clearing Your Name
Posted on January 03, 2008One constant question in the wake of the Mitchell Report has been whether named players could or would sue Mitchell, MLB, or one of the sources--Kirk Radomski or Brian McNamee--in an effort to "clear their names." Such a lawsuit is a risky proposition...
Gabibbo Talks Its Way to Victory over Big Red
Posted on December 31, 2007Back in February 2004, Greg wrote about Western Kentucky University suing Mediaset, the television company run by Silvio Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy and the country's then Prime Minister, for trademark and copyright infringement, claiming that Gabibbo, the mascot for the satirical show "Striscia la Notizia" is a carbon copy of Big Red, the Western Kentucky mascot since 1979...
New Sports Law Scholarship
Posted on December 31, 2007New scholarship over the past several weeks:Dana Howells, Note, Log me in to the old ballgame, 22 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL 477 (2007)Kelly P. O'Neill, Note, Sioux unhappy: challenging the NCAA?s ban on Native American imagery, 42 TULSA LAW REVIEW 171 (2006)Joel Michael Ugolini, Even a violent game has its limits: a look at the NFL?s responsibility for the behavior of its players, 39 UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO LAW REVIEW 41 (2007)
Broadcasting the Patriots - Giants Game
Posted on December 28, 2007The saga of the right to telecast Saturday evening's game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants ended in a strange, but satisfying conclusion. The game, to be broadcast on two terrestrial television networks, one niche cable network and even a local independent station or two, guarantees maximum exposure for a potentially history-making game...
UNEQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW
Posted on December 26, 2007In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which, among other things, mandated sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine to be 100 times more severe than for crimes involving powdered cocaine. Many have seen this disparity in sentencing guidelines as reflecting the similar disparity in the way the law treats the poor and the not so poor...
Introducing Blog Justice
Posted on December 24, 2007Alan Milstein and his law firm, Sherman Silverstein, Kohl, Rose & Podolsky, have started a new blog that will be of interest to many of you: Blog Justice. It will examine legal issues that intersect with social justice. While Alan is regarded by many as the nation's leading sports litigator (he has litigated on behalf of Allen Iverson, Eddy Curry, and Maurice Clarett, among other prominent athletes), he has received even more acclaim for his litigation in the areas of insurance law, products liability, bioethics and clinical trials litigation...
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE SERVED
Posted on December 23, 2007A state judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana granted a request to adjourn a personal injury trial scheduled to start the same day LSU plays Ohio State in the BCS national championship game. The defendant?s attorney, Stephen Babcock, requested the delay claiming he had tickets to the January 7th game at the New Orleans Superdome...
Related Law Questions
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
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