Media & Entertainment Law

State Law Barrier to the Marlins New Stadium?

Posted on February 20, 2008
Marc 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, 2008
If 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, 2008
If 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, 2008
I 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...

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Ohio Supreme Court Won't Hear Former Coach O'Brien's Case

Posted on February 20, 2008
The 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
As 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, 2008
Professor 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Cincy 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, 2008
Representatives 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Recently 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, 2008
After 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
His 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Following 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, 2008
That'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, 2008
It 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
Back 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, 2008
Chris 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
As 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, 2008
Tomorrow 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, 2008
Contrary 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, 2008
Devan 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, 2008
On 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...

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