Media & Entertainment Law

A Different View

Posted on February 11, 2008
Let 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
Last 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, 2008
It 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...

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More on Racism Behind Home Plate

Posted on February 08, 2008
An 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, 2008
My 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
As 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, 2008
At 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, 2008
On 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, 2008
Jeff 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Over 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, 2008
Scott 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, 2008
Hats 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, 2008
Recently 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, 2008
Darren 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, 2008
It 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, 2008
To 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
Alan 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
It 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, 2008
Anyone 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, 2008
Yesterday, 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, 2008
After 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...

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