Media & Entertainment Law

The Boss and the Estate Tax

Posted on July 13, 2010
From Paul Caron, my source for all things tax-and-sports, comes this discussion of whether George Steinbrenner, who died today at 80, saved his heirs $ 600 million in estate taxes by dying in 2010.Have a look.

Five Thoughts on Dan Gilbert's Letter

Posted on July 09, 2010
After LeBron James announced that he will be signing with the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert responded by posting a furious letter on nba.com/cavaliers, an NBA website for the Cavaliers. Here are some excerpts from the letter, in its comic sans font:Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier...

Lebron James and his Big Decision: Thoughts on Role of Endorsement Income Potential and State Income Taxes

Posted on July 08, 2010
At 9 p.m. tonight we?ll find out where Lebron James ? who at age 25 has already made $68 million in NBA salary and around $200 million in endorsement deals ? will play for the next five or six years. It seems that he?ll select from one of four teams: the Miami Heat, the New York Knicks, the Chicago Bulls or his current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers...

Update on Kobayashi's Contract Issue

Posted on July 07, 2010
Calorielab.com has just posted a new piece on the contract issues between Kobayashi and Major League Eating (MLE). The article gives more details on the potential contract issues involved, raising issues that test the legality of the arrangements. To get a background, read my earlier piece here...

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Competitive Eating and Uncompetitive Contracts

Posted on July 05, 2010
The arrest of competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi for apparently entering the stage after the conclusion of the annual July 4th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island received considerable coverage in the mainstream press. Kobayashi, a world-class competitive eater and former Hot Dog Eating Champion was not eligible to compete because of a "contract dispute" between him and Major League Eating ("MLE"), the governing body of the sport...

Theo Epstein, Juris Doctorate, Best GM in Baseball

Posted on July 02, 2010
Thirty years ago, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein probably wouldn't have had the chance of becoming a big league GM. That may even have been true 20 years ago.He never played or coached professional baseball, college baseball, or even high school baseball, was never an agent, and he got his break while an undergraduate student at Yale University (where he served as sports editor of the Yale Daily News) when he snagged a press internship with the Baltimore Orioles...

Did Kagan bury the umpire analogy? Maybe

Posted on July 01, 2010
As Mike notes, Elena Kagan took on the judge-as-umpire/ball-and-strike meme yesterday in response to a question from Sen. Klobuchar and knocked it out almost as successfully as she could. No transcripts to be found, but here is the video and some thoughts after the jump...

USC, Institutional Control, and Analogizing the NCAA and the Securities and Exchange Commission

Posted on June 30, 2010
Lewis & Clark law professor Tung Yin has a thoughtful post on his blog, The Yin Blog, that looks into the NCAA's sanctioning of the University of Southern California and draws parallels to SEC investigations. Here's an excerpt:As virtually all college football fans must be aware, the NCAA has dropped a 2000 lb JDAM on USC for its failure of institutional control over its sports programs...

Justice Stevens and the Baseball Antitrust Exemption

Posted on June 30, 2010
Henry Fetter has written an interesting piece for The Atlantic, looking back at retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' work as associate counsel to the Monopoly Power Subcommittee of the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee, and in particular the role he played during the 1951 Celler Hearings regarding the antitrust status of Major League Baseball...

Elena Kagan on the Judge-Umpire Analogy

Posted on June 30, 2010
Because we can never get enough of the judge-umpire analogy on our blog, here you go:Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan says she agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts that justices basically act like baseball umpires in deciding complex legal issues...

Jennifer Capriati and the "Capriati Rule"

Posted on June 29, 2010
Yesterday, various media outlets reported that Jennifer Capriati was rushed to a hospitial for a possible overdose of prescription drugs.At the age of 34, Capriati has not played professional tennis for 5+ years following shoulder surgery. However, she has yet to officially retire from the sport...

Being Rasheed Wallace: Would you Walk Away from $12 Million Guaranteed?

Posted on June 28, 2010
In the wake of the Lakers defeating the Celtics in the NBA finals, Celtics center/power forward Rasheed Wallace surprisingly retired. Though he played in 79 of the 82 regular season games and all of the Celtics' playoff games, the 35-year-old Wallace has battled an assortment of injuries in recent years, including foot and ankle problems...

More Antitrust and the BCS

Posted on June 27, 2010
Following up on my post from last week, the Idaho Statesmen features an interesting article today regarding a potential antitrust lawsuit against the Bowl Championship Series. The article notes that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff intends to continue his pursuit of an antitrust case against the BCS, despite Utah's recent admission into the Pac-10...

Deutscher Tennis Bund vs. ATP World Tour

Posted on June 25, 2010
The first post-American Needle sports-related case was released by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today. The case is Deutscher Tennis Bund, et al vs. ATP World Tour, et al, No. 08-4123. As of 6:oo PM PDT, the Third Circuit had yet to make the decision available on its website, but I will update this post as soon as it is available...

Long tennis matches and case-based rulemaking

Posted on June 24, 2010
My interest in sports law always has been about sports-as-law; that is, what can sports tell us about law, legal rules, and legal systems. The latest example is the epic early-round match at Wimbledon between American John Isner (who at 6'9" also has the distinction of being the tallest player around) and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut...

Reggie Bush and the IRS

Posted on June 23, 2010
Paul Caron, who always has his eye out of a sports/tax link, reports on efforts by the IRS and California to recover back taxes on the benefits Reggie Bush received from an agent while at USC. The NCAA's infraction report found that Bush received about $300, 000 and may owe (with interest and penalties) as much as $ 200,000.

It's not about the grades

Posted on June 22, 2010
The Times has a story today on the trend in law schools to change their grading systems to inflate student GPAs, often retroactively, and make students more marketable. At FIU, we just changed our system (although not retroactively) by eliminating the mean and reworking the distribution...

DRI Panel: Licenses, Monopolies and the NFL: An Examination of the Supreme Court's Decision in American Needle v. NFL and Its Effects in Sports,

Posted on June 21, 2010
This Wednesday at 1 p.m. (central time) in Chicago, DRI (the Voice of the Defense Bar) will be hosting a panel titled Licenses, Monopolies and the NFL: An Examination of the Supreme Court's Decision in American Needle and Its Effects in Sports, IP, Antitrust and Labor Law...

Conference Expansion and the BCS

Posted on June 21, 2010
Although the conference expansion frenzy has seemingly settled down for the time being (see Howard's earlier post on the subject here), one of the questions that remains is what impact, if any, the minor reshuffling will have on the Bowl Championship Series...

Why can't MLB Teams trade draft picks?

Posted on June 20, 2010
Jimmy Golen of the Associated Press considers that question. Here are a few excerpts from Jimmy's article:* * *Unlike their counterparts in other major pro sports, baseball teams cannot trade draft picks or even trade players for a year after they were drafted, like the Charlotte Hornets did shortly after picking Bryant or the Colts did with Elway...

Call for Papers for Fourth Annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate Athletics

Posted on June 19, 2010
Our friend Matt Mitten, who's a law professor at Marquette University Law School and director of the National Sports Law Institute, passes along this call for papers for the NCAA annual convention:A Call For Papers?Social Justice in Intercollegiate Sport:A Critical Examination of Racialized, Gendered and Disabled Bodies?The Fourth Annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate AthleticsIn Conjunction with the NCAA Annual ConventionJanuary 12-13, 2011San Antonio, TexasThe fourth annual Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate Athletics will be held on January 12-13, 2011 in conjunction with the NCAA Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas...

What Tiger Woods' Loss of Endorsement Income Means to his Agents

Posted on June 18, 2010
CNBC's Darren Rovell has a terrific piece looking at what Tiger's loss of endorsement deals has cost his agency, IMG. Unlike commissions on contracts between athletes and teams, which normally carry a 2 to 4% commission, commissions on endorsement deals normally run in the range of 15 to 20 %...

Ray Allen and Whether Shots Hitting the Rim Should be Reviewed by Instant Replay

Posted on June 14, 2010
Watching the Celtics-Lakers game last night, the topic of instant replay came up. Some background: NBA referees can use instant replay in certain situations, as detailed here:The NBA instituted instant replay before the start of the 2002-03 season, originally to review period-ending baskets and fouls, and a number of triggers have since been added...

Thoughts on college conference realignment: The Basketball Effects

Posted on June 13, 2010
Matt Bodie, one of my colleagues at PrawfsBlawg, has some thoughts about conference realignment, arguing that it marks (or should mark, if we all were honest) the end of the pretense of amateurism in college football, the "crashing down" (finally) of the whole system...

MLB players and replay

Posted on June 13, 2010
According to a poll of 100 Major League players: 77% oppose the use of replay on the base paths, 62 % oppose it on fair/foul calls, and 86 % said Bud Selig was correct not to retroactively award Armando Galarraga a perfect game.What do we do with this information as we consider the increasing use of replay? Should the players' views receive some consideration and even a certain deference? After all, they have the most directly and immediately on the line with a blown call (despite what fans of the team may believe)...

Ninth Circuit Ruling in Barry Bonds Prosecution

Posted on June 13, 2010
Couple days late on this, but here goes. Last Friday, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court ruling that blood and urine samples seized from BALCO and purportedly belonging to Bonds were not admissible...

Legal and Political Implications of College Football Conference Changes

Posted on June 11, 2010
It looks like we'll be seeing some movement with conferences, including the real possibility that Texas and Texas A&M will join the Pac 10 and SEC, respectively.Some members of Congress are already talking about holding hearings to question and possibly block certain conference changes...

World Series of Boxing: A Strike Out or Home Run for Amateur Boxing?

Posted on June 10, 2010
Baseball?s is the most famous, poker?s is one of the most recent ones to gain traction with the viewing public. Now, in September 2010, the ?World Series of Boxing? begins throughout the world. What is the ?World Series of Boxing?? Well, if all goes according to plan, the World Series of Boxing (hereinafter the ?WSB?) will be, according to its official web site, ?an annually recurring, global competition featuring franchises in three regional conferences: ASIA, EUROPE, AND THE AMERICAS...

Boston College's Professional Sports Counseling Panel: Helping Student-Athletes with the Decision to turn Pro

Posted on June 07, 2010
Good piece by Albert Breer in the Boston Globe on Boston College's Professional Sports Counseling Panel, a BC entity which helps its students-athletes with the challenges and opportunities related to turning pro. No other school has a panel like the one offered at BC; they instead advisers for individual teams...

Armando Galaragga and the Need for Instant Replay in Baseball

Posted on June 03, 2010
On Wednesday night, with just one out to go in the game, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was wrongly denied a perfect game on a very bad call by umpire Jim Joyce. Here's Tom Verducci's account for SI.com:Joyce happened to be working first base Wednesday night in Detroit for the game between the Tigers and the Indians when infamy did not just tap him on the shoulder, it slapped him upside the head...

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