Media & Entertainment Law

Does Shaq Have First Amendment Claim Against Phoenix Sheriff Who Took Away His Badge Over Kobe-Rap?

Posted on June 24, 2008
We'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, 2008
I 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, 2008
Jim 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, 2008
Comedian 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.

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The New Republic's Feature Article on Sonny Vaccaro

Posted on June 23, 2008
In 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, 2008
Recently 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, 2008
Every 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, 2008
From 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, 2008
Liz 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, 2008
Specific 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, 2008
With 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, 2008
On 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, 2008
Fun 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, 2008
With 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, 2008
Michael 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
Yet 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, 2008
Yesterday, 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, 2008
Recently 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, 2008
Last 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, 2008
Two 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, 2008
Bonjour 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, 2008
Most 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, 2008
The Workplace Prof blog links to the ESPN stories.

Are aluminum bats an unreasonably dangerous product?

Posted on May 19, 2008
The 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, 2008
Oscar 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
Senator 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, 2008
Here 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, 2008
Sarah 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...

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