Media & Entertainment Law

False/Positives: The Current State of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

Posted on April 09, 2008
The 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, 2008
On 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
It 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...

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Rock chalk, Law Talk: Finality, Accuracy, and Appellate Review

Posted on April 08, 2008
I 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, 2008
Marvin 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, 2008
Back 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, 2008
David 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, 2008
How 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Fordham 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, 2008
Michael 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, 2008
After 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
Perpetuating 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Last 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, 2008
Daniel 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, 2008
Over 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Recently 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Really 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, 2008
Sports 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, 2008
Last 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, 2008
During 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, 2008
Last 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, 2008
I 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Apparently, 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...

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