Media & Entertainment Law

Sports Lawyers Association Annual Conference

Posted on March 06, 2008
The Sports Lawyers Association 34th Annual Conference will be held at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, May 15th - 17th. The three-day conference is a premier event each year for sports law attorneys, agents, professors of sports law, students, and personnel from professional sports teams, leagues, player associations, governing bodies and companies tangentially involved with professional and amateur sports...

Three Clemens-Related Stories for Monday

Posted on March 03, 2008
1) Darren Rovell has an excellent piece on CNBC's Sports Biz examining how Rusty Hardin's business may be hurt by his representation of Roger Clemens. Here is an excerpt:Now I'm hardly suggesting that if the public decides that Clemens is guilty his lawyer Rusty Hardin, who has had a distinguished career, should call it quits...

Recent Sports Law Scholarship

Posted on March 03, 2008
Recently published scholarship:Kathryn Keen, Note, The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act: does it really improve the gender equity landscape?, 34 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY & URBAN LAW 227 (2007) Dionne L. Koller, Frozen in time: the state action doctrine?s application to amateur sports, 82 ST...

Sports and Recreation Law Association Conference

Posted on March 02, 2008
Many law professors center their sports law classes on professional sports league issues, notably labor law, antitrust and contracts. However, many sports law teaches and practitioners focus on amateur and recreational sports issues, such as personal injury, risk management, disabilities and gender discrimination...

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Why did the Committee Turn on Clemens?

Posted on March 02, 2008
Mike has written a couple recent SI pieces (here and here) on the unraveling of Clemens' legal strategy and the resulting referral from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Particularly in the second piece, he describes the way that committee Republicans, who had staunchly defended him and attacked Brian McNamee mercilessly and personally during the hearing, have joined Democrats in wanting to investigate Clemens further...

Happy Anniversary: Why Write Here?

Posted on March 02, 2008
To mark what apparently is this blog's 203d post, I want to add my own spin to much of what Geoff writes here and in his comments to The Sports Law Professor.When I was interviewing for teaching jobs five years ago, I frequently was asked why sports law was not part of my teaching package, given my sports background: student manager for a Big Ten basketball program; a short-lived career as a small-college coach; a love of most things sports; and early work on my fan-speech project...

Happy 2000th Anniversary, Sports Law Blog!

Posted on March 01, 2008
Rick's post on Thursday represented a milestone of sorts for this blog: It is our 2000th published post! Four and a half years and 2000 posts ago, Greg wrote:Since there is no such thing as 'Sports Law,' this blog will be dedicated to the law and the role it plays in the sports industry...

New Sports Illustrated Piece on Roger Clemens and his Legal Strategy

Posted on February 28, 2008
I have a new SI.com piece tonight on Roger Clemens. It examines how the House Oversight Committee regarded Clemens' legal strategy for the proceedings. Hope you have a chance to read it.

Baseball and Union Ask Supreme Court to Review Eighth Circuit's Fantasy League Ruling

Posted on February 28, 2008
Eric Fisher of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Daily reported today that MLBAM and the MLBPA have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that a series of prior lower court rulings involving First Amendment and right of publicity issues have created an inconsistent mess, and that "the appropriate legal test for balancing state-law publicity rights and First Amendment interest is a recurring and important question on which this Court's instruction is needed...

Second Annual National Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium

Posted on February 28, 2008
I am honored to be speaking at the Second Annual National Sports and Entertainment Law Symposium, to be held at the University of Virginia School of Law next Thursday and Friday, March 6-7. The event is sponsored by the Virginia Continuing Legal Education and the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal...

Alan Milstein to Speak at Syracuse University College of Law

Posted on February 28, 2008
The folks at the Entertainment and Sports Law Society at Syracuse University College of Law have let us know about a couple of upcoming speaking events: one with our friend and colleague Alan Milstein, the other with ESPN college basketball analyst Len Elmore, who is also an attorney...

Rusty Hardin Needs to Stop Talking

Posted on February 28, 2008
The latest from Rusty Hardin, Roger Clemens' lead attorney and possibly the worst example of the grandstanding lawyer we have seen in a while. Upon learning that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had requested that DOJ open an investigation into possibly perjury or obstruction by his client, Hardin said:Now we are done with the circus of public opinion, and we are moving to the courtroom, ...

Would Legislation Providing for Mandatory Drug Testing of Professional Athletes Pass Constitutional Muster?

Posted on February 27, 2008
The answer to that question could be, and has been, the subject of an entire law review article. But I want to touch upon it today because the timing is right in light of today's hearing in front of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection...

Duke Lacrosse II: Some First Amendment Issues

Posted on February 27, 2008
Continuing my thoughts on the latest Duke lacrosse lawsuit.One interesting feature is the role that the First Amendment might play for the defendants. Much of the conduct described in the complaint, and much of the conduct that presumably forms the basis for the players' claims against Duke and Duke officials (and to law-enforcement officials to a lesser degree), centers on all sorts of public statements that stated or suggested that some or all the players had done something wrong...

WSJ Law Blog Interview of Lawyer with NCAA Enforcement Practice

Posted on February 27, 2008
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog features an interview with attorney (and former IU quarterback) Mike Glazier. Glazier took his law degree and sports background and joined the NCAA enforcement team for several years. He's subsequently built a practice representing colleges involved in NCAA investigations...

Student Fans Acting Badly

Posted on February 27, 2008
Grant Wahl at si.com decries this basketball season as the "ugliest in years" and calls on schools and conferences to take some action to get fans and fan speech under control. I have written enough about fan speech in this and other spaces that my views are pretty obvious...

Yale Law School Panel on "The Mitchell Report and Beyond: Steroids, HGH, and the Future of Baseball"

Posted on February 26, 2008
I am honored to be speaking at Yale Law School next Tuesday as part of a panel on "The Mitchell Report and Beyond: Steroids, HGH, and the Future of Baseball." The panel was put together largely through the work of Aaron Zelinsky, a 1L at Yale Law School who wrote a terrific guest entry here last month entitled "Three Strikes for the National Labor Relations Act...

Another Duke Lacrosse Suit

Posted on February 26, 2008
Back in October, I wrote about the § 1983 lawsuit filed by the three Duke lacrosse players who were indicted in 2006 on charges of gang-raping an exotic dancer, then exonerated when it became clear the woman had fabricated the story and the district attorney (subsequently disbarred and convicted of criminal contempt) had repeatedly lied to the court and attempted to conceal exculpatory evidence...

The Mets in Salary Arbitration

Posted on February 25, 2008
Marty Noble, the Mets beat reporter for MLB.com, posted an interesting story, "Perez wins arbitration case: Hearing was first for Mets since Cone?s 16 years ago" on Friday analyzing the Perez decision. Noble provided a chart with all of the Mets? hearings while noting that the team had not participated in an arbitration hearing since 1992...

Full Contact: The Illinois Supreme Court Elaborates on the Contact Sports Exception in Karas

Posted on February 25, 2008
On February 22, 2008, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered an opinion found here in Karas v. Strevell, et al. Karas was injured during an ice hockey game after he was body checked from behind by two opposing players Strevell and Zimmerman (my client)...

Covington & Burling's Representation of both Major League Baseball and Roger Clemens

Posted on February 25, 2008
Andrew Longstreth of The American Lawyer has a very interesting piece on concerns by Major League Baseball that one of its lawfirms, Covington & Burling, has represented Roger Clemens in his current matter with the Mitchell Report and Congress. Lanny Breuer, one of the Covington's litigation partners and former special counsel to President Bill Clinton in his impeachment proceedings, has led his firm's efforts in representing Clemens...

Analyzing Kelvin Sampson's Settlement: A Good Business Decision for IU

Posted on February 23, 2008
Last week on the blog, I discussed Kelvin Sampson's contract situation in the wake of Indiana's receipt of a Notice of Allegations two weeks ago from the NCAA's enforcement staff. Yesterday's $750,000 settlement between IU and Sampson, of which $550,000 is coming from an anonymous donor, is a really good business decision for IU...

Thoughts on the IU Player Boycott

Posted on February 23, 2008
What should we make of the almost-boycott by six senior members of the IU Basketball team? The six, including star forward D.J. White, did not show at practice Friday, to protest both the dismissal/buyout/force resignation of Head Coach Kelvin Sampson in the wake of allegations of major NCAA rules violations and the hiring of Assistant Dan Dakich, rather than assistant Ray McCallum, as interim head coach...

Split Decision on the Final Day of Salary Arbitration

Posted on February 22, 2008
Oliver Perez won his arbitration decision today when panel members Robert Bailey, Elizabeth Neumeier, and Steven Wolf selected his figure of $6,500,000 over the Mets offer of $4,725,000.Neumeier and Wolf were also busy yesterday with Stephen Goldberg hearing the Francisco Rodriguez case...

Francisco Rodriguez Case - Arbitrator Stephen Goldberg

Posted on February 22, 2008
The case for and against Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels was presented yesterday to the panel of Stephen Goldberg, Elizabeth Neumeier, and Steven Wolf. Prior to this hearing, Goldberg?s panel and individual record was 24-17 in favor of the team.Goldberg?s decisions prior to three-arbitrator panels included the cases of:Dann Billardello (1992-Padres-team won)Jose Lind (1992-Pirates-player won)Barry Bonds (1991-Pirates-team won)Paul Gibson (1991-Tigers-player won)Greg Swindell (1991-Indians-player won)Shawon Dunston (1990-Cubs-player won)Billy Hatcher (1990-Pirates-player won)Bo Jackson (1990-Royals-team won)Steve Balboni (1989-Mariners-player won)Glenn Davis (1989-Astros-player won)Andre Dawson (1988-Cubs-team won)Greg Harris (1987-Rangers-player won)Charlie Leibrandt (1987-Royals-player won)Bill Dawley (1986-Astros-team won)Julio Franco (1986-Indians-team won)Leon Durham (1985-Cubs-team won)Juan Bonilla (1984-Padres-player won)The record of these 17 cases is 7 for the team and 10 for the players...

New Sports Illustrated Piece on Roger Clemens

Posted on February 21, 2008
I have a new column on SI.com: The Road From Here: What's Next for Clemens? Probably an Indictment. I hope you have a chance to read it.

NFLPA Says NFL is Colluding

Posted on February 21, 2008
Last November, the NFLPA launched an investigation into whether the NFL?s decision to lower the debt ceiling of its 32 clubs constitutes collusion to reduce competition for players or players? salaries (which I previously posted on the blog). In October, NFL owners voted to lower the debt ceiling (how much money a team can borrow) by $30 million, which reduces the debt ceiling to $120 million from $150 million, and to cut $1 billion of league and team debt over the next three years...

Howard Wins in Arbitration

Posted on February 21, 2008
Ryan Howard won his request for $10,000,000 from the Phillies. This represents the first hearing loss ever for the Phillies. The arbitration panel was Stephen Goldberg, Robert Bailey and Jack Clarke. According to my research, Goldberg?s panel record is 24-17 in favor of teams, and Bailey?s panels are 2-2...

NFL Reverses Position on Church Super Bowl Parties

Posted on February 21, 2008
According to my colleague Howard Friedman's Religion Clause blog, the NFL has reversed its position on whether churches could host "family friendly" Super Bowl parties without infringing on the league's IP rights. I blogged about the underlying dispute here...

Howard Decision Today - Perez and Rodriguez

Posted on February 21, 2008
Yesterday at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in St. Petersburg, Florida, Ryan Howard, his father Ron, and agent Casey Close squared off against Astros president Tal Smith to see which side could convince a majority of three arbitrators that Howard either deserves the highest figure ever awarded to a first-year arbitration-eligible player ($10,000,000) or a modest raise from $900,000 to the Phillies offer of $7,000,000...

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