Media & Entertainment Law

Our Little Baby's All Growns Up

Posted on February 05, 2010
Of course we're talking today about Major League Soccer, the little baby in the American professional sports world. Like the growing pains experienced by its more mature siblings, MLS is facing the expiration of its collective bargaining agreement, on January 31, and the distinct possibility of a labor interruption...

No Good Argument in American Needle

Posted on January 14, 2010
Two observations about last week's oral argument before the Supreme Court in American Needle v. NFL:1. Neither position seemed entirely plausibleLawyers like to ask questions based on completely unrealistic hypothetical situations because they allow us to locate the outer limits of a rule...

Teams That Tank

Posted on January 07, 2010
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is the latest sports leader to fret publicly about an increasing problem among professional sports leagues. With so many benefits available to a team from losing a game, or more specifically from not trying very hard to win, then it appears that sometimes teams appear indifferent to winning...

Tim Donaghy on 60 Minutes

Posted on December 07, 2009
It doesn't take much daring to say that 60 Minutes messed up. The seminal investigative news program lost its teeth a long time ago. But still, it would have been interesting and educational if the program had treated the Tim Donaghy story as something more compelling than a banal morality tale about the depths of addiction...

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Just So We're Clear, the NFL Steroid Policy is Dead

Posted on December 06, 2009
I want to report to the world that I just saw the NFL's steroid policy violated on national television during the Vikings-Cardinals game. The Minnesota Vikings are fielding ineligible players. Their defensive tackles, Kevin and Pat Williams, tested positive before the season for a steroid masking agent and thus are subject to the four-game suspension prescribed in the NFL steroids policy...

The Coming Federalization of Anti-Doping Policy

Posted on November 06, 2009
Just this past week, a Congressional subcommittee held a hearing on the recent Starcaps decision out of the Eighth Circuit. (I wrote about that decision here, and not all that favorably.) To refresh your recollection, the court decision allowed two NFL players, both named Williams and both playing defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, to assert claims for damages against the NFL in state court...

The Starcaps Case and the Impending NFL Labor Fight

Posted on September 21, 2009
The recurring drama of the National Football League season is off to a great start, except for the part where my beloved Patriots took it on the chin last week against the hated Jets. Looming over all the optimism of a new season is the much-anticipated labor crisis that threatens a return to the strike-filled era of the late part of the last century, an era in which sports unions flexed their young muscles against entrenched management interests...

Final Word On Delaware Lottery Decision

Posted on September 02, 2009
By the title of this entry I don't mean my final word. I'm referring to the very recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which decision most likely comprises the final word of the federal judiciary on Delaware's planned sports lottery...

Delaware's Next Step

Posted on August 25, 2009
I have only a few minutes this morning, but with the phone ringing and emails chirping I want to try to offer a few comments on the dark day in Delaware.1. The decision of the appellate court to convert the preliminary injunction appeal into a decision on the merits is problematic...

Not the End in Delaware

Posted on August 24, 2009
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by the NFL and other sports leagues against the state of Delaware over its plan to offer a sports lottery. The injunction is a preliminary injunction, not a permanent one...

The (Un)Importance of American Needle

Posted on July 30, 2009
To most everyone's surprise, the American Needle litigation has found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. When that court grants cert it's usually to reverse, but because of the strange posture of this petition (both sides sought the grant), the usual rules don't apply...

Will Selig Reconsider Rose?

Posted on July 28, 2009
A few months ago I was given a chance to speak at the annual meeting of the Baseball Historical and Sociological Conference, an esteemed group of baseball historians and other researchers. I used my time to argue a favorite point in my agenda, specifically that Major League Baseball should allow Pete Rose to be admitted into the Hall of Fame...

NFL v. Delaware: Round II

Posted on July 24, 2009
All of the major professional sports leagues plus the NCAA today filed suit in federal court in Delaware. The "Leagues" as I'll call them are suing the state of Delaware (actually suing the governor, to avoid 11th Amendment complications) for its plan to offer sports wagers as part of its lottery as soon as this fall, just in time for that bettors' paradise known more commonly as the National Football League...

May Lawyers Play Golf?

Posted on July 22, 2009
I'll stipulate up front that I'm not the most socially adept person and make frequent blunders. (Luckily for me, I'm often accompanied by loved ones who are quick to point out my errors.) My question today has to do with the mix of sports, law and culture...

Podcast Links to Interview on Sirius Radio

Posted on June 22, 2009
Sarah Meehan, host of UnderScore Sports radio program on Sirius Radio, interviews me on my latest book, my next book, and lots of things in between.In Part One she reads a bit from my book. Here's the link to part one of the podcast.In Part Two, I say something too...

PAPSA Under Fire

Posted on March 26, 2009
(This was cross-posted on my new blog, Gaming Law Memo.)A state senator in New Jersey has filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Here's a link. (Note the nutty professor quoted toward the end...

Rethinking the PED Ban: The Rights of Cyborgs

Posted on February 24, 2009
I know I'll likely lose my last reader over this. (Goodbye Mom.) But, just like Alex Rodriguez, it's time for me to come clean on performance-enhancing drugs. As more than one email message has mentioned, every time this blog deals with the PED issue, TSLP quickly turns the cannon, aiming at the prosecutors, cops, reporters, parents ...

Alex Rodriguez and the Real Victim of Steroids

Posted on February 09, 2009
Two years ago I predicted everything that we see today would come to pass. Here's the link. All that was left was to fill in the blank with the names of the guilty. Finally, one leaked out. We should not be surprised that the name is probably the most famous name on the positive test list: Alex Rodriguez...

The Bonds Tapes

Posted on February 05, 2009
Today much of the evidence the federal government will present against Barry Bonds in his perjury trial was unsealed. I have yet to have a chance to review the entire file (I have a day job), but one piece of evidence in particular has received the pointed attention of the press: a tape recording of a conversation made by a business associate of Bonds...

Athletes, Guns and Money

Posted on December 02, 2008
New York Giants' wide receiver Plaxico Burress got himself shot yesterday and got himself arrested today. The shooting was accidental; nothing that happens after this will be. Burress has been charged with two counts of criminal possession of a firearm...

Obama Playing Fantasy Football

Posted on November 23, 2008
President-elect Obama has recently added his presidential-elect voice to the chorus calling for the demise of the BCS college football championship. The primary reason for eliminating the BCS and instituting a playoff for the top level of college football is the desire to crown a "true champion...

What Golf Can Teach the Rest of Us (Part Three)

Posted on November 14, 2008
Here at TSLP International, we're studying three of the many lessons we can take from the great game of golf. (Ideally, we'd be examining this issue at a golf course.) Part One described the fledgling golfer's manner of financing, and wondered why other young professionals (lawyers, college athletes) couldn't fund their formative years in the same way...

ESPN vs. Sports Illustrated

Posted on November 07, 2008
In this corner, we have the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports, which has added to its multiple cable television channels a weekly sports magazine and a heavily visited website, and which can justly claim to have revolutionized sports viewing in the U...

What Golf Can Teach the Rest of Us (Part Two)

Posted on November 06, 2008
In Part One I discussed how golf teaches us how to fund legal education and college athletics. (And they say golf is a waste of time.) In Part Two, we'll see how golf can fix sport's most pervasive problem. No, I'm not talking about drugs and groupies; I'm talking about money...

Public Funding of Private Sports Stadiums

Posted on November 02, 2008
It is something of a litmus test among sports academics and other commentators: to be admitted to the club, one must be against public funding of sports stadiums. Everyone's against it. The chief reasons are several: that funding constitutes a subsidization of the wealthy, that new stadiums do not pay off economically in terms of increased business activity, and that new subsidized stadiums ultimately generate ticket prices that are beyond the financial reach of the average fan...

New Book! A Must Read for (My) Christmas

Posted on October 29, 2008
Looking for the ideal Holiday present? I mean for me. How about buying my new sports law book and giving it to someone, even yourself? It makes an ideal gift for any religious holiday, birthday, or even your anniversary. Taking Sports Seriously: Law and Sports in Contemporary American Culture takes on all the fun issues of sports law, collecting a selection of my essays from this and other blogs, opinion journals and lawyer newspapers, plus a few items that have yet to appear anywhere...

What Golf Can Teach the Rest of Us (Part One)

Posted on October 28, 2008
Golf is a great sport for many reasons, just one of which is the fascinating counterpoint it provides to the other professional sports, and perhaps even to much of life. For golf is unique, even among the individual sports. Professional golf is pure, unalloyed competition...

Book Notes: Game On

Posted on October 12, 2008
Tom Farrey, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children (ESPN Books, 2008)Sorry for the inattention, blog readers, but a recent motorcycle accident knocked out a few weeks I'll never get back. (I performed an aerial maneuver while my bike stayed on the ground...

Book Notes: Game On

Posted on October 05, 2008
Tom Farrey, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children (ESPN Books, 2008)Sorry for the inattention, blog readers, but a recent motorcycle accident knocked out a few weeks I'll never get back. (I performed an aerial maneuver while my bike stayed on the ground...

All's Not Perfect With Sports Either

Posted on September 04, 2008
A paper (linked here, which I came across here) by law professor Clayton Gillette compares the market for law professors to the market for free agent professional athletes, notably baseball players. And guess what: the athletes come out on top! (Sports and law plus a little industry gossip: basically everything TSLP cares about, all in one paper!) Gillette's basic point is that sports free agency works pretty well for sports, in terms of bringing about at least a decent version of an optimal distribution of the best players among teams...

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