Law Students

Can A Fan Sue When His Team Loses On Purpose?

By Casebook Sherpa

Sadly, those seeking to use the courts to hold the Cheatriots accountable for their racketeering have chickened out.

Dr. Bombay said then (as did others) that the suit was likely to be dismissed. The question remains though - how can you sue a pro sports team? I’ve been thinking that there must be a way to sue teams for deliberately tanking all or parts of a season in order to get a better draft pick.

Perhaps not if it’s just the last game of the year, but if we’re talking dozens of games, couldn’t a season ticket holder, for instance, sue to receive the benefit of his bargain? If he purchased the tickets with the understanding that the team would attempt, to the extent it could, to win games and stay competitive couldn’t that season ticket holder bring a complaint against a team that could be summarized something like this:

Plaintiff purchased said ticket package with the expectation that the Miami Heat would attempt to provide its fans with a competitive basketball team.

The Heat has taken repeated action that indicate it has opted to lose as many games as possible, including trading future Hall of Fame player Shaquille O’Neal, allowing Duane Wade to voluntarily and unnecessarily opt for surgery on his injured knee, allowing its Head Coach to take the unprecedented action of leaving the team in order to scout college basketball games.

Wherefore, the aforementioned season ticket holders pray this court order The Heat to repay the value of the tickets for the portion of the season it deems the team has forfeited.

If possible, what facts would have to allege to bring a cause of action? Again, we’re not talking about a bad team or a team that simply loses. We’d be talking about a team that appears to have taken steps to lose games on purpose.

I’ve been trying to locate a season ticket contract to review what, if any, warranties a team makes to the season ticket holder. But I would imagine that if you were to sue, we’d be looking at some sort of implied warranty in the contract and you would need to offer evidence of your belief when purchasing the tickets or the belief of the typical season ticket buyer.

Full post as published by Fight The Hypo on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).