Media & Entertainment Law

2010 Scholarly Conference on College Sport at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Posted on March 25, 2010
I look forward to being a panelist at the 2010 Scholarly Conference on College Sport at UNC Chapel Hill. It will be a three-day event held from April 21 to 23 and is being hosted by the College Sport Research Institute and the UNC Exercise and Sport Science Department...

Tomorrow is Sports Law Symposium Day

Posted on March 25, 2010
Like we blogged about before, tomorrow has a number of great sports law-related events scheduled, all of which are free and open to the public:Harvard Law School: ?Operating in the Shadow of Upcoming Collective Bargaining Negotiations?Fordham Law School: Annual sports law symposiumFlorida International: "Whither the Board? The National Labor Relations Board at 75"

New York Law School's Sports Law Symposium

Posted on March 24, 2010
Paul Haberman and I will be panelists at this year's New York Law School Sports Law Symposium on Monday, April 5. It will be an all-day event and should be excellent. Matthew Corwin, Alycia Hucabey, and Lauren Friedberg have done a great job organizing it...

Florida International University College Of Law Labor Law Symposium

Posted on March 23, 2010
FIU Law will be hosting what looks to be an excellent labor law symposium this Friday (the same date that Harvard Law School and Fordham Law School will be hosting sports law symposium). There are some terrific panelists, including those with sports law backgrounds, such as Boston University Law Prof Michael Harper, Marquette Law Prof Paul Secunda, and WVU Law Prof Anne Lofaso...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Vermont Law School Panel on Age Limits in Pro Sports

Posted on March 17, 2010
On Friday, April 2, at noon, we'll have what should be an engaging panel discussion on the role of age limits in professional sports. We hope you can make it up here (Vermont in April is about as nice a place as you can find). Here is the press release:The Vermont Law School?s Sports and Entertainment Law Society will present a panel discussion on Friday, April 2, on age limits in professional sports...

Can Your Employer fire you for participating in a March Madness pool at work?

Posted on March 16, 2010
This is the question that Fox News' Tim Lemke explores in a new column titled "March Madness at Work: Morale Booster or Drain on Productivity?"

Law and "Law" in Baseball

Posted on March 16, 2010
Here's a good story talking about baseball's "codes" as to civility and conduct, in advance of publication of The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime.It is not nearly as clear as ""three simple things...

International Sports Law Conferece: Call for Abstracts

Posted on March 15, 2010
Dr. Anastasios Kaburakis, an Assistant Professor of Sports Management at Southern Illinois University, passed along the call for abstracts for the International Sports Law and Businss Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, this September.

14th Annual Fordham Sports Law Symposium

Posted on March 12, 2010
On March 26, 2010, Fordham Law School will host the 14th Annual Fordham Sports Law Symposium. Harvard will also be hosting its Symposium on that day, so for all of you sports law afficionados, TGIF! While Mike will be moderating a panel at Harvard on CBA issues in the NFL, I will be moderating a panel at Fordham on age restrictions in professional sports...

More on Judges and Umpires

Posted on March 11, 2010
Mike's post flagging Aaron Zelinsky's excellent essay on the judge-umpire analogy gives me the chance for some shameless promotion:At the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in May in Chicago, I will be part of a roundtable on Judges as Umpires, Umpires as Judges: Rethinking the Metaphor...

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Martin

Posted on March 11, 2010
We are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Martin will be guest blogging on Sports Law Blog for the next couple of weeks. Liz is the Assistant General Manager and Legal Counsel for the Visalia Rawhide, the Class "A" affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks...

Update on O'Bannon v. NCAA

Posted on March 11, 2010
Ed O'Bannon and Sam Keller's class action lawsuit against the NCAA grew yesterday, with the addition of 11 additional plaintiffs. They include former student-athletes who played in championship men's basketball games. Harry Flournoy, who was captain of the 1966 Texas Western team which defeated the University of Kentucky, and Eric Riley, who played at the University of Michigan with Chris Weber and the Fab 5 and later played for 5 NBA teams between 1993 and 1999, are among them...

Making More by Spending Less

Posted on March 11, 2010
Sports Business Daily (subscription only), citing Greg Johns of SEATTLEPI.com, reported yesterday that the Seattle Mariners posted "a $3.18M profit for '09, as opposed to a $4.53M deficit for '08." According to SBD: "That deficit was 'thanks in part to the team's highest payroll ever of $120M combined with a significant drop in attendance to 2...

Practical Effects of American Needle v. NFL on a Minor League Baseball Team

Posted on March 11, 2010
American Needle v. NFL, which has been discussed in detail on Sports Law Blog, is currently under review by the Supreme Court. As a brief overview, the NFL signed a contract with Reebok International, making the company the official supplier of on-field caps, for all players and personnel...

Williams v. NFL update

Posted on March 10, 2010
Bloomberg's Sophia Pearson, Beth Hawkins, and Aaron Kuriloff detail the latest in Minnesota Vikings defensive tackles Kevin and Pat Williams' lawsuit against the NFL, the trial for which began this week.The lawsuit stems from December 2008, when the NFL suspended both Williams and four other players for testing positive for the diuretic bumetanide, a banned substance contained in the dietary supplement StarCups, the label of which omits mention of bumetanide...

The Justice as Commissioner: Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy

Posted on March 10, 2010
Yale Law School third-year student Aaron Zelinsky's terrific article, The Justice as Commissioner: Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy, has been published by The Yale Law Journal Online. It addresses a topic that has generated great discussion on this blog, including some excellent commentary by Howard...

McGill University Faculty of Law Discussion on American Needle v. NFL and Single Entity Issues

Posted on March 10, 2010
If you are in the Montreal area and are interested in sports and antitrust law, I'll be giving a talk on Tuesday, March 16, at 4 p.m. at the McGill University Faculty of Law. I'll be presenting on both my article, American Needle v. NFL: An Opportunity to Reshape Sports Law, 119 Yale Law Journal 726 (2010) and my forthcoming article, The NBA and the Single Entity Defense: A Better Case?, 1 Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law__ (forthcoming, 2010)...

Harvard Law School 2010 Spring Sports Law Symposium

Posted on March 09, 2010
I look forward to speaking at this year's Harvard Law School sports law symposium. It will be all-day event on Friday, March 26. Here is some information on the symposium, which is in honor of Harvard Law School professor (and sports law pioneer) Paul Weiler and is open to the public, free of charge:* * *The Harvard Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law and Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law are pleased to announce the 2010 Spring Sports Law Symposium at Harvard Law School...

The Washington Wizards Dumped Jamison, Butler, and Haywood. Can they Dump Arenas and his Contract?

Posted on March 08, 2010
I have a new column up at the Huffington Post that takes a close look at the question on the minds of the Washington Wizards and their fans: Can the team terminate Gilbert Arenas' contract? An excerpt is included below. You can find the full column here...

The Flying Hotdog Lawsuit: Coomer v. Kansas City Royals

Posted on March 08, 2010
Over on Torts Prof Blog this morning, I have a guest post on the relationship between "game presentation", where teams and stadium operators try to keep fans entertained at every moment during the game (e.g., firing t-shirts up into the crowd during timeouts), and tort law...

Highlights from MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Posted on March 08, 2010
On Saturday, I was a panelist at the 2010 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is hosted by ESPN and which has become (in my opinion) the biggest annual event for sports professionals. I spoke on the "Performance Enhancement: Will Future Athletes be Formula One or NASCAR?" panel...

Fame and Infamy

Posted on March 04, 2010
In comments to my post about Roger Clemens, Ed Edmonds poses an interesting question:Hasn't Jackson's banishment from baseball actually served to keep him in front of the baseball public for so many years? Does the average fan know as much about Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, Honus Wagner (if not for the baseball card) as they do about Jackson? Perhaps Rose can make more money selling his autograph because the controversy keeps his name before the public...

Settlement between MLB Properties and Upper Deck

Posted on March 03, 2010
Maury Brown at the BizofBaseball blog is reporting that MLB Properties and Upper Deck have settled their recent trademark infringement lawsuit. The terms of the settlement are detailed here, but in short Upper Deck has effectively agreed to cease its accused conduct in the future, and agreed to pay MLB Properties "significant" damages for its unlicensed 2010 products...

Some thoughts on Roger Clemens

Posted on March 02, 2010
Journalist Jon Pessah talks about the legacy and current limbo status of Roger Clemens, based in part on recent conversation Pessah had with the should-be future Hall-of-Famer. In a sidebar, Pessah gathered comments about Clemens from a range of baseball watchers, including Mike and me.

New Sports Law Scholarship

Posted on March 01, 2010
Recently published scholarship includes:Sean W.L. Alford, Comment, Dusting off the AK-47: an examination of NFL players? most powerful weapon in an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, 88 NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEW 212 (2009) Jeffrey Benz, Common issues in international sports arbitration, 10 PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL 165 (2009)Kristan Bryant, Note, Take a knee: applying the First Amendment to locker room prayers and religion in college sports, 36 JOURNAL OF COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY LAW 329 (2009) Christian Dennie, Tebow drops back to pass: videogames have crossed the line, but does the right of publicity protect a student-athlete?s likeness when balanced against the First Amendment?, 62 ARKANSAS LAW REVIEW 645 (2009)N...

2010 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Posted on February 28, 2010
I look forward to being a speaker at the 2010 MIT Sloan Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which will be held this Saturday, March 6. It will be an all day event. Other speakers include:* Daryl Morey, Houston Rockets GM (and MIT grad)* Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks* Steve Pagliuca, Managing Partner of the Boston Celtics* Sunil Gulati, President, United States Soccer Federation & Kraft Soccer* Michael Lewis, author of Money Ball* Jonathan Kraft, President of the Kraft Group and executive at the New England PatriotsI'll be on the panel titled, "Performance Enhancement: Will Future Athletes be Formula One or NASCAR?"...

The Star Caps Saga Continues

Posted on February 27, 2010
More than a year after the NFL attempted to suspend Pat and Kevin Williams of the Minnesota Vikings for violating the NFL Policy on Anabolic Steroids and Related Substances (the ?NFL Policy?), litigation involving the case continues. The case took another turn last week when Judge Gary Larson, a Minnesota state court judge, handed down a 44 page opinion in response to the parties? motions for summary judgment...

What about curling?

Posted on February 26, 2010
As the Olympics wind down, I found myself thinking about the "What's a Sport?" question as applied to one of the darlings of these Games--curling. Curling seems to have been discovered in Vancouver, as the public has learned of the game's rhythms (somewhat comparable to baseball), its shot-making and strategy (comparable to golf, with collision physics thrown in), and the attractiveness of many of the female curlers (several European curlers even posed nude for a fund-raising calendar)...

New SI.com Column on NFL Teams Cutting Players with Post Concussion Symptoms

Posted on February 26, 2010
In the wake of the Eagles cutting Brian Westbrook, I have a new SI.com column on the legal, ethical, and political implications of NFL teams cutting players who suffer from concussions. Here's an excerpt:* * *The NFL's collective bargaining agreement does not distinguish concussions from other injuries for purposes of cutting a player...

An Update on MLB Properties v. Upper Deck

Posted on February 26, 2010
As discussed here earlier in the month, MLB Properties - MLB's trademark licensing and enforcement entity - recently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against trading card manufacturer Upper Deck, alleging that Upper Deck was producing unauthorized sets of baseball cards featuring MLB uniforms and logos...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.