Great Lakes Sports and Entertainment Law Academy

Last year we blogged about the Great Lakes Sports and Entertainment Law Academy, a summer program  started last year by Peter Carfagna and Craig Nard and affiliated with Case Western and Cleveland-Marshall Law Schools for law students interested in sports and entertainment law. The academy has a great deal to offer and will have courses again this year from May 14 to May 31. For more information, click here.

Will the Washington "Redskins" Finally Get A New Name?

Dave Zirin wrote an article this week in The Nation entitled "Redskins: The Clock is Now Ticking on Changing the Name."  We have regularly debated the offensiveness of American Indian mascots at the Sports Law Blog, and once again, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has been called upon to change the team moniker of our nation capital's NFL club.  Zirin's article was inspired by a symposium held in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Indian History decrying the use of all American Indian mascots.

According to Zirin:  "It’s an awkward fact of life in Washington, DC, that we are home to both the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Washington Redskins. One attempts to preserve the Native American cultures that weren’t eradicated by conquest; the other is both a symbol and result of the same eradication. These two worlds collided this past week when the museum hosted a day-long symposium about Native American sports nicknames. In a packed auditorium, panelists and audience members took the local team to task, calling their name 'ugly,' 'offensive' and 'a racist slur.' Former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only Native American senator in US history, said from the stage, 'If you want [your mascot] to be a savage—use your own picture.' Not one person either in the audience or the crowd defended the use of 'Redskin,' because, as one fan of the team said to me, 'it really is defending the indefensible.'"

While the NCAA has taken strong action against the use of offensive nicknames and imagery, will Dan Snyder, and other professional sports team owners (including the Braves, Indians, Chiefs, Blackhawks, etc.) finally heed the call for change and eliminate offensive and stereotyping monikers and mascots?

It's sports and there must be some law angle

(H/T: The Big Lead)

Legal Commentary on Katie Couric Show

He's my interview on Katie Couric, from Monday. I was the legal commentator for her show, which featured an interview with Sue Paterno. It was great to meet Katie and to be part of this show.

The NBA's "One and Done Rule" is Patently Unfair

Last night, University of Kentucky star freshman Nerlens Noel injured his knee in his team's contest against the University of Florida.  While the extent of his injury has not been made public, and we all keep our fingers crossed (reports are torn ACL, out for the year), it reminds us of the patently unfair draft eligibility rules in the sport of basketball.  By virtually any account, Noel was one of the premier high school basketball players in the country, and should he have been inclined, an early lottery pick in the 2013 NBA draft.  Let's hope that opportunity is still within Noel's grasp.

As readers to this blog should know by now, the NBA and NBPA have agreed in their CBA that basketball players have to wait one year from the time their class graduates from high school to be eligible for the NBA draft.  The result is the infamous "One and Done" rule that forces players to attend college--or head overseas (Brandon Jennings)--before they can enter the NBA.  While I'll let others (and I mean you Michael McCann) make the age eligibility restraint of trade arguments, the courts have decided that current union members can impose limits on future members.  See Clarett v NFL among other cases.

Unfortunately, the NCAA does no favors to elite student athletes by capping the potential disability insurance policies that these players can obtain.  According to the NCAA's "Exceptional Student-Athlete Disability Insurance" (ESDI) guidelines, the cap on coverage in the sport of basketball is $5 million dollars for permanent disability insurance.  There are no provisions of loss of value insurance policies that would address an injury that lowers a players draft slot selection but doesn't make them permanently injured.  An 2013 NBA lottery pick will make multiples of that in their first guaranteed contract.  While we can hope Noel's injury is both minor and not a barrier to his NBA potential--and its financial implications--the NCAA, the NBA, and NBPA have not helped him in any way.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a law review article for the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law entitled "Transitioning to the NBA: Advocating on Behalf of Student-Athletes for NBA & NCAA Rule Changes."  A copy of this article can be found here.  How many more times do we have to lament the "bad luck" of NCAA student-athletes without making any changes?  Let's hope that Noel's lack of choices after high school do not derail either his NBA career or the abundant riches it would bring.

New York Law School Sports Law Symposium next Friday, Feb 22

Looking forward to being part of what should an excellent symposium next Friday at New York Law School -- great work by Brett Hirsch and David Soskin and many others in putting this together. 

I will be moderating the bankruptcy panel and will be sure to encourage discussion on the role of bankruptcy law in the sale of the Sacramento Kings.

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The New York Law School Sports Law Society and the Institute for Information Law and Policy

Presents:

The Fourth Annual Sports Law Symposium

Friday, February 22, 2013

185 West Broadway

W201 (Events Center)

Fee:      Please note that if you registered for the original date, postponed due to Hurricane Sandy you are automatically registered for the make-up event on February 22.  

                $45 for attorneys (includes CLE’s)

            $45 for attorneys and professionals not seeking CLE credits (No CLE credit)

$15 for outside students

Free for current NYLS students (with a valid school ID)

This CLE program has been approved for a maximum of three hours of CLE credit for both transitional and non-transitional attorneys. New York Law School offers tuition assistance for attorneys who may have difficulty attending CLE events due to cost considerations. Please visit:  http://www.nyls.edu/academics/cle/tuition_assistance to see if you qualify.  

Tentative PANELS                                                                                                                                                  

12:00 pm - Registration Opens

12:45 pm - Opening Remarks

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm - Bankruptcy Issues in Sports (1 CLE Credit - Professional Practice ("P.P.") ) 

2:15 pm - 3:15 pm - Analysis and Impact of the Concussion Litigation (1 CLE Credit - P.P.) 

3:30 pm - 4:30 pm - Negotiating Media Rights Acquisitions (1 CLE Credit - P.P.)

4:45 pm - 5:30 pm - Breaking Into the Sports Industry Q&A

5:30 pm - Networking Reception 

 PANELISTS *                                                                                                                                                         

Jodi Balsam, Associate Professor at NYLS; Former Counsel for Operations and Litigation at the NFL

Robert Boland, Professor of Sports Management & Sports Business at New York University 

Robert Erb '91, CEO at Schutt Sports; Adjunct Professor at New York Law School  

Frank Golding, YouTube Director, Head of Sports for North America at Google 

Frank Hawkins, Partner at Scalar Media Partners; Former SVP Business Affairs at the NFL 

Darren Heitner, Founder of the Sports Agent Blog; Partner at Wolfe Law; Contributor at Forbes Magazine; 

Jeannine Kenney, Associate Counsel at Hausfeld LLC; Plantiff’s Liason Counsel for NFL concussion litigation

J. Carlos Kuri, Vice President and General Counsel at New York Red Bulls  

Jeffrey Levitan '83, Partner at Proskauer Rose LLP

David Mayer, Principal Counsel at ESPN, Inc.

Michael McCann, Legal Analyst at SI & NBA TV; Professor & Director of Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at UNH Law;  

Matthew Pace, Partner at Arent Fox LLP

Irwin Raij, Partner and co-chair of the Sports Industry Team at Foley & Lardner LLP

Robert Raiola, CPA; Sports & Entertainment Group Manager at Fazio, Mannuzza, Roche, Tankel, LaPilusa, LLC

Frank Saviano, Associate at Proskauer Rose LLP

Alan Schwarz, Reporter at New York Times

David Soskin '08, Counsel at ESPN, Inc.; Adjunct Professor at New York Law School  

Meredith Wolff, Associate Staff Attorney at NHL Enterprises, L.P.

The Illusion of Amateurism Within College Athletics

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." ~
Verbal Kint/Kaiser Soze, The Usual Suspects 

It is time to wake up.  For decades the NCAA has created the illusion that their sole purpose was to defend the concept of amateurism within higher education.  This trick has been sanctioned by none other than the Supreme Court when, in 1984, they recognized the NCAA as “the guardian of an important American tradition.…amateurism in intercollegiate athletics.”[1]  And, for far too long, the American public has accepted this deception; that those competing in college sports should remain amateurs, as defined by the NCAA, so as to delineate them from paid professional athletes.

The argument is stale, the facts don’t support reality, and the public is recognizing the absurdity of the NCAA’s position: they insatiably embrace commercialism in all facets of intercollegiate athletics except on a single issue—athlete compensation.  College athletics has evolved into an industry generating billions of dollars a year without paying the labor that produces the demand for this product.  Perhaps one of the reasons public outcry has been muted is that the students engaged in these sports are, predominantly, minorities whose access to college the public often labels “an opportunity.”  The popular argument, that scholarships offer free education to many athletes, is rebuffed by the systemic failure of schools and the NCAA to ensure that students competing in football and basketball graduate with their college degrees or even a valuable education.

To read the rest this article on The Huffington Postfollow this link.  Let me know what you think.....

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[1]NCAA v Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma