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What Is Sports Law and Who Is a Sports Lawyer?
Matthew J. Mitten
Matthew J. Mitten is a law professor and director of the National Sports Law Institute, Marquette University Law School, in Milwaukee.
When you think of a “sports lawyer,” do you envision a lawyer who represents only a narrow pool of high-profile clients, such as professional athletes, sports leagues, or sports clubs? To the contrary, “sports lawyers” represent a wide variety of clients who need legal advice and representation that usually requires knowledge of several areas of law.
In my career as a sports lawyer (and now a sports law professor), I provided legal advice in a major league baseball player’s medical malpractice suit against his former team. I represented Harris
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As a sports lawyer, you might find yourself representing clients such as amateur and professional players; coaches, referees and officials; leagues; governing bodies of the sports industry; athletics administrators; educational institutions; and sports facility owners and operators. Even more broadly, your representation might extend to sports broadcasters; sports equipment manufacturers; sports medicine care providers; businesses that sponsor athletic events or athletes; and concessionaires who serve food and drink to fans at …show more content…
Those representing professional athletes must be familiar with labor and employment, contract, federal and state tax, and worker’s compensation law, as well as athlete-agent regulation. A sports lawyer must have strong contract negotiation and drafting skills to represent professional sports industry clients. An understanding of the arbitration process is also important because most employment-related disputes between professional athletes and leagues or their respective clubs are resolved by mandatory arbitration. Representation of individuals, educational institutions, and governing bodies that are part of the youth, high school, college, or Olympic sports industries also requires broad knowledge of contract, private association, tort, and constitutional law (if the requisite “state action” exists) and of arbitration (for Olympic
In the past recent years, we have heard in the news around cases involving assault and battery cases involving professional athletes or other celebrity figures, however, it is “not uncommon in the sport and recreation environment for a person to be harmed as a result of another’s intentional conduct, both on and off the “field of play” Cotten & Wolohan, p. 214). Nonetheless, it is important to understand that the term “liability” is often not limited to athletes-as-combatants. For example, in Law for recreation & sport managers uses an example from page 215 that discusses a youth football game regarding how a referee was attacked by three coaches and also was tackled by a 14-year-old player, resulting in charges of felony battery. Thus, Hamakawa remarks to say, ”recreation and sport managers should be aware that their organizations are not immune from incidents involving participants, parents and other spectators, coaches, and officials, security
Ethical Rules on Sport’s Justice. Dallas: East Dallas Times, page 21. 2008. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Print: Harry, Patrick Hayes.
Since the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) inception in 1906 there have been laws in place to protect the amateurism status of its student athletes. Over the last 100 years the NCAA has morphed into a multimillion dollar business. The success and revenue that student athletes have brought the NCAA and its member institutions has sparked a debate of whether or not to compensate players for paying. Research in the field has focused on the debate and reasons to pay players and reasons not to. There has been little attempt to assert the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the student athletes. The purpose of this study is to examine what the thoughts, feelings, and attitudes of the student athletes towards NCAA amateurism laws. Informal face to face interviews with Division 1 student athletes at universities in Indiana will be conducted to get an analysis of the attitudes, opinions, and feelings Division 1 student athletes have towards NCAA Amateurism laws.
Sobocinski, Eric J. "College Athletes: What is Fair Compensation?." Marquette Sports Law Review 7:257. http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=sportslaw
These professors argue that student athletes, under common law and NLRB’s (National Labor Relations Board) employee criterion, do in fact fall under the classification of an employee (Cooper). Under common law, four tests determine if someone is an employee or not. Three of these rules are as follows: “(1) the right of others to control a person's activities; (2) whether that person is compensated; and (3) if that person is economically dependent on that compensation.” According to these guidelines the employer-employee relationship is plainly synonymous to that of coaches and student-athletes. For one, coaches have a significant amount of control over their student-athletes’ activities, two, athletic scholarship money is considered compensation, and third, student-athletes are highly dependent on these scholarships for their food, living, and education. Even after realizing that a student-athlete falls under what the law defines as an employee, we can agree that any D1 student-athlete who works upwards of 40 hours a week to perform at a high level of competition for the universities benefit is essentially working a full time job on top of school work
The NCAA prides itself as an organization dedicated to safeguarding the well-being of student-athletes and equipping them with the skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom and throughout life. In order to ensure that participants are students first and athletes second the NCAA has specific rules pertaining to athlete amateurism. The requirements prohibit contracts and tryouts with professional teams, salary for participating in athletics, prize money, and representation by an agent. (Amateurism) These rules not only limit the freedom of the player but also put the player at risk of being taken advantage of due to the lack of a players union and illegality of employing an agent. Other aspects of the NCAA’s rule book have been under scrutiny as well. Marc Edelman, Professor of Law at Baruch College, wrote in his treatise: Why the NCAA’s No-Pay Rules Violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act that courts are now beginning to overturn certain rules that are deemed anticompetitive. This development is important because according to the Sherman Act “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherw...
Kahn, L. (2009). Sports, antitrust enforcement and collective bargaining. Antitrust Bulletin, 54(4), 857-881. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from the EBSCO Host database.
Abstract: Collegiate athletes participating in the two revenue sports (football, men's basketball) sacrifice their time, education, and risk physical harm for their respected programs. The players are controlled by a governing body (NCAA) that dictates when they can show up to work, and when they cannot show up for work. They are restricted from making any substantial financial gains outside of their sports arena. These athletes receive no compensation for their efforts, while others prosper from their abilities. The athletes participating in the two revenue sports of college athletics, football and men's basketball should be compensated for their time, dedication, and work put forth in their respected sports.
According to the NCAA regulations an athlete will lose his/her eligibility if they are paid to play; sign a contract with an agent; receive a salary, incentive payment, award, gratuity educational expenses or allowances; or play on a professional team. The word amateur in sports has stood for positive values compared to professional, which has had just the opposite. The professional sport has meant bad and degrading; while the amateur sport has meant good and elevating. William Geoghegan, Flyer News sports editor writes, “Would paying athletes tarnish the ideal of amateurism? Maybe, but being fair is far more important than upholding an ideal” (Geoghehan 1).
Recently college athletes have been granted permission to work, from the NCAA. Even with this permission, their jobs are still regulated. One regulation to the athletes working is that they cannot work for alumni of the school. The NCAA has this rule because they feel if athletes work for people with close ties to the school then they will be receiving special benefits while working. These special benefits include, (but are not limited to), athletes being paid while not at work and higher salaries then other workers doing the same job (Anstine 4).
...College Athletes Be Paid to Play? Michigan State Law Professors Robert and Amy McCormick Say Division I College Athletes Qualify as 'Employees' under Federal Labor Laws." Diverse Issues in Higher Education 23 June 2011: 12. Questia School. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.
Zimbalist, Andrew S. Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism And Conflict In Big-Time College Sports. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Athlete Endorsements – What’s in a Name." The Business of Sports. Wordpress. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.
In the sports world, as much as in the political, social or corporate world, ethics is put to the test at all times. Most athletes spend their career trying to overcome many barriers in order to gain notoriety and achieve good results with the objective of winning titles and, especially, to have great future opportunities, as for example, being awarded with an athletic scholarship.
As time progresses, watching and supporting sports is becoming more and more popular as a main source of entertainment. Many people have found ways to connect their jobs with their passion of sports. “The multibillion-dollar sports industry offers employment opportunities for management, marketing, and supervisory professionals at all levels of competition” (Sports Management 1). Depending on a person’s interests, there are jobs in professional, amateur, and even school sports. Once a person decides on a sport management career, it needs to be determined which area he or she more specifically wants to go into based on his or her interests and abilities.