Marquette University Law School has announced a new writing competition open to students from any law school. Winners get published in the Marquette Sports Law Review and get to attend the National Sports Law Institute fall conference for free. The deadline for submission is July 17, 2009. The announcement is here. more…
That’s the title of my new law review article that will be published in Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. It can be downloaded from SSRN. You’ll appreciate this paper if you’re tired of a 21st Century press that disregards individual privacy, infiltrates the news with sensationalized stories, and blames their inaccurate reporting on “getting the story out there first” (in particular with respect to participants in the sports and entertainment industries).
The NBA’s one-and-done rule requires that a player be 19 years of age plus one year removed from high school (with “from high school” meaning having graduated from high school or one’s class having graduated) in order to be eligible for the NBA draft. It’s presumed that a player will attend college in that “one year removed” and save for Brandon Jennings, it’s held true. Jennings, in contrast, has opted to play professionally in Italy while waiting to become eligible for the 2009 NBA Draft (he’s likely going to be a top 10 pick). In addition to living in a rent-free luxury apartment in downtown Rome, among enjoying many other perks, Jennings is reportedly earning around $1 million this year, after tax, between basketball and endorsement income (in fact, he stands to earn more in endorsement income this year than any pick from the 2008 NBA Draft, save for the top three players selected, Michael Beasely, Derrick Rose, and O.J. Mayo).
* Joshua Knipp and Michael Miller — two students at Wake Forest University School of Law — have posted on SSRN a draft of their interesting paper Finding a Balance: Advocating a Long-Term Solution to the NCAA’s Battle with Technology in Recruiting.
I want to commend the Louisville Fox affiliate, WDRB-41, for its decision not to air, or even report on, its interview with Karen Sypher, the woman Louisville coach Rick Pitino asserts has attempted to extort him. According to an ESPN report late last night:
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In writing and speaking about fans’ speech rights, the speech part always has seemed, to me, easy–of course someone can wear a t-shirt reading “Yankees Suck” and of course someone can jeer a player for making an error. And of course someone cannot be compelled to participate in a patriotic ritual such as singing “God Bless America.” The harder part (at least at professional sporting events) has been whether the First Amendment is even in play when the controlling actor–the teams–are not obviously state actors. The lawsuit by the fan who was kicked out of Yankee Stadium in 2008 spends a lot of time in the Complaint trying to deal with, and overcome, that problem.
Not surprised this is happening: The director of women’s studies at FIU is organizing protests against the hiring of Isiah Thomas as men’s basketball coach, relating to Thomas having been found liable (along with the Knicks and the team owner) for the sexual harassment of a Knicks employee.
If any of you are in the Jackson area, I’lll be giving a talk today at Mississippi College School of Law from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on recent sports law issues and careers in sports law. It will be in Room 251 and directions to the law school can be found here. There is also a Facebook page on today’s event. My thanks to Madeline Hankins and the rest of the law school’s Sports and Entertainment Law Society for putting this together.
The West Virginia University College of Law Sports and Entertainment Law Society is proud to announce the launch of a new blog that will add texture and content to the entertainment law and interconnected sports law space: HipHopLaw.com. Go to:
Beginning when I was around 16, I wanted to be a college basketball coach. I was a student manager in college, worked as a coach at summer basketball camps throughout college, and my first job after college was as assistant coach at a D-III school in Chicago. Basically, I was trying to set up the career trajectory that Nets Coach Lawrence Frank followed about 10 years later–short Jewish kid from NJ becomes manager at Big Ten school, parlays it into coaching career. It seems to have worked out slightly different for him than it did for me.
