University of Illinois Law Professor Suja Thomas, who teaches sports law, and her husband Scott have created the Give Blog, where up until December 24th they will match donations of up to $100 from new donors to five charities (The Hunger Project, The Grameen Foundation, Safe Passage, Catcholic Charities USA, and Eastern Illinois Foodbank). If you’re interested in contributing to any of these five charities during this holiday season, please consider doing so through the Give Blog, as Suja and Scott will match the amount if you are a new donor. For more information, click here. more…

For those of you attending the Association of American Law Schools’ 2010 annual meeting in New Orleans in January, Villanova Law Professor David Caudill, the Chair of the AALS Section on Sports and the Law, invites you to attend this year’s section meeting and panel, which will be held from 1:30 to 3:15 p.m in the Elmwood Room (3rd Floor) of the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.

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Last week, 171 players filed for free agency by the November 19 deadline. Of that group, there are 23 Type A free agents and 49 Type B free agents. John Grabow, a Type A free agent, and the Chicago Cubs have already agreed to a new 2-year, $7,500,000 deal. Now the December 1 and December 7 deadlines are quickly approaching. The teams have until December 1 to offer arbitration to protect their right to receive compensation if the player accepts a deal with another team. The December 7 deadline is the last date that a player can agree to accept an offer of arbitration from his former team. If the arbitration agreement is offered and accepted, the team and player will either work out an agreement on salary or proceed into the arbitration process that can involve the exchange of figures and a hearing.

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The Associated Press published a story yesterday on a very tragic, sensitive and private matter involving the death of a famous professional athlete’s mother. The report not only discusses details surrounding the death, but also personal information about the player’s relationship with his mother.

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Over on Madisonian.net, Boston College Law School Professor Alfred Yen has a thought-provoking piece on Duke basketball recruit and high school senior Clair Watkins, who, as a junior, Duke University offered a full scholarship to play (and enroll) at Duke. Watkins, an honors student, has apparently not progressed as a player and Duke recently told her that while it will honor its scholarship offer, Watkins likely wouldn’t play at Duke if she enrolled. Watkins is now contemplating other college options, though she could still choose to accept Duke’s full scholarship, as she has until the spring to decide.

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This past Tuesday was the deadline for the respondents in American Needle v. NFL to file their briefs with the United States Supreme Court. Although the NFL’s brief is not yet publicly available, the brief submitted by Reebok, the NFL’s co-defendant in the case, is now available to be downloaded. Meanwhile, for those interested in getting a preview of the NFL’s argument, both ESPN.com’s Lester Munson and the SportsBusiness Journal’s Liz Mullen have posted articles discussing the brief.

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Mike already mentioned Aaron Zelinsky’s new essay (forthcoming in Yale Law Journal Online) arguing that the better baseball analogy is between Supreme Court justices and the baseball commissioner. Aaron sent me a draft of the paper and I made a few comments; he gave me permission to reprint them (in much expanded form) here.

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Everyone is talking about Bill Belichek’s decision to go for it on 4th-and-2 from the Pats’ own 28 with around two minutes left (sorry Mike). And most people (including the NBC commentators speaking three-and-a-half minutes after the game) have concluded it was a bad decision. But the only reason they offered as to why the call was bad is that it did not work. Had it worked, it would have been called gutsy and a brilliant decision.

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Aaron Zelinsky of Yale Law School has just posted on SSRN a draft of his forthcoming piece in Yale Law Journal Online titled “The Justice as Commissioner: Benching the Judge-Umpire Analogy“. It’s an excellent read. Zelinsky traces the judicial history of the judge-umpire analogy since 1886, concluding that it was intended for trial court judges, and meant as a model to be rejected because of an umpire’s passivity. In its place, Zelinsky proposes that Supreme Court Justices are properly analogous to Commissioners of Baseball, since both provide interpretive guidance to subordinates, undertake extended deliberation, take countermajoritarian action, and wield substantial rulemaking power.

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USA Today is reporting today that Boise State has officially formed a non-profit corporation and will begin selling shares to the public at $100 per share in hopes of raising $20 million (Boise State Athletic Department Hopes Stock Offering Raises $20 Million). AD Gene Bleymaier said, “If we are to continue the success we are enjoying now we must generate new revenues to pay for coaches’ salaries, scholarships and facilities.” The shares will not pay dividends, but shareholders can vote on members of a 12-person board at an annual meeting and the board will determine how money raised through the offering would be spent. Bleymaier also said this fundraising program mirrors the offering made by the Green Bay Packers when they raised $24 million in the sale of more than 105,000 shares back in 1997.

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