Here is a nice synopsis of Big-Time Sports in American Universities, by Charles Clotfelter of Duke University, newly published by Cambridge University Press. The book takes a serious, empirical examination of the value, benefits, and defects in big-time American college sports. more…
As I first discussed here back in November and Mike followed-up with in December, the White Sox organization suffered a PR blow when a Federal grand jury indicted a former Chicago White Sox executive and two team scouts on charges that they took kickbacks totaling approximately $400,000 from signing bonuses and contract buyouts paid to secure 23 prospective players between December 2004 and February 2008.
I have a new SI column on the Barry Bonds trial and how a hearing today will determine whether a recording of a pivotal conversation between Bonds’s former trainer, Greg Anderson, and business partner, Steve Hoskins, is deemed admissible or hearsay. In the conversation, Anderson talks about providing Bonds with The Clear (THG).
Here’s my Sports Illustrated take on the Super Bowl ticket lawsuit against the NFL and the Cowboys:
The 4th Annual National Baseball Arbitration Competition, hosted by the Tulane Sports Law Society, began this morning. We have an incredible group of competitors this year, featuring law schools from across the country. We also have a great group of guest arbitrators, including the following:
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I have a new column up at the Huffington Post that analyzes the key legal issues behind the NFL-NFLPA collective bargaining negotiations. Here’s an excerpt. You can find the complete column here.
Ross Ohlendorf and the Pittsburgh Pirates grabbed the honor for participating in the first arbitration hearing in 2011 yesterday in Phoenix. Ohlendorf is seeking a raise from $439,000 to $2,025,000. The Pirates countered with an offer of $1,400,000 establishing a midpoint of $1,712,500. The arbitration panel consisted of three veteran arbitrators, Robert Herzog, Fredric Horowitz, and Steven Wolf.
Thirty-four players and teams exchanged numbers this year in salary arbitration if you include Santiago Casilla and the San Francisco Giants, who announced a settlement on the day of the exchange of figures. Apparently, Casilla and the Giants had an agreement in place two days earlier, but needed to finalize the deal. They seem to have exchanged numbers just to be sure that they preserved their rights until everything was final.
The NFL and the people who run Cowboys Stadium built a lot of temporary seating for the Super Bowl (apparently to set an attendance record by exceeding 105,000), but approximately 1250 seats could not be installed. The league found alternative seating for 850 of those fans, but not for the remaining 400, who were turned away with a refund of triple their ticket’s face value–$2400.
Back in 2004, I wrote about Electronic Arts snagging an exclusive licensing contract with the NFL and NFLPA to develop, publish, and distribute football video games featuring NFL players and teams. The 5-year, $400 million contract–the exclusivity of which resembles the exclusive NFL-Reebok contract that precipitated American Needle v. NFL–meant the end of other third-party publishers making NFL video games. Most notably, it meant that Sega’s popular/arguably better and substantially cheaper NFL 2K series would be discontinued while Electronic Arts’ John Madden Football would become the only NFL game in town.
