I think this is a total disgrace to law professors and am disappointed in Marquette Law School. No doubt Mr. Selig is an accomplished professional and no doubt that he can be an asset to any school by an occasional lecture about some of his experiences. But it is quite another thing to teach a class to students learning to be lawyers and to evaluate students, i.e., grade them. Law school is not business school and I am sorry to say that this appears to be a publicity stunt by Marquette Law School.The position of an adjunct professor is certainly the most precarious at most law schools (other than that of the dean), so some angst at this hire is understandable. Adjunct professors -- practicing lawyers, typically, who join the faculty to teach one class (or two) -- serve at the pleasure of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, without the security of tenure or a long-term contract. They are relatively poorly compensated (rarely, I would guess, earning their hourly billing rate for time spent), yet engage in heavy-lifting activities like writing exams and grading student papers. Yet because they also have full time jobs in practice, they miss out on many of the speakers, workshops, and other activities that add to the joy of law teaching. To the extent that Prof. Rubenstein's blog speaks for adjuncts, his chagrin at any reduction in the qualifications for such teachers is possible to understand.
Isaac Newton’s Law of Gravitation holds that every massive particle of the universe attracts every other massive particle. To state it another way, or according to Cam Newton (no relation), “When God be blessin’, the devil be messin’.”
The sports-law world may be about to undergo a debate of biblical proportions.The team has done research on the various crude and offensive James T-shirts in circulation locally, and officials will be stationed at entrances to make sure no fans enter with such shirts or signs that disrespect James or his family members. They'll also be in the stands, authorized to take away inappropriate apparel. Fans who have such shirts will be required to remove them and then will be given a Cavaliers-branded T-shirt to wear instead. All inappropriate signs also will be confiscated and officials will be on the lookout throughout the game for inebriated fans or fans who are preparing to throw things onto the court.
"We don't want to create a police state," said Tad Carper, the Cavaliers' senior vice president of communications. "We've always had a real energetic, super-charged home crowd and we want to encourage that for every game, including Dec. 2. We want people to enjoy themselves and express themselves, but we don't want fans to cross the boundaries of decency. We're not going to allow profanity and things like that. We'll have no tolerance for anyone trying to cross those boundaries."
The Southern Economic Association ("SEA") annual conference starts tomorrow in Atlanta. Of the 100+ sessions being held during the three day event, four sessions are devoted to sports. In the course of preparing for my own presentation, I perused the other sports-related papers and was struck by the relatively large number with legal overtones. Legal and quasi-legal topics to be examined using an economic lens include: (i) gambling; (ii) Title IX; (iii) minimum age rules; (iv) crime; and (v) referee-decision making. Such prevalence evidences the strength of both disciplines (law and economics) when analyzing important sports issues. Several papers being presented at the SEA conference are available for download now on SSRN.
This Article examines the compatibility of the Bowl Championship Series (“BCS”) with federal antitrust law and the appropriateness of the federal government using its formal and informal powers to encourage a new format for postseason college football. The Article begins by examining the legality of the BCS under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. It then discusses the appropriateness of government actors concerning themselves with, and expending taxpayer dollars on, the scheduling of college football games. The Article concludes by offering possible changes to the scheduling structure of postseason college football, with an emphasis on voluntary, efficiency-promoting changes by the colleges, universities, and conferences currently associated with the BCS.Hope you have a chance to check it out. For another take on this topic, be sure to read Nathaniel Grow's excellent forthcoming article in the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law titled "Antitrust and the Bowl Championship Series."
In the course of updating my research file and wrapping up a statistical sequel to my 2008 paper about the NBA age rule, I came across a new law review article in the St. John's Law Review by Susan McAleavey. In the article, McAleavey introduces an "alternative" to the NBA current rule - a spendthrift trust system. It has been over a decade since I took Wills, Trusts, and Estates as a 2L, so I had to dust off my Black's Law Dictionary and refresh my memory about the special characteristics of spendthrift trusts. Such trusts are defined as follows:
In another chapter in MLB’s simmering baseball kickback scandal, a Federal grand jury has 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. A seven-count indictment returned at the United States District Court in Chicago alleges that the White Sox baseball team was defrauded of money, as well as the honest services of the Defendants, who allegedly concealed the kickbacks from the team and its more senior officials.
This scandal first became public after White Sox executive David Wilder was discovered returning from the Dominican Republic in March 2008 with $40,000 in cash.
The facts, according to the indictment:
David Wilder was the White Sox farm system director from 2003 to 2006 and Director of Player Personnel until May 2008. He was responsible for overseeing the Sox scouts in Latin America, including Co-Defendants Jorge Oquendo Rivera and Victor Mateo. Rivera served as Latin American Scout and was directly responsible for overseeing Mateo.
The White Sox authorized scouts to conduct preliminary negotiations, and Wilder was authorized to permit a player’s signing if the payment was under $100,000. If it was more, he obtained authorization from the White Sox GM Kenny Williams. After the signings, MLB conducted background checks, a written contract was sent, and checks were drawn from the White Sox’s bank in Chicago. Checks were paid to the player (if Dominican) or to a Mexican team if the signing involved a contract purchase.
The Defendants’ written contracts with the team required them to serve “diligently and faithfully” and to provide services with “diligence and fidelity.” The White Sox relied on Defendants to recommend/approve recommendation of signings that were (i) commensurate with the player’s skill level; (ii) in an amount that was no greater than necessary to induce a player to sign with the team or to induce a Mexican team to release the player; and (iii) not artificially inflated by inclusion of kickback payments.
The Defendants allegedly misrepresented the amount necessary to sign certain players and omitted material information about the payments which caused the White Sox to pay artificially inflated signing bonuses and artificially inflated prices for players’ contract rights. Rivera and Mateo allegedly scouted players that they knew they could secure kickbacks from, and Rivera sought players already affiliated with Mexican teams. Rivera and Mateo directly and indirectly informed Wilder as to whether kickbacks could be obtained.
This indictment could be part of a much more expansive scheme of fraud with regard to MLB scouts in Latin America. Statistics provided by MLB show that signing bonuses of Latino players have gone up drastically in the last decade. The average signing bonus was approximately $29,000 in 2004, but had risen over $100,000 by 2008. ESPN’s Outside the Lines conducted a report in September of 2008 that described a “lawlessness” to baseball in the Dominican Republic. MLB claimed in the report that it was unaware of the problem of skimming.
The “White Sox Three” may be the first to be charged, but there are others, even bigger fish, that could face similar charges.
Jim Bowden, erstwhile GM of the Washington Nationals, stepped down in March 2009 amidst baseball’s investigation of his alleged skimming activity going as far back as his days as Reds GM in 1994. Bowden has denied any involvement. In August of 2008, the Yankees fired Carlos Rios, their director of Latin American scouting, and Ramon Valdivia, their Dominican Republic scouting director, for their alleged involvement in a kickback scheme. This came after the Boston Red Sox fired one of their own Dominican scouts, Pablo Lantigua, as a result of his alleged acceptance of a gift from a talent hunter, or a “buscone” who represented a Sox prospect that the team had signed. As this article details, the problem is not just a matter of MLB supervision, but also the fact that the system of buscones in the Dominican in deeply ingrained and is tied to the country’s crushing poverty.
Worth noting is the fact that the White Sox scandal was the first to break back in May 2008. It will be interesting to see whether this initial indictment is a prelude to further charges in Boston, New York or D.C.
At a time when MLB is still dealing with the lingering effects of the steroid era, this scandal is certainly unwelcome, but far from reaching a crisis level. The MLB-initiated investigation, carried out by the FBI and culminating in this week’s charges, demonstrates the League’s commitment to rooting out this problem. While the situation in the Dominican likely won’t change any time soon, the League and team officials can keep this type of scandal from escalating by more vigilantly monitoring how their scouts interact with players and player representatives.
The scandal has further elicited discussion about subjecting international players to MLB’s June draft for U.S. and Canadian players. Under the current system, the only restriction on a team’s acquisition of international players is that they be signed after their seventeenth birthday. But as Rick Karcher point out in this space a short while back, implementation of a draft would have to be collectively bargained and even then, the effect it could have on the entire player acquisition process is unclear.
Hat tip to law clerks, Luke LeSaffre and Brian Konkel, for their excellent work on this piece.
Update 11/20/10: White Sox scout, Rivera, entered a not guilty plea at his arraignment yesterday. His Co-Defendants, Wilder and Mateo, will be arraigned next month.
Lamar Odom has sued the Internal Revenue Service, which said he couldn’t take tax deductions for $12,000 in sports fines and another $178,000 spent getting himself in shape.The 6-foot-10 Odom . . . filed suit in U.S. Tax Court to fight an IRS bill for $87,000 over his taxes for 2007. That includes $9,000 in interest. However, unlike many IRS efforts to collect money, the bill did not include a claim for accuracy-related penalties. This might mean the agency sees his case somewhat less harshly than others it duns.
A college dropout, Odom is representing himself without a lawyer. In his personally signed pleading, filed at the court’s Washington, D.C. office on October 25, Odom disputed a bill that the IRS sent him in August. “The taxpayer claimed $12,000 of employee business expenses for fines that were assessed by the National Basketball Association,” he declared, writing in the third person. “These fines are commonly assessed on professional athletes and are work related. Therefore the fines incurred are ordinary and necessary employee business expense.” The petition, which listed his address as an agent’s office in Los Angeles, offered no details about the nature of transgressions leading to the fines.
Federal law generally prohibits tax deductions for financial sanctions resulting from criminal cases and matters like traffic violations. But Odom wrote, “The fines imposed by the team and the NBA are not imposed for the violation of any government law and are therefore not specifically excluded.”
To read the rest, click here. Thanks to my colleague Stephanie Willbanks, Vermont Law School's tax guru, for the heads up on this story.
I look forward to being a part of next week's sports law symposium at New York Law School. Here are the details (and outstanding work by 3L Alycia Huckabey, the founder and president of the New York Law School Sports Law Society, in putting this event together):The New York Law School Institute for Information Law and Policy and the
New York Law School Sports Law Society proudly present:
The Second Annual Sports Law Symposium
Date: Friday, November 12, 2010
Location: New York Law School, 185 West Broadway, Events Center, 2nd Floor
CLE Credits: 1 CLE credit per panel (no charge). Available to transitional and experienced attorneys.
1:15 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. – Hot Topics in Sports
Moderator: Mark Conrad – Associate Professor, Law and Ethics, School of Business, Fordham University and New York Law School Adjunct Professor
Lisa Stancati – Assistant General Counsel, ESPN
Chris Park – Vice President, Labor Economics and Deputy General Counsel, Labor for the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, Major League Baseball
Andrew Bondarowicz – President, Aregatta Group, Inc.
2:30 p.m.–3:30 p.m. - From American Needle to Age Limits to Dress Codes: Key Labor and Antitrust Issues in the NBA and NFL
Moderator: Michael McCann – Sports Illustrated Legal Analyst, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
Mike Zarren - Assistant General Manager and Associate Team Counsel, Boston Celtics
Marc Edelman – Assistant Professor of Law at Barry University’s Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law
Alan Milstein – Counsel, Sherman Silverstein
4:00 p.m.–5:15 p.m.- Breaking Into the Sports Industry
Moderator: David Soskin – Assistant Counsel, ESPN
Andrew Fine – Director of Marketing and Broadcasting, RLR Associates
Sarah Stuart – Senior Counsel, Reebok
Bobby Marks – Assistant General Manager, New Jersey Nets
Katherine Salisbury – President, Friedman & Salisbury Sports Management LLC
Andy Latack – Business Affairs Executive, CAA Sports
Networking Reception 5:15 p.m. -6:30 p.m.
Please RSVP by Friday, November 5, 2010 to naomi.allen@nyls.edu.
Sponsored by the Boston College Law Review
and by:
On October 15, 2010, Boston College Law School and the BC Law Review hosted an all-day symposium examining the legal issues surrounding the unprecedented growth of the NCAA over the last 100 years and the impact on amateurism, academic standards, and student rights.
The symposium featured a special lunchtime program during which Roy Kramer, Former Commissioner of the SEC and Founder of the BCS and Matthew Sanderson, Executive Director of PlayoffPAC, a federal political action committee dedicated to the establishment of postseason championship for college football, discussed postseason football, the BCS and the National Championship. Jeremy Schaap of ESPN moderated the session.
Video from the event is below.
NCAA Lunchtime Panel:
Postseason College Football, the BCS, and the National Championship
Roy Kramer, Former Commissioner of the SEC and Founder of the BCS
Matthew Sanderson, Executive Director, PlayoffPAC
Jeremy Schaap, ESPN (Moderator)
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Panel I: NCAA and Gender
Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Professor, Florida Coastal Law School
Erin Buzuvis, Professor, Western New England Law School
Deborah Corum, Associate Commissioner, SEC (Commentator)
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Panel II: NCAA and Students
Maureen Weston, Professor, Pepperdine Law School
Alfred Yen, Professor, Boston College Law School
Petrina Long, Senior Associate Athletic Director, UCLA (Commentator)
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Panel III: NCAA as a Commercial Enterprise
Michael McCann, Professor, Vermont Law School
Joseph Liu, Professor, Boston College Law School
Jon Wertheim, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated (Commentator)
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Panel IV: The NCAA and Constitutional Law
Vikram Amar, Professor, U.C. Davis School of Law
Richard Albert, Professor, Boston College Law School
Gordon Hylton, Professor, Marquette Law School (Commentator)
