Illinois Appeals NCAA Mascot Ban

The University of Illinois has filed a second appeal challenging a decision of the NCAA that would require the school to drop its Chief Illiniwek athletic mascot and logo before it could host any postseason competition. (ESPN) Although the NCAA ruling allows the university to keep its Illini and Fighting Illini nicknames, it ruled that Chief Illiniwek is "hostile and abusive."I...

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Coretta Scott King's Death and Respectful Racial Competition

Since Coretta Scott King died this morning, it’s hard for me to concentrate on sports at the moment. I was going to write something about there actually being “sports law”, which would include the standards of review for overturning referee calls, deductions regarding the arbitrariness or due process in league suspensions, and other private law stuff. But all that seems a bit trivial at the moment. I’m feeling a need to relate Ms. King’s death to another, realer game: political competition.In The Tournament of Races, the team called white people...

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Sports Agent Finds Himself Caught Between A Rock and A Hard Place

Liz Mullen of Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal does an excellent job of reporting on the latest labor and agent news -- especially when it comes to digging up the dirt in the sports agent business. In her column this week, "NFLPA hasn't given up on disciplining Dunn," she discusses the current situation of agent David Dunn, who was suspended by the NFLPA in 2003 for two years based upon testimony given by NFL players at a trial in 2002 in which a jury found that Dunn unfairly competed against his former partner, Leigh Steinberg. Dunn...

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Doesn't Pay to Be Honest In Sports

Ron Artest and Terrell Owens and others believe they are being paid to play their sport, when the media and team officials think they are paying them to play the 'game'. Neither Artest nor Owens will play certain parts of the game. The part they hate most is lying. According to team officials, the media, and most of the sports watching public, athletes, well paid or not, are to follow an unwritten code that mandates lying if it means that your team or teammate or league or sport will be dishonored by your honest opinion. The only exception...

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Performance-Enhancing Drug or Air Conditioning?

Saturday's edition of the Wall Street Journal had a front-page article that caught my eye -- a piece on the Finnish cross-country team and the use of "alpine cottages." (Newman, "Fake Mountain Air Gives Some Skiers Level Chance for Gold," WSJ, 01/28/06-subscription only). In cross-country skiing, a granddaddy of aerobic endurance sports, there is no such thing as a level playing field. Because mountain air boosts energy-generating red blood cells, mountainous countries like Norway and Sweden have a leg up on the Finlands of the world that are mountain-deprived.Several...

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Major League Baseball v. Fantasy Sports

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/15/baseball.stats.ap/Expansion of personal proprietary rights (the exclusive right to commercially exploit one's name, image or likeness) is not appropriate in the context of fantasy sports. Companies that offer commercial fantasy sports products, like CDM, Rotoworld, CBS Sportsline, etc., have customarily, though reluctantly, acknowledged a players economic right to his statistics, and accordingly have been paying licensing fees to players associations like the MLBPA.It hadn't been a problem because players associations...

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Andre Smith - Guest Blogger

Good morning all,My name is Andre Smith. I am an assistant professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, Florida. I teach Federal Income Tax, Estate and Gift Tax, Administrative Law, and Sports and Entertainment Law. I do not teach Critical Race Theory or Employment Discrimination, but I do have strong opinions on the subject of race and sports, and I will share them with you.Also, I am a fan of economics; not necessarily the conclusions economists make, especially those made by law and economic types. I am in love with the method...

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Because We Don't Want To Take Money Away From State Lotteries

From FindLaw: The Sporting News agreed to a $7.2 million settlement with the federal government to resolve claims it promoted illegal Internet and telephone gambling in print, on its Web site and on its radio stations.U.S. officials said Friday that the advertising ran from spring 2000 through December 2003.***The Sporting News paid a $4.2 million fine Thursday. The remaining $3 million of the settlement will be for public service ads aimed at dissuading people from gambling over the Internet or via telephone....

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OU Keeps Fans in the Stands; Team Still Wins

As a follow-up to my post from last week on fans rushing the court (1/26), I want to commend the efforts of the University of Oklahoma, who kept their fans in the seating area following an upset victory over arch-rival Texas on Saturday night. What herculean effort was the school forced to undertake to hold back the masses of fans? Try a PA announcement during the game warning the students that there would be consequences for coming onto the court. That's it.Kind of makes you think that other schools would have similar success, if they actually...

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Top Positions in Division I-A Athletics Are Overwhelmingly White

Last week, the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida released an interesting study entitled, "The Buck Stops Here: Assessing Diversity Among Campus and Conference Leaders for Division I-A Schools in 2006." The study found that the people who make the key decisions in the athletic departments and on college campuses of Division I-A programs are overwhelmingly white: 94 percent of the school presidents, 89 percent of the athletic directors, 94 percent of the faculty athletic reps and 100 percent of the...

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Rondo Rides in Style, NCAA Says "OK"

As a very proud University of Kentucky alumnus, I hesitate to bring further attention to this story. However, Eddie Sutton, Dwayne Casey, Chris Mills, Claude Bassett and Hal Mumme provided enough fodder for truckloads of jokes about the (allegedly) corrupt nature of the University of Kentucky athletic department, so hopefully my decision to post this is simply the electronic equivalent of delicately placing a smoldering match on top of an already blazing forest fire.Valerie Honeycutt and Jerry Tipton of the Kentucky Herald-Leader filed a report...

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Don't Give Away Those Tickets!

Giving away tickets to the game? You never know what you're going to miss. For one Los Angeles man, exams and birthday parties have kept him from witnessing history -- twice.Stern, a vice chairman of a Los Angeles asset management firm, was an 18-year-old sophomore at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., in 1962 when he bought two tickets to see the then-Philadelphia Warriors play the New York Knicks in nearby Hershey.But when one of his professors scheduled a test for the next day, Stern gave the tickets away -- and thus failed to see Wilt Chamberlain...

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Stadium JumboTrons: More than Just a Marketing Tool

Greg Garber of ESPN has a fascinating look at a new use for the big-screens at stadiums. As it turns out, some players -- including Tiki Barber -- have used the screens during plays to locate blockers if they get disoriented. For example: "If I'm run blocking, I can look at the JumboTron to see where the running back is," Vikings receiver Marcus Robinson said. "And if there's a man chasing you, you're looking at the JumboTron to see where he is. If you're running, instead of turning around and [slowing], you can look up at the screen and see if...

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NBA Dress Code, Genetic Testing of NBA Players, and Player Autonomy

This afternoon I will be speaking at the University of Pennsylvania Law School as a guest of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law. I am one of three panelists on a panel that will discuss the new NBA dress code, genetic testing of NBA players, and broader issues of autonomy and privacy in the NBA. The other two panelists are Alan Milstein, who...

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SEC Takes Action for Fans Rushing the Court

The SEC did the right thing in fining the University of Tennessee as a penalty for its fans rushing the court after the upset win over Florida. The only problem -- $5,000 is not much of a fine. On the other hand, UT will likely take measures to prevent students from rushing the court again -- a second offense is $25,000, and a third will cost them $50,000. That will get a university's attention. (CNN/SI). The penalties are the result of a conference rule that went into effect in December 2004.Andy Katz wondered if any other leagues have similar...

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Federal Judge: Anti-Scalping Law Unconstitutional

Not everyone who shelled out $300+ for a ticket to the Super Bowl in Detroit is thrilled to be seeing the Seahawks and the Steelers. But those with unwanted tickets can breathe (a little) easier after a court ruling last week. A federal judge held that a Detroit City Ordinance that prohibited the sale of sports or entertainment tickets at any price in public places (basically, an anti-scalping law) violated the First Amendment's protection of commercial speech. (Ashenfelter, "Taking a loss? You can sell that extra ticket," Det. Free Press, 01/20/06;...

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CUSA Refs Choke after Penders Passes Out

Conference USA's assistant commissioner Chris Woolard issued a statement on Monday, January 23, 2006 admitting that the officiating crew handling the Houston-UAB men's basketball game on Saturday, January 21, 2006 "exercised poor judgment" by refusing to rescind a technical foul assessed to Cougars coach Tom Penders after Penders was rushed from the floor on a stretcher after collapsing on the UH sideline.Penders fell face first onto the court after watching the Coogs' leading scorer, Oliver Lafayette, get whistled for a foul as UAB's Wen Mukubu...

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Sports at Taxpayer Expense

Richland County is considering building a baseball stadium for minor league baseball. As a libertarian, I automatically oppose such horseshit. Here's the letter I sent to The State:   I applaud the State's editorial on Jan. 22 opposingplans to use public dollars to finance a privateventure--a baseball stadium. I only wish the editorshad gone even further in opposing what amounts to a subsidy for entertainment.It is not the proper role of government to be abuilder of stadiums. Essentially, such projects amountto robbing from Peter to pay for...

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Cold Shoulder

Things are getting ugly in Houston between the greatest player in Astros history, 1B Jeff Bagwell, and team owner Drayton McLane. Houston Chronicle columnist Richard Justice summed up the current situation in a column in Sunday's Chronicle, describing the looming stalemate between player and management regarding Bagwell's future as a player for the Astros.January 31, 2006 is the deadline for the Astros to file a disability claim on an insurance policy that the Astros took out on Bagwell at the time that he signed a five-year, $85 million contract...

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Steelers win. Panthers lose.

I quit watching the Panthers game in the fourth quarter. I couldn't bear to look anymore. The reality is that the Panthers had no running game because of injuries. The result was that the Seahawks defense spent the remainder of the game covering Steve Smith like stink on shit. Carolina was doomed.   I was pleased to see the Steelers win. I will be rooting for them to win the Superbowl since my Panthers have been eliminated.  ...

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Kobe Bryant Scores 81 Points in Game Against Raptors

Now seems as good a time as ever to invite you to read my law review article "Illegal Defense: The Irrational Economics of Banning High School Players from the NBA Draft."Seriously, that was quite a performance by Kobe last night. 81 points, on 28-46 shooting, is probably the most points we'll see scored in a very, very long time. In fact, it is the second-highest one-game...

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AFC/NFC Championships

I've made some football predictions this year, and my record is worse than the Swami's. Chris Berman should hang up that act because he really sucks at it. I do, too.   I won't tell you who will win, but I'll tell you who I want to win. I hope the Steelers kick the shit out of the Broncos. What a story. They beat the Colts who were a joke. Payton Manning just isn't a team leader.   On the NFC side, I'm rooting for the Panthers, of course. But if the Seahawks prevail, I'll be rooting for whoever plays them. I thought the Bears would whip...

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Breaking an Unwritten Rule? Coaches Who Talk about Their Players' Intelligence

Reading the Boston Herald this morning, a quote from Boston Celtics' coach Doc Rivers stuck out. (Steve Bulpett, "Blount and Banks Pine for Action," Boston Herald, Jan. 21, 2006). It concerns his decision to elevate rookie point guard Orien Greene to the back-up point guard position, while demoting veteran point guard Marcus Banks (pictured to the left with Rivers) to third-string...

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Lifetime Baseball Ticket for Iran Hostages

25 years ago today, the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th U.S. President, Iran released the 52 Americans being held hostage by student revolutionaries (a leader of which, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--allegedly pictured above, third from left--is now Iran's president). The students were upset that the United States had admitted Iran's ailing and deposed shah, Mohammad Reza...

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A Few Good Links

As the weekend thankfully approaches, here are few posts worth checking out:1) Professor Gregory Bowman at Law Career Blog helps law students compare law firms. A useful and engaging commentary for those students interested in working in law firms, and particularly those who value things like quality of life and firm culture:[H]ow are associate compensation schemes and law firm culture related? Average salaries are only the tip of the informational iceberg, and compensation schemes vary widely . . . Compensation set by committee means that there...

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Fight Night with the. . .NBA? Torts 101

Law professors all over the U.S. have new fodder for a cool new law exam question.So get the facts, and allow me to do something I've always wanted to do: "Evaluate plausible liabilities;" or, "Discuss all plausible tort claims."I know I'm opening the proverbial can of worms here, and I welcome all comments (don't get into who owns United Center, etc.), but after a quick perusal...

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From Poms to Pain

As cheerleading squads have moved from a focus on simple support for the team that they are representing into teams separate from the sport that they are cheering on, the moves and routines utilized by cheerleaders have become less stationary pom-pom to difficult and dangerous gymnastic-type moves. As a result, injuries to cheerleaders have greatly increased. Two recent studies...

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UPDATE: Angels v. Anaheim Trial Begins

Last week, the trial began in the case between the Angels baseball team and the city of Anaheim. The issue -- whether the Angels' name change to the absurd "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" violated the provision in their lease which required the team name to "include the name Anaheim therein." The team argues that its new name satisfies the clause; the city argues that sports teams are known by the geographic title before the nickname -- in this case, Los Angeles. Coverage of the Angels this past year should support the team's interpretation --...

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Non-Legal but Philosophical Baseball Thoughts

I ventured into the realm of football with my last post, and did so with a very "baseball" state of mind--I complained about refs. I suppose baseball would be my expertise (must you pay for my stats?), so here are some random thoughts.1) Many baseball insiders--coaches, managers, general managers, scouts--in baseball believe that the pendulum of player grading has swung too far in the direction of sabermetrics; or at least, that too big a deal is made of it. Subscribers to the dynamics of dialectics (and baseball purists) would argue that the pendulum...

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The Former Athlete as Counselor

Back on January 9th, Mike McCann posted a story on ex-athlete politicians (A Juke Move on Voters? Sports Acclaim and Becoming a Lawmaker). One of the questions that arose was why ex-athletes seemed to have such great success in the political arena. Some of the comments indicated that excellence and leadership skills in a particular sport could translate to the political arena,...

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Update on Harlem Ambassadors' FTC Complaint Against Harlem Globetrotters

Adam Kress of the Business Journal of Phoenix has an informative piece on a recent complaint filed by the Harlem Ambassadors with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerning the Harlem Globetrotters' use of exclusivity windows (Kress, "Competitor Files Federal Complaint Against Globetrotters," The Business Journal of Phoenix, 1/15/2006). The piece is available on MSNBC.com...

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Aged Zebras

As complaints about NFL referees start to seep into the news and the NFL throws them under the bus, I want to try to get ahead of the story by addressing what to me has been an obvious problem for years--that referees are too slow; i.e., old.The players' average age is somewhere between 25 and 29, and these men among boys are arguably the best athletes in the world playing its most violent sport. To me it is an undeniable fact that no other sport in the world combines the power, strength, speed and intended collisions that NFL athlete possess and...

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Is that the NFL's Knife Sticking Out of the Zebra's Back?

The NFL made a public declaration yesterday that referee Pete Morelli made an error in Sunday's Steelers-Colts game when he reversed the call giving Troy Polamalu an interception, ruling that the safety did not control the ball before his own knee knocked it loose. (ESPN/AP story). It was certainly a close call on the field, and one that will have future ramifications for the definition of a "football move." Some people thought Morelli got it right; many others felt he erred. The NFL has now sided with the latter.But should the NFL have publicly...

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New Way to Post Comments

As the blog has grown, we have found it necessary to have more control on the content posted in our Comments section. It also appears that HaloScan deletes the older comments after a certain amount of time. Thus, we have updated the blog to use a new Comments feature.To post a comment, please click on the "Post a Comment" link after each post. We have left the "Old Comments" link up, so that readers can view the existing comments, but these will be taken down after a few weeks. Please do not post there. If you experience any problems with the new...

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Could Gaming Help Chicago Become an “Olympic” Kind of Town

One thing came to mind after da Bears loss to the Panthers last night outside of whether Ron Rivera (Bears Defensive Coordinator) still has a shot to take over in St. Louis: what are the chances of Chicago getting the summer Olympics in 2016?While the U.S. Olympic Committee has yet to make any decisions on whether an American city will even be nominated to host the 2016 Games,...

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"Cricket. . .More fun than Nuclear War!"

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947 over the Kashmir Region, a region of particular scenic beauty. Their bilateral conflict is presently a global issue because they both have nuclear weapons--I know, yikes, right?The two countries initiated peace talks in 2004, however, and tensions have eased. This week, the respective foreign secretaries are set to begin yet another round of talks. As important as these talks will be, the citizens of India and Pakistan will be focused elsewhere for confrontation--on the pitch whereon the cricket...

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Different Strokes for Different Folks? The Disparate Treatment of Young Actors and Young Pro Athletes

We often hear, with great derision and perhaps jealously, that young athletes shouldn't be paid so much money. For whatever reason(s), there appears to be a widespread intuition that athletes, and particularly young athletes, simply don't "deserve" their earnings (even though we are the ones responsible for their high salaries, but that's another story). We also sometimes...

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