I look forward to giving a talk at the Harvard Club in Boston this Thursday at 7:30 am.  It is for my alma mater, St. John's Prep, which I'm proud to say is also the alma mater of Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly (Class of 1979) and Penn State head football coach Bill O'Brien (Class of 1988).

I'll be discussing breaking issues in sports law, including the Boston Marathon bombings and the impact on stadium security.

Even if you are not an alum, but are interested in sports law, I hope you consider attending ($25/person):

Sports Illustrated has the story of Jason Collins, a Stanford grad, 12-year NBA veteran, and current free agent (he spent the past year with the Celtics and Wizards) coming out publicly (he came out to his family last summer). Submitted without comment, other than to not that while this is not a star player in the prime of his career, it is a big step in that direction.

Sports Law Blog is publishing a 5-part series on the practice of sports law.  The series is co-authored by Peter Jarvis, a legal ethics and professional responsibility attorney with Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP in Portland, Oregon and Jason Davis, a California attorney currently residing in Seattle, Washington.  These posts will appear on Saturdays.   The first one is available at this link.  Here is the second one:

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The government this week filed its complaint in the False Claims Act case against Lance Armstrong.  The US annouced it would be joining the lawsuit, filed by "whistleblower" Floyd Landis, back in February.

The government's complaint is available here.

The second amended complaint submitted by Landis, the "relator", is available here, and his original 2010 complaint here.  The Landis complaint, though long the subject of rumor, only became public in January after the seal required in filing FCA whistleblower actions was lifted.

Back in 2010, I identified one issue in the rumored case as being the need to demonstrate a false claim submitted to the government.  The government has asserted both false claims and "reverse false claims" to meet that piece of the statute.

Lance's $125 million personal fortune is on the line. In February, I predicted that Armstrong's public pseudo-mea culpa meant he was prepared to settle the FCA case.  No sign yet that a settlement has been reached.

Sports Law Blog will be publishing a 5-part series on the practice of sports law.  The series is co-authored by Peter Jarvis, a legal ethics and professional responsibility attorney with Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP in Portland, Oregon and Jason Davis, a California attorney currently residing in Seattle, Washington.  These posts will appear on Saturdays.  Here is the first one:

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If you want proof that sports fan speech matters, that it has strong political content, and that the stands of sporting events are a site of genuine First Amendment activity, look no further than last night's Boston Bruins game, the first game played in Boston since the Marathon bombing.

Sporting events remain the only place in which adults regularly gather and engage in patriotic rituals, so the game marked one of the first ordinary events in which people could come together in an expression of patriotism, support, and healing in the wake of a tragedy. It is a great moment--and also an unquestionably political one and an unquestionably expressive one.

Should it matter that moments like this also give us obnoxious t-shirts and chants?

For years you have heard my ranting about the preposterous NCAA rules related to the ability of college athletes in men's basketball to properly evaluate their prospects in deciding to enter the NBA draft and forgo college eligibility.  Two years ago I wrote this piece in Huffington Post entitled "Transitioning From the NCAA to the NBA: Time for a Change in the Rules" that turned into this law review article in the Harvard Law School's Journal on Sports & Entertainment Law.

Today once again reminds us of how the NCAA chooses, yet again, to favor the interests of the high paid coaches over the students that they so publicly claim to protect and value.  While the NBA and NBPA have created the current "one and done" environment in men's basketball, the NCAA does an absolutely miserable job in allowing students to properly assess their prospects in making a wise decision as to whether or not to leave early.  How?  Well look at the dates for this process:

April 15th: Last day the NBA will provide an assessment, allowed under NCAA rules, of an underclassmen's prospects.

April 16th: Last day a student-athlete can withdraw from the NBA draft and retain their eligibility.

This provides a full day to make an assessment and, under NCAA rules, to do so without an agent.  OK, you'd then assume that the NBA's deadline to declare for, or withdraw from, this year's draft is imminent......right?  Nope.  Their deadlines are as follows:

April 28th: The last day a prospect can submit their name for this year's draft.  More importantly, is the following date...

June 17th: The last day a prospect can remove their name from the NBA draft.

What?  Yup, the NBA doesn't require someone decide until June 17th, a full TWO MONTHS, after the NCAA requires a college athlete make their intentions known.  You then, rightfully, ask why this gap?  Well, because college coaches wanted an early deadline to help them recruit should someone leave early.

I stand by my earlier statement, this is another example of the NCAA making decisions and rules for high profile, well paid, coaches, rather than the college athlete.  Or, as those of us on the basketball court may yell when blocking a shot...."CERT DENIED!"



http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Testing-the-NBA-Draft-Waters-in-2013-4103/

In honor of tax day,some sports law reading to accompany your free Cinnabon - Kathryn Kisska-Schulze (NC A&T) and Adam Epstein (Central Michigan) recently posted Taxing Missy: Operation Gold and the 2012 Proposed Olympic Tax Elimination Act.  The abstract provides:

The purpose of this article is to explore the legal and tax environment surrounding the August 1, 2012 bill referred to as the Olympic Tax Elimination Act (OTEA) which was introduced in the U.S. Senate to exempt from gross income the prize money earned by U.S. Olympians from the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) for earning a gold, silver or bronze medal. The OTEA came at a time when American economic growth has been stagnant, and income tax issues became a hotly contested political debate for the 2012 Presidential election. The article explores how tax issues have weaved their way into sports law generally; investigates the USOC’s Operation Gold program, including a discussion of the relationship between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) bylaws and USOC with regard to the program and prize money; analyzes the proposed OTEA; and addresses alternatives to the OTEA by encouraging other tax savvy options outside the outright elimination of such income from the Internal Revenue Code (I.R.C.) purview.

Moni Basu at CNN has just written yet another "take" on the American Indian mascot conundrum.  In Native American Mascots: Pride or Prejudice?" Basu interviews Suzan Shown Harjo who brought the now famous case Harjo v. Pro Football, Inc., attempting to have the trademark for the "Washington Redskins" canceled because it is offensive, derogatory, and contemptible.

Although "Harjo was defeated in the courts, . . . public opinion has been shifting steadily on the matter.  In March, several lawmakers introduced a bill in Congress that would amend the Trademark Act of 1946 to ban the term “redskin” in a mark because it is disparaging of native people. Among the sponsors of the bill is civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia.  Harjo says she hopes the legislation will accomplish what litigation has failed to do so far.  If passed, the bill would force the Washington football team to discard its trademarked name and ban the use of any offensive term in any future trademarks."

Why was Baseball granted an exemption from Section 1 of the Sherman Act, and why did it last in its entirety so long - until the Curt Flood Act of 1998?  On Concurring Opinions, Aaron Zelinsky (who I believe is the first U.S. Supreme Court clerk and Sports Law scholar) has a terrific two-part series (Part 1, Part 2) that addresses the question and also reviews a new book by Stuart Banner on the topic, The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption.

Leave it to the Marlins to be the team that might actually test my theories on fan expression. Could there be a better example of a ballpark that is publicly funded even if not publicly owned and thus still bound by First Amendment limits?

I am attending tonight's game with a friend; I'll have to keep my eyes open.

Update: I did not see anything at the game--no t-shirts, no signs, no chants. Just an announced crowd of 14,000 (probably a few thousand smaller in reality), the roof actually open on an unusually cool evening, and the Marlins losing again.

The Rutgers scandal is as much about this burgeoning field of sports law as it is about anything—but not in a good way. It is about University officials and their lawyers not doing their job well and being caught up in the same critical mistake that seems to scar all the wrong decisions that lead to these scandals in the first place: allowing the money that flows through the leagues, teams and their stars to color what is right and wrong.

The mess began when Mike Rice’s assistant coach Eric Murdock notified University officials of the coach’s abusive behavior by showing them a video of his outrageous conduct. Instead of just firing Rice for treating their students in an unacceptable manner--like they would any other member of the administration—University officials consulted an outside law firm for a recommendation. After all, unlike even the most prestigious member of the faculty, this coach had a five-year $650,000 contract. The lawyers came to campus, interviewed players and coaches, watched the videotape of the practices we all have now seen, and told the President of the University that Rice had not created a hostile work environment for the former assistant coach Murdock. What? That is like cops investigating the scene of a bank robbery and concluding the transaction did not violate IRS rules when the perp received more than $10,000 in cash from the teller.

Of course, Rutgers was just about to enter the lucrative world of big time athletics by joining the Big Ten. A scandal might upset that plan, forcing the Scarlet Knights to remain in the lowly Atlantic Ten.

When the video finally surfaced, and the public outcry began, Rice was immediately sacked—no lawyers had to be consulted—and the athletic director resigned to the tune of a reportedly $1.25 million severance package.

But wait, the latest is that the FBI is getting involved. Surely, now the focus will be on ensuring that the rights and dignity of students at a state institution are not compromised merely because they sign on to play for one of the school’s extremely profitable athletic programs. Actually, according to today’s New York Times, the FBI is also focusing on Murdock and whether his demand to settle his wrongful discharge suit amounted to extortion.

No one seems to have their eye on the ball.

Rendering of how GEO Group Stadium would have appeared

When the GEO Group and Florida Atlantic University agreed to a $6 million football stadium naming deal in February 2013, neither GEO CEO George Zoley or FAU President Mary Saunders anticipated the incredible backlash that descended upon the private for-profit prison company (GEO) and the University.  Due to student protests, faculty opposition, national media attention being drawn to GEO's terrible record of human rights violations in its private prisons, and the quickly attached nickname of "Owlcatraz" to the FAU Owls football stadium, GEO Group announced yesterday that it was withdrawing its pledged stadium naming donation.  In pulling its $6 million pledge, CEO Zoley released a self-serving statement blaming "distractions" as the reason that the pledge was being withdrawn.  Per Zoley:  "What was originally intended as a gesture of GEO's goodwill to financially assist the University's athletic scholarship program has surprisingly evolved into an ongoing distraction to both of our organizations."

The "surprising[] . . . distractions" to which Zoley refers include (a) student protests challenging FAU to reject the donation as hypocritical pointing out that GEO Group's profit base is derived almost entirely from human misery and suffering, (b) an overwhelmingly passed faculty resolution calling upon President Saunders to cancel the deal because GEO Group's "business practices do not align with the mission of the university," (c) a sit-in held in President Saunder's office by students, (d) a mocking national spotlight from Stephen Colbert's comedy/news show (suggesting that one of the problems of drawing attention to your business, is that people will pay attention to what your business actually does), and (e) community outrage protesting GEO's intimate affiliation with an institution of higher education.

Private prison companies are perversely incentivized to generate profit based on human misery through working to increase the incarceration levels of United States citizens and immigrants.  Private prison corporations pay dozens of millions of dollars to lobby legislators for harsher sentencing regimes, new crimes that require incarceration (AZ SB1070), and increasing prevalence of private prison contracts based on dubious claims of efficiency and cost savings.  Without providing any product or needed public good, GEO Group, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and other private prison companies profit in two primary ways that are incredibly objectionable:

First, private prison companies contract with state and federal governments to warehouse U.S. prisoners and are paid in taxpayer funds on a "per bed" basis.  Essentially, taxpayer funds are being transferred from taxpaying citizens into the pockets of private prison company executives and shareholders for no recognizable good or service.  Almost all of the recent emerging evidence suggests that private prison companies run prisons LESS efficiently, LESS safely, and LESS cost effectively than do federal and state governments.  The Lake Erie Prison report just released finds that CCA is so profit driven, that the CCA- run prison at Lake Erie does not provide proper supervision of prisoners and that drug use and violence are rampant, both in an attempt to avoid costly prisoner lawsuits. 

Second, private prison companies exploit the labor of the prisoners in their care by entering into contracts with companies like IBM, Victoria's Secret, WalMart, and McDonald's for prisoners to work for pennies with the contractual rewards paid into the coffers of the private prison company (thus to shareholders and executives).  Prisoners are paid between $0 and $4 for the labor that they engage in sewing for Victoria's Secret, manufacturing for WalMart and McDonalds, with the fruit of their labor being paid to the prison company rather than to the prisoner.  Indentured servitude continues in our prisons in the United States and the GEO Group and CCA profit from these immoral activites.

That both of these profit sources continue in the United States today is shocking.  That the students, faculty, and community at FAU recognized this appalling business model is heartening. The GEO Group's name will NOT adorn the football stadium at FAU.  It appears that "surprising[] . . . distractions" of massive protest are just beginning for the private prison industry.

The NCAA's March Madness has, once again, sparked the debate as to the exploitation of college athletes.  As the tournament generates millions of dollars and soaring television ratings, people continue to question why those that produce this revenue aren't compensated adequately for their role.

Our own Michael McCann appeared on Bloomberg TV to advocate paying college athletes.  You can watch the video clip here.  Nice job, again, Mike.

The horrific, and truly tragic, injury to Louisville's Kevin Ware has also riled up student-athlete advocates on the lack of insurance policies--both medical in general and disability in particular once again.  For example, did you know that if Ware doesn't have a multi-year scholarship Louisville would be within their legal rights to take his scholarship away if they so choose?  [I have no reason to think they will, only that they would have the right to do so.]  This article by CBS Sports talks about Ware's situation, and lack of insurance policies.

Fellow student-athlete advocate Marc Isenberg wrote this fine piece entitled "The Student-Athlete Disability Insurance Program isn't What the NCAA Cracks it up to be."

The New York Times is writing a piece on insurance and Ware, for which I along with several others, have been interviewed.  We'll get a link to that article up as soon as it's available.

Finally, I've written an Op Ed piece for US News on the topic of paying student-athletes.  Here's the link.