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Sports law in the United States overlaps substantially with labor law, contract law, competition or antitrust law, and tort law. Issues like defamation and privacy rights are also integral aspects of sports law. This area of law was established as a separate and important entity only a few decades ago, coinciding with the rise of player-agents and increased media scrutiny of sports law topics.
Membership is voluntary. The NCAA operates along a series of bylaws that govern the areas of ethical conduct, amateur eligibility, financial aid, recruiting, gender equity, championship events, and academic standards. The NCAA has enforcement power and can introduce a series of punishments up to the death penalty, the company term for the full shut-down of a sporting activity at an offending college. Coaches are offered contracts and if any contractual agreement is violated NCAA has the right to hold any person(s) under the contract liable. [1]
Title IX is an increasingly important issue in college sports law. [2] The act, passed in 1972, makes it illegal for a federally funded institution to discriminate on the basis of sex or gender. In sports law, the piece of legislation often refers to the effort to achieve equality for women's sports in colleges. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is charged with enforcing this legislation. This agency implemented a three-prong test for schools to adhere to:
In 1995 the Gender in Equity Disclosure Act was passed to require schools to make an annual, public report on male-female athletic participation rates, recruiting by gender, and financial support. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown University v. Cohen, is an important aspect of litigation for women sports.
A critical piece of federal legislation, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 guarantees certain due process rights including hearings and appeals for U.S. athletes under the governance of the USOC and its NGBs.
In 1967, the National Labor Relations Board accepted that players have the right to form unions or players' associations. It is now common for professional athletes to organize into associations or unions in order to negotiate collective bargaining agreements' (CBAs) with their sport's owners. Under federal labor law, players and owners must negotiate mandatory issues, those relating to hours, wages, and working conditions, in good faith. All other issues are deemed "permissive," and do not have to be negotiated. Once a CBA is in place, players agree not to strike and owners promise not to lock out players. By way of example, the 2005 National Hockey League season was cancelled because of an owners' lockout after the parties' CBA had expired. In 1994, Major League Baseball lost half its season and the playoffs because ballplayers went on strike over the issue of a salary cap. Historically, the most controversial issues subject to CBA negotiation are free agency, minimum salary, squad size, draft, salary cap, grounds for termination, and suspension.
In nearly all professional sports, the issue of limits on the use of performance-enhancing drugs has become an integral aspect of CBA negotiations. Drug policies are not uniform for all professional sports. Typically, each CBA explains the policy regarding drug testing, list of banned drugs, violations, penalties, privacy issues, and rights of appeal. Drug violations may lead to suspensions and loss of salary. The BALCO controversy involving high-profile professional athletes and coaches highlights the allegedly widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in different sports.
Sports agents are generally certified by each sport's players' association. Once certified, agents or contract advisors may negotiate individual player contracts. Agents who are entrusted to conduct business on a player's behalf owe a fiduciary duty, i.e., a duty to remain loyal, act honestly, behave ethically, and act in the player's best interest when negotiating. More than half the states in the United States currently regulate the activities of agents in addition to union regulation for bad acts. Super agents like baseball's Scott Boras and football's Drew Rosenhaus are frequently the subject of media profiles.
The first body to assist agents in learning the ins and outs of contract negotiations, endorsements and media relations was the Association for Representatives of Athletes (ARPA). The co-founders and leaders of ARPA, since absorbed into the NFL Players Association, were Professor William Weston of the University of Baltimore Law School and Professor Michael E. Jones of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The late Bob Woolf is acknowledged[ by whom? ] as being one of the first agents for assisting Boston Red Sox pitcher Earl Wilson to negotiate his player contract.
Until a few decades ago,[ when? ] most United States professional sports leagues' contracts retained clauses contracts that essentially prevented players from leaving their original teams by their own choice. [3] These "reserve clauses" were upheld because courts found that these sports leagues did not operate in interstate trade or commerce, meaning they did not fall under antitrust laws. [4] See Federal Baseball Club v. National League (1922). This interpretation has largely been eroded today. However, Major League Baseball may still retain limited antitrust exemptions (it is unclear whether the entire exemption has been overruled by Flood Act because the true extent of the exemption was vague). It is important to note that the formation of players unions for the purpose of negotiating contracts with management is exempt from antitrust scrutiny under labor law. The by-product of good faith negotiations between management and players unions in the form of a CBA is also exempt from antitrust scrutiny.
Antitrust challenges have recently taken the form of other domestic leagues challenging Major League Soccer and the United States Soccer Federation. This occurred in 2017, when the North American Soccer League (NASL) filed a lawsuit against United States Soccer Federation (USSF) following USSF's modification of its divisional requirements and its decision not to renew NASL's status as Division 2 for the 2018 year. [5] NASL’s antitrust case was based on MLS’s single-entity structure and lack of promotion and relegation, something MLS receives an exemption from FIFA for doing. [6] This was the first time a challenge to single-entity, closed-shop structure was brought by a lower league. [7] NASL sought preliminary injunction against USSF imposing the new requirements, but was denied again on appeal. [8] While preliminary injunction was denied, the case remains pending and may go trial. [9]
In July 2021, a New York court found no violation of antitrust laws when FIFA and USSF set standards blocking foreign clubs from hosting competitive matches in the United States. [10] Friendly and exhibition matches commonly take place in the United States.
Until recently, torts were never part of the landscape of sports law. A tort can be defined as an actionable wrong [11] However, in 1975 an Illinois appeals court established that players can be found guilty of negligence if their actions are "deliberate, willful or with a reckless disregard for the safety of another player so as cause injury to that player." See Nabozny v. Barnhill. Negligence torts are typically harder to prove in contact sports, where violent actions and injuries are more common and thus more expected ("assumption of risk" or "self-defense"). Spectators can also sue for negligence if their injuries could not have been expected (not "foreseeable") given the nature of the sporting event they were attending. A baseball fan sitting in the bleachers could reasonably expect a baseball might come toward the seat, but a wrestling fan sitting courtside would not reasonably expect a wrestler to come flying his or her way.
Sports' tort law extends into other less obvious areas. Team doctors could be liable for medical malpractice, a form of negligence, for giving a player a false clean bill of health so the player may continue to perform. A player who purposefully causes bodily harm to another athlete, coach, or spectator may be guilty of committing an intentional tort along with a criminal act of assault and battery. [12] The law of defamation protects a person's good character or reputation. The publication of false information about a well-known athlete ("public figure") may be actionable if it was published with a reckless disregard for the truth or actual malice. The growth of non-traditional media outlets, e.g. web pages, instant messaging, cable, etc. has added a new dynamic to this area of the law.
In recent years, the topic of concussions in the National Football League has come to the spotlight. Numerous agents, doctors, players, and their families have spoken out about the impact that repeated concussions have had on their [loved one's] life. In 2011, over 4,500 former NFL players "filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL" [13] in support of allegations that the NFL has downplayed or ignored an unfortunate truth: that NFL players are more at risk of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and other forms of brain trauma. In fact, a recent study conducted by Boston University's school of medicine claimed that 99% of the "brains obtained from the NFL" tested positive for CTE. [14] The lawsuit filed against the NFL displays the assumption of risk defense in the law of torts. The NFL uses this doctrine as a defense, stating that the plaintiff (players) knew the risks of their job prior to when the injuries occurred. This doctrine is countered by the prosecution who claim the NFL had the duty to warn, stating that the NFL did not fulfill their duty to warn their players of the full risks associated with playing. This lawsuit was settled in 2015. The NFL was forced to donate $1 billion towards educational programs, payments to retired players, and in-game safety precautions. [15]
Closely related to the subject of torts in some ways, is the area of publicity rights. While the tort of defamation protects a person's reputation, the right of publicity permits a person to commercially exploit his or her likeness, name, and image. This area of sports law includes trademarks, trade-names, domain names, and copyrights.
| | This section may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(June 2016) |
International amateur sports are run by a variety of organizations. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is made up of each country's Olympic Committee, which in turn recognizes a national governing body (NGB) for each Olympic related sport. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the national governing body for all U.S. athletes in the Olympic and Pan-American Games. The IOC is the international governing body for the summer and winter Olympic Games.
Labor issues are not unique to United States law. The European Union has dealt with countless sports-related legal issues. The most important development in this area was the Bosman ruling, in which the European Court of Justice invalidated restrictions imposed by EU member countries and UEFA (the governing body for football within Europe) on foreign EU nationals. Bosman was extended to countries with associate trading relationships with the EU by the Kolpak ruling. The 6+5 rule was a proposed rule by FIFA that sought to limit the effects of Bosman and its offshoots on football clubs; it sparked considerable legal controversy in Europe and was abandoned in 2010.
The subject of drug testing, especially in international sports like cycling and track and field, is under the jurisdiction of each sport's NGB and international federation, the USOC, the IOC, and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The final arbitrator in resolving drug related disputes is the Court of Arbitration for Sports.
Australia
The capacity for the law of assault to intervene in contact sports is limited by the athlete's willing participation. By engaging in a sport, participants are held to accepted the inherent risks of such an activity as applied in Rootes v Shelton. [31]
However, questions of legality arise where the conduct was deliberate as was the case in McCracken v Melbourne Storm & Orcs, where Melbourne Storm players sought to intentionally injure McCracken during play. [32] Similarly, issues also arise where conduct can be characterised to fall "outside the scope of the Plaintiff's consent to degree of physical contact during the game", [33] thus invoking compensation.
The United States Soccer Federation (USSF), commonly referred to as U.S. Soccer, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the official governing body of the sport of soccer in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, the federation is a full member of FIFA and governs American soccer at the international, professional, and amateur levels, including: the men's and women's national teams, Major League Soccer, National Women's Soccer League, youth organizations, beach soccer, futsal, Paralympic, and deaf national teams. U.S. Soccer sanctions referees and soccer tournaments for most soccer leagues in the United States. The U.S. Soccer Federation also administers and operates the U.S. Open Cup and the SheBelieves Cup.
The USL First Division was a professional men's soccer league in the United States and Canada from 2005 to 2010.
In professional sports, a free agent is a player or manager who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.
The United States Soccer Federation (USSF) governs most levels of soccer in the United States, including the national teams, professional leagues, and amateur leagues, being the highest soccer authority in the country. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) governs most colleges; secondary schools are governed by state-level associations, with the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) setting the rules at that level. The match regulations are generally the same between the three governing bodies although there are many subtle differences.
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in various sports. They generally have lesser fan bases, much smaller revenues and salaries, and are used to develop players for bigger leagues.
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is the labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. and president Jalen Reeves-Maybin. Founded in 1956, the NFLPA is the second-oldest labor union of the major North American professional sports leagues; it was established to provide players with formal representation to negotiate compensation and the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The NFLPA is a member of the AFL–CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States.
The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is the labor union representing all current Major League Baseball players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held a signed contract with a Major League club are eligible for membership in the Association.
The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated that the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration. Players under these contracts were not free to enter into another contract with another team. Once signed to a contract, players could, at the team's discretion, be reassigned, traded, sold, or released.
The United States soccer league system is a series of professional and amateur soccer leagues based, in whole or in part, in the United States. Sometimes called the American soccer pyramid, teams and leagues are not linked by the system of promotion and relegation typical in soccer elsewhere. Instead, the United States Soccer Federation defines professional leagues in three levels, called divisions, with all other leagues sanctioned by the USSF not having an official designated level or division.
Hayden Knight is a retired Trinidad-American soccer defender and current high school soccer coach. He earned three caps with the United States men's national soccer team in 1984.
James McCoy Smith is a former American football defensive back in the National Football League (NFL) for the Washington Redskins. He played high school football at Kearny High School, and college football at the University of Oregon. He was nicknamed "Yazoo" because he was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He was an All-American his senior year (1967), and was drafted in the first round of the 1968 NFL/AFL draft. He was the first defensive back taken in the draft, and the twelfth player overall.
Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that preserved the reserve clause in Major League Baseball (MLB) players' contracts. By a 5–3 margin, the Court reaffirmed the antitrust exemption that had been granted to professional baseball in 1922 under Federal Baseball Club v. National League, and previously affirmed by Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc. in 1953. While the majority believed that baseball's antitrust exemption was anomalous compared to other professional sports, it held that any changes to the exemption should be made through Congress and not the courts.
Radovich v. National Football League (NFL), 352 U.S. 445 (1957), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that professional football, unlike professional baseball, was subject to antitrust laws. It was the third of three such cases heard by the Court in the 1950s involving the antitrust status of professional sports.
Jeffrey L. Kessler is a partner at the international law firm Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as Co-Executive Chairman and co-chair of the firm's antitrust/competition practice and is a member of the firm's executive committee. Until May 2012, he was the global litigation chair at the international law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, where he was also the co-chair of the sports litigation practice group and served on the firm's executive and leadership committees. His major clients include the Panasonic Corporation, National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), William Morris Endeavor, Activision Blizzard, Avanci, the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), United States Women's National Team (USWNT) soccer players, NTN Corporation, Relevant Sports, and Actors' Equity Association.
The 2011 National Football League Player lockout was a work stoppage imposed by the owners of the NFL's 32 teams that lasted from March 12, 2011, to July 25, 2011. When the owners and the NFL players, represented by the National Football League Players Association, could not come to a consensus on a new collective bargaining agreement, the owners locked out the players from team facilities and shut down league operations. The major issues disputed were the salary cap, players' safety and health benefits, revenue sharing and television contracts, transparency of financial information, rookie salaries, season length, and free agency guidelines. During the 18-week, 4-day period, there was no free agency and training camp, and players were restricted from seeing team doctors, entering or working out at team facilities, or communicating with coaches. The end of the lockout coincided with the formation of a new collective bargaining agreement prior to the start of the 2011 regular season.
The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league based in the United States. The league was named for, but had no connection to, the original North American Soccer League. The later NASL was founded in 2009, and began play in 2011 with eight teams.
The NFL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a labor agreement which reflects the results of collective bargaining negotiations between the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) and National Football League (NFL). The labor agreement classifies distribution of league revenues, sets health and safety standards and establishes benefits, including pensions and medical benefits, for all players in the NFL. The first collective bargaining agreement was reached in 1968 after player members of the NFLPA voted to go on strike to increase salaries, pensions and benefits for all players in the league. Later negotiations of the collective bargaining agreement called for injury grievances, a guaranteed percentage of revenues for players, an expansion of free agency and other issues impacting the business of the NFL. The NFLPA and team owners have negotiated seven different agreements since 1968.
The U.S. Women's National Team Players Association (USWNTPA) is a labor union representing the United States women's national soccer team (USWNT). The organization's primary mission is to protect the rights of the USWNT and to safeguard the economic and social welfare of all of the women's national team players.
The 2018 North American Soccer League season would have been the eighth season of the modern North American Soccer League (NASL), but was canceled after the league was denied a preliminary injunction to prevent the loss of their Division II status.
Ellen Marsha Zavian is an American sports agent and attorney. She was the first National Football League (NFL) female attorney-agent. She is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. She is also the founder and owner of EZ Negotiation, a sports agency based in the Washington, D.C. area.
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