New Sports Illustrated Column on Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Domestic Violence Charges

I have a new SI.com column on Floyd Mayweather Jr.--who earned $60 million last year in boxing winnings and endorsements--being charged with beating up his ex-girlfriend and threatening to beat up his kids if they called the police. Here are some excerpts:

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According to those authorities, Mayweather did much more than steal a phone during his argument with Harris. He also allegedly pulled her hair, threw her to the floor and threatened to kill her. Just as troubling, prosecutors claim that Mayweather warned his children, Koraun and Zion, that he would beat them if they called the police.

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Mayweather, who has a history of legal woes, would be classified as a repeat offender. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to two domestic violence counts and one battery count. Those counts stemmed from multiple incidents evidencing Mayweather's questionable judgment and violent acts. The primary incident involved Mayweather physically assaulting Melissa Brim, who is the mother of Mayweather's daughter, Ayanna. While Mayweather dodged prison time on that occasion, his guilty plea can certainly be used against him for purposes of sentencing. The fact that Mayweather's alleged offenses include crimes against his children, could also work against him. Acts deemed particularly egregious may be considered aggravating circumstances that compel an elongated sentence.

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To read the rest, click here

What Impact will Ed O'Bannon and Sam Keller claims have on NCAA?

Paul Ellias of the Associated Press tackles that question in a new article. He interviews Rick and me for the piece. Here are some excerpts:

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A judge earlier this year refused the NCAA's request to toss out the eight lawsuits filed across the country by former student-athletes. They are now consolidated into a single federal action in San Francisco. The former collegiate athletes accuse the NCAA of antitrust violations, alleging they are prevented from marketing their images because the NCAA locked up their commercial rights forever during their college days.

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U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken said the lawsuits, at first glance, appeared to show the NCAA's "conduct constitutes an unreasonable restraint of trade."

Legal analysts said that ruling will compel the NCAA to turn over many of its business secrets to the players' lawyers. No previous lawsuit has advanced to this stage, said Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann, who specializes in sports law. He said even if the players ultimately lose their cases the documents could add further fuel to the debate over compensating student athletes.

"When we see what kind of money is being tossed around and how much money is made off players," McCann said, "it could invigorate this debate. It will hit at the core issues of amateurism."

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All the lawsuits are seeking class action status to represent untold housands of current and former athletes. Antitrust verdicts are tripled.

"If they are successful, it could mean a lot economically in terms of damages," said Rick Karcher, who directs the Center for Law and Sports at Florida Coastal School of Law.

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To read the rest, click here. To read more on O'Bannon's claims, click here; to read more on Keller's claims, click here.

I have company in disliking the wildcard

In both 2009 and 2007, I criticized the baseball wild card, arguing that it eliminates close races among the top teams in the league, since both will end up in the post-season, in favor of close races among a lot of lesser teams. Turns out I am not alone in this view. Tom Scocca of Slate makes the same argument, pointing out that the intense back-and-forth between the Yankees and Rays (Rays currently 1/2-game up, following a recent Yankees slide) is nearly meaningless, since the loser makes the play-offs as the wild card.

Scocca does something cute here: He shows the would-have-been standings in the pre-1994 two-division set-up. The result: The Yankees and Rays in the AL East fighting for one play-off spot and separated by 1/2-game with 17 left to play and five teams in the NL West fighting for one spot and separated by three games. And both races would be truly do-or-die: Only one team in each division can make the post-season.

Scocca ultimately reaches the same conclusion as me: More teams (and their fans) get into the post-season, but at the loss of truly winner-take-all competition.

Marquette University Law School - Sports Law Conference

Marquette University Law School is hosting its annual conference on October 22, 2010. The title of the event is "The Increasing Regulation of Sports in a Declining Economy." I have attended in the past and highly recommend it. CLE credits are available. The conference website can be found here. Conference panelists include the following:

• Matt Banker (L'01), Assistant Commissioner for Institutional Services, Ohio Valley Conference, Nashville, TN


• Mary K. Braza, Partner and Chair, Sports Industry Team, Foley & Lardner LLP, Milwaukee, WI


• Steve Cottingham, Director of Athletics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI


• Rodney Fort, Professor, Sport Management and Associate Dean for Graduate and Faculty Affairs, School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• Jeff Gewirtz, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, NETS BASKETBALL/Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, East Rutherford, NJ


• Martin Greenberg (L'71), Managing Member, Law Office of Martin J. Greenberg, LLC, and Member, Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District, Milwaukee, WI


• Greg Heller (L'96), Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta, GA (Class of 1996)


• Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Professor of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law, and Senior Director of Advocacy, Women's Sports Foundation, Jacksonville, FL


• Robert Kaler, Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel, United States Soccer Federation Foundation Inc., Washington, D.C.


• Robert H. Lattinville, Partner, Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, Saint Louis, MO


• Ilhyung Lee, Edward W. Hinton Professor of Law & Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO


• Jim McKeown, Antitrust Practice Chair, Foley & Lardner LLP, Milwaukee, WI


• Richard H. McLaren, Professor of Law, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, Counsel to McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP, and Member, Court of Arbitration for Sport, Lausanne, Switzerland


• William Miller (L'96), Assistant Professor, Health, Exercise Science & Sport Management, University of Wisconsin - Parkside, Kenosha, WI


• Matthew Mitten, Professor of Law and Director of the National Sports Law Institute and the LL.M. in Sports Law program for foreign lawyers, Marquette University Law School, and Member, Court of Arbitration for Sport, Lausanne, Switzerland


• Matt Parlow, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, Marquette University Law School, Milwaukee, WI


• Jill Pilgrim, Principal & Business Counsel, Precise Advisory Group; Chairperson-Arbitrator, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority; President, The Center for The Protection of Athletes Rights, Inc.; Principal, Pilgrim & Associates Law Office (New York, NY and Miami, FL)


• Marti Wronski, Vice President and General Counsel, Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Milwaukee, WI

WAC v. Mountain West Conference

ESPN reported yesterday that the Western Athletic Conference has initiated a lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference, California State University-Fresno, and the University of Nevada. The lawsuit relates to this summer's announcement that the two schools were leaving the WAC to join the Mountain West. Fresno State and Nevada both seek to enter the Mountain West starting with the 2011-12 school year. Meanwhile, the WAC contends that the schools are contractually obligated to remain in their current conference until the start of the 2012-13 year.

Specifically, under the WAC's bylaws, schools are supposed to notify the conference by July 1st if they intend to depart the conference the following summer. Both Fresno State and Nevada announced their intended departure on August 18th, but have indicated they would nevertheless like to join their new conference beginning in July 2011. The WAC contends that it would be irreparably harmed if the schools were permitted to leave before July 2012. As stated by WAC Commission Karl Benson:

"We’ve declared pretty consistently that the football schedule for 2011 would be drastically challenging for the six remaining members if they lost two footballs games in the 2011 season less than a year away," Benson said Tuesday. "We also have obligations and contracts with our bowl partners that would be damaged without Fresno State and Nevada in the WAC in 2011. A contract with our television partner that would be affected. WAC basketball tournament implications, BCS implications, there’s a myriad of reasons why Fresno State and Nevada need to fulfill their obligations."

Indeed, if Fresno State and Nevada are permitted to leave the conference in 2011, the remaining members of the WAC will likely have a difficult time replacing games against the two schools on their 2011 football schedules, given the current trend of scheduling non-conference college football games years in advance (as discussed in my forthcoming law review article).

The WAC filed the suit in Colorado state court, and ultimately asks that the court issue an injunction requiring the two schools to remain in the WAC through the 2011-12 school year. A copy of the complaint is available here.

Boston College Law Review Symposium on NCAA

I'm thrilled to be a panelist at Boston College Law Review's forthcoming symposium titled, "Legal Perspectives on the NCAA." Here is information on the symposium, which will be held on Friday, October 15:

Legal Perspectives on the NCAA
Symposium, October 15, 2010

One hundred years ago, in 1910, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was rechristened as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA as it is known today. Since then, the scope and popularity of college sports has grown dramatically. The NCAA and its member institutions hold competitions involving 400,000 student athletes in 23 sports. These events have in many cases become big business. Some universities reap over $100,000,000 in gross revenue from their athletic programs. The growth of NCAA sponsored sports has created tension between important values like amateurism, academic standards, student rights, and equal access on the one hand and practical realities like competitive pressure and fiscal imperatives on the other. This tension has not always been easy to resolve. Not surprisingly, the NCAA, its institutions, and student athletes have sometimes turned to the legal system to resolve conflicts. On October 15, 2010, Boston College Law School and the Boston College Law Review will hold an all-day symposium that examines some of the legal issues raised by the NCAA's growth. The symposium will feature four panels during which distinguished law faculty will present academic papers that will be published by the Boston College Law Review. A commentator will then give us his or her thoughts about the paper with an eye to fostering an open give and take about the ideas presented. The symposium will also feature a special lunchtime program during which William Hancock, executive director of the BCS, and Matthew Sanderson, executive director of PlayoffPac, will discuss postseason college football, the BCS, and the National Championship. Jeremy Schaap of ESPN will moderate.		PROGRAM Lunchtime Program: 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) 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) 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) Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated (Discussant) (Invited) 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) 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)

Floyd Landis as Whistleblower?

As Mike noted in his SI column last spring, the Landis-Armstrong doping drama has some interesting legal consequences. Mike drew attention to "...the possibility that Armstrong's treatment of USPS sponsorship money could bring legal scrutiny, particularly under the federal statute for the misuse of public funds and embezzlement."

Last week, news leaked that Floyd Landis has filed a federal False Claims Act lawsuit. See the AP story, yahoo sports, and the Wall Street Journal.

Under the FCA, whistleblowers can bring "qui tam" actions in the name of the United States to recover monies paid out by the federal government based on false claims. Known as "Lincoln's Law," because of its origins in fraudulent defense contracting during the Civil War, the FCA has been a powerful tool for uncovering fraud and rewarding whistleblowers (known as "relators") for bringing original information to the government's attention. I argued for extension of the FCA model to financial fraud whistleblowers in a 2007 article, "Beyond Protection."

Under the statue, plaintiff whistleblowers can recover a portion -- up to 30% -- of the government's losses due to false claims. The statute also requires that the complaint be filed under seal with the court and delivered to the DOJ. The DOJ's Civil Division lawyers review the allegations and decide whether or not to pursue the case themselves; if they decline to intervene, the whistleblower can still bring the case on behalf of the government. But the fact that the complaint is under seal means that the defendant here, Lance Armstrong, the public and the media have yet to have access to the details of the allegations.

So at this point any analysis of the strength of the complaint is mere speculation (or character attack). Still, it seems like Landis will face some significant obstacles. For one, he will need to establish a false claim to the government -- that Armstrong made some false statement in a request for money. Here, presumably, we're talking about sponsorship money paid out to Armstrong's team by the US Postal Service. Landis will need to prove that, prior to getting the money, Armstrong made false statements regarding his alleged doping. If he made no such statements, or if the USPS funds weren't actually conditioned on any promise of being dope-free, then it would be hard to establish a false claim for payment.

More fundamentally, FCA relators only get paid if they are the "original source" of information not yet in the public domain. This may be the bigger challenge for Landis. What original information about Armstrong has he offered? Was the information he offered already in the hands of government investigators, or already in the public domain, before he supposedly brought it to the government's attention?