What's Next in American Needle v. National Football League?

For those following the American Needle case, I just posted on SSRN a draft of my newest law review article, discussing the challenges that American Needle will likely face on remand. A draft of the article is available here.

Clotfelter on Big Time College Sports

Here is a nice synopsis of Big-Time Sports in American Universities, by Charles Clotfelter of Duke University, newly published by Cambridge University Press. The book takes a serious, empirical examination of the value, benefits, and defects in big-time American college sports.

Sunday Sports Law Links

* Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is suing the Washington City Paper for libel, claiming that the paper used "anti-Semitic imagery, half-truths, and innuendo to smear or defame him." Andrew Beaujon and Erik Wemple of TBD have a good analysis of the lawsuit. Libel is frequently hard to prove given that libelous statements can't be mere opinions and truth is always a defense; the hurdle is only elevated for public figures (like Snyder) who have to show actual malice, which means intentionally trying to defame as opposed to merely doing so. With these hurdles, Beaujon and Wemple conclude that Synder's claim is unlikely to prevail. The original Washington City Paper article that sprung this litigation was titled The Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder. My thanks to Alan Milstein and Bill McCann for these links.

* I recently blogged about Robert Burton, the UConn donor who wanted his $3 million back because he felt ignored by UConn's athletic director as the school interviewed prospective football coaches. After meeting with UConn athletic officials, Burton has decided to let UConn keep the money without a fight (and it was a fight that he likely would have lost, since the $3 million donation was apparently made without conditions). Marc Isenberg had a funny line about this: "Good move by UConn to repair some of the fallout. In related news Burton will call the offensive plays from a headset installed his suite."

* Daniel Fitzgerald of Connecticut Sports Law has a terrific article on sports car law in Connecticut. I also think Dan gets credit for coming up with the phrase, and possibly new section of sports law, now to be known as "sports car law".

* The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently dealt a defeat to a group of retired NFL players who had sued the league and the National Football League Players Association, for negligence, negligent misrepresentation and breach of fiduciary duty. Ashley Trent of Inside Counsel has the story on Atwater v. NFLPA.

* The College Sports Council is challenging the National Women's Law Center over a more rigorous--or more exclusionary, depending upon how you see it--application of Title IX to high school sports.

* Elliot Solop of the The Sports Tomato has an excellent piece on whether an NFL lockout would impact the publishing of Electronic Arts' John Madden Football, which has an exclusive deal with the NFL and NFLPA.

* Zak Kurtz of Sports Agent Blog explains why the NFL seems to have won a mediation decision by University of Pennsylvania Law Professor and NFL special master Stephen Burbank on whether the league can keep television revenue during a lockout. Both the NFLPA and NFL are claiming victory, but the numbers suggest that the NFL largely won.

* A reminder that Seton Hall Law School's sports law symposium is on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it.

Update on White Sox Kickback Scandal

As I first discussed here back in November and Mike followed-up with in December, the White Sox organization suffered a PR blow when a Federal grand jury 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.

Yesterday, David Wilder, most recently the White Sox Director of Player Personnel, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. To generate the payoffs in the form of kickbacks, Wilder, along with two White Sox scouts (also indicted) would misrepresent the amount of money needed to sign Mexican and Latin American prospects. As a result, the White Sox paid artificially high amounts for players' rights as well as inflated signing bonuses. Federal sentencing guidelines could result in up to four years in prison for Wilder, but his plea agreement allegedly contains a recommendation from the prosecution for only two years in prison.

Gaming the Super Bowl Litigation

Slate has a nice piece (including an interview with SCOTUSBlog's Tom Goldstein) gaming out the options for fans seeking some sort of compensation over Super Bowl seating. It now appears that there are three groups of disgruntled fans: 1) Those denied seats altogether; 2) Those moved into nose-bleed seats; and 3) a group of about 1100 fans who were delayed coming in because several gates were not available because of weather problems. And there are three options: 1) $ 2400 and a transferable ticket to next year's Super Bowl; 2) a non-transferable ticket to any future Super Bowl; and 3) Join the lawsuit (which Goldstein believes will settle for about what the NFL is already offering). The piece then goes on to suggest the best option for various groups of fans.

It also includes an interview with Michael Aventatti, the attorney representing the class-action litigants. He explains that the $2400 offer was not a good deal, since tickets were going for far more than face value (and the NFL knew this), so tickets and accommodations ran more than $ 2400. We knew that, which is why the unseated fans have a good claim for breach of contract. The nosebleed fans less so--their only damages would seem to be the difference in the value of where they were seated as opposed to what they expected to get. And the fraud claim appears to be based on the NFL knowing before Sunday that the seats would not be available--although it is not clear that the league could have done anything about that before then (a key element to the fraud claim).

New Sports Illustrated Column on Barry Bonds Case and Impact of Greg Anderson Recording

I have a new SI column on the Barry Bonds trial and how a hearing today will determine whether a recording of a pivotal conversation between Bonds's former trainer, Greg Anderson, and business partner, Steve Hoskins, is deemed admissible or hearsay. In the conversation, Anderson talks about providing Bonds with The Clear (THG).

Here is an excerpt of the column:

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Even if the recording is admissible, Bonds's lawyers could scrutinize the quality and authenticity of the recording as well as the specificity of Anderson and Hoskins's remarks. They are also likely to fuel skepticism as to Bonds possessing any knowledge of the conversation.

Bonds's lawyers could also question whether Bonds understood that the Clear was in fact a "steroid", since it was not specifically banned by Major League Baseball at the time, nor was it specifically classified by the federal government as an illegal steroid. While such a strategy may seem like opportunistic word parsing, keep in mind the wording of the criminal counts in the Bonds indictment (which earlier this week was condensed to five counts, though the exact same penalties remain -- if convicted on all counts, Bonds, as a first time offender, would likely serve between 15 and 21 months in prison). Count One claims that Bonds knowingly lied under oath during grand jury questioning and specifically during this exchange:

Government lawyer: "Let me be real clear about this. Did he [Anderson] ever give you anything that you knew to be a steroid?"

Bonds: "I don't think Greg would do anything like that to me and jeopardize our friendship. I just don't think he would do that."

Government lawyer: "Well, when you say you don't think he would do that, to your knowledge, I mean, did you ever take any steroids that he gave you?"

Bonds: "Not that I know of."

With those statements in mind, Bonds could insist that he did not know the Clear was a steroid. Indeed, Bonds could argue, why should he have presumed that the definition of a steroid in a grand jury proceeding automatically included the Clear or any substance that evades detection in a urine test? Put another way, Bonds and his lawyers could portray "steroid" as an ambiguous word in the context of a new cocktail substance like the Clear and thus vulnerable to incompatible interpretations. Following that logic, Bonds may not have knowingly lied in response to questions about steroids when the questioner (government prosecutor) and answerer (Bonds) assumed different meanings of the operative word: "steroids".

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To read the rest of the column, click here.

SRLA Annual Conference - March 3-5, 2011

As a follow-up to Mark's post last month, the Sport and & Recreation Law Association ("SRLA") conference program has now been posted. There are a number of interesting topics on the SRLA schedule. As a first-time attendee, I am looking forward to it. I will provide a re-cap after the conference, highlighting some of the presentations I found most interesting.