Tulane Sports Law Blog

By any measure the 2011-2012 academic year was a big one for the Sports Law Program at Tulane. We hosted an array of speakers, overhauled our web presence, held two competitions, announced a partnership with the National Basketball Retired Players Association, and participated in the formation of the Tulane Center for Sport. This year’s events are all part of our ongoing effort to maintain Tulane Law School as the premier school for sports law.

Tulane Sports Law Speaker Series

Additional photographs of the event can be viewed here

In an effort to expose students to current issues in the sports industry and to educate them about the varied careers and paths to success in sports, we created the Tulane Sports Law Speaker Series. Through the Speaker Series we hosted a wide array of individuals working in the sports industry who spoke to students about their careers, current issues in sports, and advice about breaking into the industry. Some of this year’s speakers include DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director of the NFLPA, Dell Demps, General Manager of the New Orleans Hornets, and Tandy O’Donoghue, Senior Vice President at the WWE.

With over 100 guests in attendance, Mr. Smith spoke about the joys and challenges of representing professional football players.  The central theme of Mr. Smith's speech was that players should be viewed as people first and players second.  He suggested that such a paradigm shift is necessary at all levels of competition if we are to succeed in protecting the health and safety of those who play the game of football. 

The Speaker Series also included a panel discussion of hot topics in the NCAA, held during the Final Four and moderated by third-year student, Andrew Sensi. The panel included two Division One Athletic Directors, two NCAA compliance officials, and a sports lawyer with expertise in representing student-athletes. The event even made its way into Sports Illustrated.

The list of speakers this year includes multiple alumni, to whom we are extremely grateful for their continued support of the program. For a complete list of the distinguished guests to speak at Tulane this year, click here.

Upgraded Web Presence

Among this year’s biggest accomplishments is the overhaul of the Tulane Sports Law Program’s web presence. One aspect of the overhaul was the creation of our Twitter account, @TulaneSportsLaw. Members of the sports law society regularly tweet information about the program as well as provide links to current issues in sports law and business.

In combination with the Twitter account, we worked to keep alumni, practitioners, students, and others informed about current events in sports law and business by creating a “Friday Sports Links” section on the newly established website. This is a weekly posting which provides an overview of the biggest news over the past week in sports law and business, and provides links to all the top stories. This is an invaluable tool for those in the industry wishing to keep abreast of the latest news and events in sports law.

Another major addition to the new website is our blog. We use the blog to update readers on current sports-related events at the law school, such as speakers and panels. The blog also provides students the opportunity to display their legal writing and analytical skills by publishing articles on hot topics in sports law.

Lastly, the website features both a Student Biography section and an Alumni Profile section. The Student Biography section allows interested parties to get to know our students and connect with them on a more personal level. The Alumni Profile section enables current and prospective students to see the varied paths to success in the sports industry as well as a way to get to know some of our most successful alumni. Once again, a big thank you is due to all the alumni who participated.

The website and our entire web presence continue to be works in progress and we are committed to improving both in the upcoming academic year.

Creation of Tulane Center for Sport

Dr. Gregory Stewart evaluates a former football player.

In January, Professor Gabe Feldman and Dr. Gregory Stewart teamed up to create the Tulane Center for Sport, a multi-disciplinary program for athletes and sports institutions. The center hopes to combine resources from the Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine and the schools of business, medicine, and law to become a one-stop shop for all programs aimed at athletes and those working in professional sports.

The creation of the center was quickly followed by an announcement that the National Football League selected Tulane University as one of only seven institutions in the country to be part of its Neurological Care Program for retired players. The program gives former players special access to the nation’s leading neurological hospitals for comprehensive evaluation of brain and spinal function along with an individually tailored treatment plan. Dr. Roger Kelley, chair of neurology at Tulane University School of Medicine, and Dr. Gregory Stewart, medical director of Tulane Centers for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, will lead the program.

Partnership with the National Basketball Retired Players Association

During the NBA All-Star weekend in Orlando in March 2012, Tulane Law School and the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA) announced a new partnership and member program that brings Tulane law students and professional athletes together.

Through the partnership, NBRPA members can submit questions directly to the Tulane Sports Law Program through the NBRPA’s official website, LegendsofBasketball.com. Under the supervision of Professor Gabe Feldman, students are tasked with researching and analyzing a variety of legal, economic, and social issues that impact retired NBA, ABA, and Harlem Globetrotters players. The legal research focuses on intellectual property rights of athletes, tax issues, contract law, worker’s compensation, and a variety of other areas that Tulane students study as part of the Sports Law Certificate.

Competitions

The first panel, “The New CBA: Change and Continuing Peace” featured Larry Silverman, Steven Fehr, Clark Griffith, Bryan Minniti, Marc Kligman, and Professor Gabe Feldman.

Tulane also hosted two sports law competitions this year. In February, the Tulane Sports Law Society held the 5th annual National Baseball Arbitration Competition, and later that month Tulane’s Moot Court Board, with the help of the Sports Lawyers Journal staff, held the annual Mardi Gras National Moot Court Competition.

Like most other law school moot court competitions, the National Baseball Arbitration Competition's main goal is to provide participants with the opportunity to sharpen their oral and written advocacy skills. This competition, however, is unique in that it allows law students to sharpen these skills within the specialized context of MLB's salary arbitration proceedings.  Every year, teams from law schools across the country compete for two days in simulated salary arbitrations modeled closely on the procedures used by Major League Baseball.

In addition to the competition, the event concludes with a symposium. The symposium is comprised of panel discussions on current issues in major league baseball featuring guest arbitrators and prominent members of the baseball community. This year’s panel discussions were “The New CBA: Change and Continuing Peace,” and “Hot Topics in Baseball: International Issues, Arbitration Today, and More.”

This year’s competition was easily the most competitive yet, as each of the 40 teams showed up with a great knowledge of the MLB arbitration process. Additionally, this year’s judges were the most distinguished yet, with 11 judges having extensive sports law experience.

The Mardi Gras Moot Court Competition is just like every other moot court competition, except it is the only one in the country that focuses on contemporary legal problems confronting the sports industry. This year, 32 teams argued a timely and complex problem, based on the recent litigation surrounding the NFL and NBA lockouts. The problem asked (1) whether the Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits district courts from issuing an injunction to enjoin a league lockout, and (2) whether a sports league's lockout is protected from antitrust scrutiny by the nonstatutory labor exemption.

The Future

The future of the Tulane Sports Law Program is bright indeed. With over 30 new members in the Sports Law Society the interest and level of talent in the program continues to grow with each year. In less than a month, over 30 students in the program will travel to San Diego to take part in the annual Sports Lawyers Association Conference. Students will have the opportunity to learn about cutting edge issues in sports law as well as gain invaluable networking experience with a wide of array of persons working in the sports industry.

Lastly, we would like to give special thanks to the alumni who have supported the program this year. With the continued support of our alumni, we are certain to maintain our status as the top sports law program in the country. Thank you to:

Jim Aronowitz, Mary Fitzgerald, Renee Gomila, Marc Kligman, Ari Nissim, Tandy O'Donoghue, Marc Reeves, Mike Tannenbaum, and Warren Zola.

Next year, the newly elected board of the Sports Law Society will work to continue the momentum of this year and to ensure that Tulane remains the leader in sports law academia.