Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Promoting Female Sporting Opportunities Without Title Ix: The Spanish Experience, Stephen Ross, Maria Josefa Garcia Cirac

Journal Articles

This article compares the American approach to improving sporting opportunities for females – Title IX – with approaches taken by Spain. Because of the singular American dedication to elite interscholastic and intercollegiate sports, Title IX’s requirement of equal treatment requires that elite female athletes have equivalent opportunities to elite male athletes. The Spanish approach looks instead on the social benefits of athletics participation for boys, men, girls, and women.

Clear Statement Rules And The Integrity Of Labor Arbitration, Stephen Ross, Roy Eisenhardt

Arbitration Law Review

Under the common law, employment contracts are submitted to civil courts to resolve disputes over interpretation, breach, and remedies. As an alternative, parties in collective bargaining agreements, can agree to dispute resolution by an independent arbitrator, whose decision is reviewed deferentially by judges. Where employees or members of an association are governed by its internal rules, in contrast, they often agree contractually to submit internal disputes to an association officer or committee. In this circumstance, the common law governing private associations affords judicial review that is more limited than a civil dispute, but more searching than is the case for …

Clear Statement Rules And The Integrity Of Labor Arbitration, Stephen F. Ross, Roy Eisenhardt

Journal Articles

Under the common law, employment contracts are submitted to civil courts to resolve disputes over interpretation, breach, and remedies. As an alternative, parties in labor contexts can agree to resolution by an impartial arbitrator, whose decision is reviewed deferentially by judges. Where employees are subject to rules of a private association, they are often contractually obligated to submit their claims to an internal association officer or committee; the common law provides for judicial review more limited than a civil contract but more searching than is the case for an impartial labor arbitrator. Recently, the National Football League and its players …

Sex, Videos, And Insurance: How Gawker Could Have Avoided Financial Responsibility For The $140 Million Hulk Hogan Sex Tape Verdict, Christopher French

Journal Articles

On March 18, 2016, and March 22, 2016, a jury awarded Terry Bollea (a.k.a Hulk Hogan) a total of $140 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Gawker Media for posting less than two minutes of a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with his best friend’s wife. The award was based upon a finding that Gawker intentionally had invaded Hulk Hogan’s privacy by posting the video online. The case has been receiving extensive media coverage because it is a tawdry tale involving a celebrity, betrayal, adultery, sex, and the First Amendment. The case likely will be remembered by most …

A Rapid Reaction To O'Bannon: The Need For Analytics In Applying The Sherman Act To Overly Restrictive Joint Venture Schemes, Stephen F. Ross, Wayne Desarbo

Journal Articles

This Article reviews the recent and highly publicized district court decision holding that NCAA rules, which bar student-athletes from any compensation for image rights, violated the Sherman Act, and that big-time athletic programs could lawfully agree among themselves to limit compensation to $5,000 annually in trust for each athlete upon leaving school. This Article briefly discusses why the decision correctly found the current rule to be illegal, but also details why, under settled antitrust law, the critical question of how much compensation would significantly harm consumer appeal for college football and basketball is a question better left to marketing science …

A Strategic Legal Challenge To The Unforeseen Anticompetitive And Racially Discriminatory Effects Of Baseball’S North American Draft, Stephen F. Ross, Michael James Jr.

Journal Articles

Major League Baseball (MLB) has honored a single player by retiring his number for every club. Absent special commemorations, no player will wear the number “42” in honor of the man who broke the color barrier to become the first African American to play major league baseball in the modern era: Jackie Robinson. MLB has also honored a single player—chosen from nominees from each individual club—by presenting an annual award for humanitarian service in his name; that honoree is Roberto Clemente. However, the sad reality is that if a fifteen-year-old Jackie Robinson were growing up today in South Pasadena, California, …

A Regulatory Solution To Better Promote The Educational Values And Economic Sustainability Of Intercollegiate Athletics, Stephen F. Ross, Matt Mitten

Journal Articles

Currently there are several pending antitrust suits challenging NCAA rules restricting the economic benefits intercollegiate athletes may receive for their sports participation. Although remedying the inherent problems of commercialized college sports (primarily Division I football and men’s basketball) is a laudable objective, a free market solution mandated by antitrust law may have unintended adverse consequences. Judicial invalidation of these rules may inhibit universities from providing many athletes with a college education they would not otherwise receive, by eliminating or reducing the value of scholarships for many players whose economic value is less than the cost of an education. A wholly …

Judicial Review Of Ncaa Eligibility Decisions: Evaluation Of The Restitution Rule And A Call For Arbitration, Stephen F. Ross, Richard T. Karcher, S. Baker Kensinger

Journal Articles

Courts have held that the general principles of judicial non-interference with the decisions of private associations do not apply where a dominant organization’s decisions effectively prevent individuals from participating in an important activity, including a profession or sports. Although the bylaws of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) give it unfettered power, it remains subject to judicial review when its decisions violate constitutional or statutory limits, or principles of contract law, or when they are inconsistent with the organization’s own rules. As such, general principles of equity should freely permit an athlete to obtain injunctive relief where the applicable standards …

Accommodating Labor And Antitrust, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

In this article, the author comments on Professor Michael LeRoy's article "Federal Jurisdiction in Sports Labor Disputes" (2012 Utah L. Rev. 815) and explains why he disagrees with the claim that federal courts improperly invoke the Sherman Act in sports labor disputes.

Using Contract Law To Tackle The Coaching Carousel, Stephen F. Ross, Lindsay A. Berkstresser

Journal Articles

This Article suggests that student-athletes can protect themselves (and, indirectly, fans and students at the university at which they are about to enroll) by securing a binding promise from the coach that he will not voluntarily leave the university throughout the student-athlete's career. This promise could be in a legally binding contract directly between the coach and student-athlete, or by adding to the coach's employment contract with the university a proviso expressly designating student-athletes as third party beneficiaries. Part I briefly describes the problems resulting from the coaching carousel and describes the potential for contracts that limit a coach's mobility …

Where To Begin Researching International Sports Law, Rebecca Mattson

Law Library Faculty Works

In this article, the author discusses selected sources for researching international sports law.

Radical Reform Of Intercollegiate Athletics: Antitrust And Public Policy Implications, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

Universities operating major intercollegiate athletic programs are heading for, if not already in, a crisis. Corruption continues to affect major football and basketball programs, exacerbated by a failure of imagination and will in identifying and deterring corruption, and by a lack of consensus on what constitutes "corruption" when football and men's basketball stars generate millions of dollars but cannot enjoy a lifestyle commensurate with many peer students. Current levels of spending are nonsustainable at many schools. Even where intercollegiate athletic programs are sustained primarily by football and basketball revenues, otherwise visionary and questioning college presidents have yet to publicly question …

Antitrust And Inefficient Joint Ventures: Why Sports Leagues Should Look More Like Mcdonald's And Less Like The United Nations, Stephen F. Ross, Stefan Szymanski

Journal Articles

Antitrust law generally favors joint ventures that allow separate firms to integrate economic functions while continuing to compete as independent entities. In evaluating the risks to competition that joint ventures could pose, insufficient attention has been paid to the risk that joint ventures with market power may be structured so that the parties, acting in their independent self interest, will prevent the venture from providing innovative goods and services responsive to consumer demand. In these cases, it may be better if a single firm provided services rather than having them provided jointly.

We illustrate this problem by challenging the conventional …

Player Restraints And Competition Law Throughout The World, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This article reviews agreements among clubs participating in league sports in many countries throughout the world that limit competition for the services of players. Under the English common law (which governs in most of the British commonwealth), the competition law provisions of the European Union's governing treaty, the American Sherman Act, and the Canadian Competition Act, the governing standard is quite similar. Player restraints cab only be justified if they are related to a legitimate purpose, which is usually defined as one that demonstrably improves the consumer appeal for the sporting competition. Moreover, and significantly, player restraints must be reasonably …

The Nhl Labour Dispute And The Common Law, The Competition Law, And Public Policy, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This article develops the claim that, absent an agreement with the union, the imposition of a salary cap or punitive luxury tax would constitute an unreasonable restraint of trade, as well as a violation of section 48 of the Competition Act that the Canadian courts should enjoin. The article analyzes decisions of Canadian and other British Commonwealth courts concerning general principles of the common law as well as their specific application in the context of the sports industry. Second, the paper discusses why the same standard applies to restraints challenged under section 48 of the Competition Act. Next. the …

Light, Less-Filling, It's Blue-Ribbon!, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Commentary reviews the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel and, accepting the Report's perspective of advocating the long-term interests of baseball fans, identifies some important and positive contributions made by the Report. Next, some significant flaws and shortcomings are discussed. Finally, the Commentary suggests several practical reforms likely to improve competitive balance which plausibly could secure the support of t he various constituencies of the National Pastime.

Antitrust Options To Redress Anticompetitive Restraints And Monopolistic Practices By Professional Sports Leagues, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

The hallmark of an antitrust violation is an agreement which has the effect of raising price, lowering output, or rendering output unresponsive to consumer demand. Owners of clubs comprising Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League engage in a variety of exploitative activities that consumers cannot avoid by substituting rival products. The purpose of this Article is to analyze specific areas where these monopoly sports leagues harm a variety of groups, through the maintenance of a monopolistic structure that precludes competitive entry, or through specific restraints that have demonstrable anticompetitive effects. …

Art And Ideology In The Third Reich: The Protection Of Cultural Property And The Humanitarian Law Of War, Matthew Lippman

Penn State International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gambling To Be Competitive: The Gorton Amendment And International Law, Brian C. O'Donnell

Penn State International Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Misunderstood Alliance Between Sports Fans, Players, And The Antitrust Laws, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

The baseball strike and the ongoing hostilities between the players' association and owners have evoked criticism and frustration among fans and others. Although the players successfully defeated the owners' most recent attempts to reduce major league competition, the threat of future imposition of competitive restraints by the owners remains. In this article Professor Stephen F. Ross argues that blanket restraints on the market for players affirmatively inhibit on-the-field competition and consequently offend the Sherman Act.

The article begins with the proposition that monopsony - price-fixing behavior by buyers', rather than sellers' cartels - implicates the Sherman Act. Restraints on competition …

Reconsidering Flood V. Kuhn, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

Within the academia, two very different groups of legal scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Flood v. Kuhn. Those specializing in sports law have either attached Flood as a ridiculous decision that improperly distinguished between baseball and other professional sports, or have praised it for waging guerrilla warfare on the idea that Section 1 of the Sherman Act should apply to intra-league arrangements by owners of the professional sports teams. Those viewing Flood through the lens of statutory interpretation perceive the decision as adhering rigidly to the principle of stare decisis; this rigidity has been …

Rededication Panel Discussion On Gender Equality And Intercollegiate Athletics, Stephen F. Ross, Karol Kahrs, Fred Heinrich

Journal Articles

This article is a transcript of a panel discussion in which Professor Stephen F. Ross, Associate Athletic Director Karol Kahrs, and Fred Heinrich participated entitled "Sports and the Law," at the Rededication of the University of Illinois College of Law. The panel discussion centered on the issue of gender equity in intercollegiate athletics. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act requires institutions receiving federal funding to provide equal educational opportunity for students regardless of gender. The panel discussion focused on the impact of Title IX and the University of Illinois's efforts to comply with the requirements.

Global Politics And The Olympic Games: Separating The Two Oldest Games In History, Joanne D. Spotts

Penn State International Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Antitrust Analysis Of Sports League Contracts With Cable Networks, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Article discusses the proper antitrust treatment of package sales to cable. Part I considers whether the antitrust laws apply at all to such sales; it concludes that section one of the Sherman Act does apply and that neither the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 not baseball's historic exemption from the antitrust laws prevents antitrust scrutiny of these contracts. Part II explains why cable package sales should be analyzed under a rule of reason test focused on the effect of a sale on fan viewership. Finally, Part III responds to several possible objections to the rule of reason standard proposed …

Autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church Of Cyprus V. Goldberg And Feldman Fine Arts, Inc.: A Case For The Use Of Civil Remedies In Effecting The Return Of Stolen Art, Meredith Van Pelt

Penn State International Law Review

This Comment will explore the remedies currently available to foreign countries and to individuals who have discovered that works stolen from them are in the possession of American museums, art dealers, and private individuals. It will also explain why, in light of the recent decision of Autocephalous v. Goldberg, civil sanctions are the best means to effect the return of stolen art as well as to help deter future buyers of stolen art, thus shrinking the stolen art market.

Monopoly Sports Leagues, Stephen F. Ross

Journal Articles

This Article argues that the government should break up both Major League Baseball and the NFL to provide for competing economic entities in each sport. Part I details the harm monopoly sports leagues cause in several different markets and explains why a competitive league structure can correct such harms. Part II discusses why regulatory solutions are poor substitutes for competition as a means of redressing these harms. Part III explains why neither baseball nor football is a "natural monopoly" and argues that no persuasive evidence suggests that rival leagues cannot exist in those sports. Part IV examines how the antitrust …

International Sports: Have States Succeeded Athletes As The Players?, Barbara Ann O'Neill

Penn State International Law Review

Could the 1972 Munich Olympic tragedy occur again during the 1988 Seoul Summer Games? This Comment examines the role of nationalism within the Olympic Games and the International Olympic system and discusses the movment away from individual Olympic achievement. The Comment concludes that participating nations must rededicate their current international athletic policy to the ideals of the original Olympic tradition.