Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

From birth to death and from race to Rocky, one would be hard-pressed to demonstrate that a city has had more of a cultural and legal impact on sports generally and sports law specifically than the city of Philadelphia. The purpose of this article is to introduce Philadelphia-based cases and incidents that have influenced sports law, sometimes at a national level. This piece serves historical, legal and pedagogical purposes, and we hope it will also serve as a springboard to further research regarding the City of Brotherly Love. Tort law and the criminal law are the most prevalent cases within …

On March 26, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Northwestern University’s scholarship football players were employees of the institution and could unionize and bargain collectively. From a federal income tax perspective, the significance of the NLRB decision - at that time - was that it could redefine the principle that select student-athletes are no longer unpaid amateurs receiving qualified scholarships, but instead are employees of their institutions earning scholarship funds in exchange for services rendered as college athletes. Accordingly, a crucial question arising from the NLRB holding was whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could logically continue …