CMU’s Mackey Touts School’s Accredited Sports Management Program

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Now here’s a surprise.

As of early 2016, neither Michigan State University nor University of Michigan offered an accredited sports management program—the operative word here being “accredited.” The only two schools that did have an accredited program were Central Michigan University (CMU) and Davenport University.

Obviously, accreditation is a big deal. It’s a long process. It involves certification by the “Commission on Sport Management Accreditation.” Certain national standards have to be met, as well as that criteria has to be maintained.

Significant in the completion of the program at CMU is the participation in internships. Students have performed internships with such organizations as “the U.S. Olympics committee, Detroit Tigers and Pistons, NFL, WNBA and NASCAR.”

Julia King, a sophomore transfer from Oakland Community College, had high praise for CMU, saying, “CMU has the best sports management program in the state. The faculty and opportunities that the program has are really amazing. I’m going into the business side of sports management and CMU has students who work for the NFL, which is what I would like to do.”

Associate professor Marcia Mackey, in CMU’s physical education and sports department, has worked in the school’s program since 1992. She said, “The sports management program is the umbrella of the business of sports. It can involve marketing, business and coaching.”

More about Dr. Marcia Mackey can be found at – http://bit.ly/2tjuIHC

Q&A with the Expert – William J. Robers

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A sports law professor and attorney with Sparks Willson Borges Brandt & Johnson, PC (Colorado Springs, CO), Bill specializes in the representation of sports entities, athletes and coaches in contract negotiations, corporate governance, compliance, grievances, and eligibility issues.

What were the circumstances that caused you to gravitate to sports law?

I have always been interested in sports law.  I wanted to be a sports agent while in college and law school.  After law school and earning my MBA, I joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, in Los Angeles, in the corporate department.  I handled complex mergers and acquisitions.  I pushed the firm to do more sports representation, but the older partners did not see the value in sports.  After five years, I left the firm and opened my own shop in Orange County, California. I was a registered NFLPA Player-Agent, representing athletes and coaches and professional sports executives, as well as doing general legal work.  In two years, I was recruited to join Holme Roberts & Owen, in its sports transactional department, under now-USOC CEO, Scott Blackmun.  I moved to Colorado Springs, and began representing Olympic Sports, executives, Anti-Doping Agency, and other sports organizations.  There is no “sports law” per se, but rather I have expertise in a number of different disciplines, and am able to apply them to my sports clients.  I also teach Sports Law to undergrad students at the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs.  Finally, I have been an NCAA football official for a number of years, and have worked as an expert in officiating training and liability issues, as well as sports injuries.

Within the sports law field, what are your areas of expertise?

My areas of expertise are in training of officials, injury liability in sports, contracts (athlete and organization), intellectual property (trademarks and copyrights, as well as software and other IP licensing), finance, marketing, defamation, mergers & acquisitions, facility issues, liability waivers, and anything involving a sports organization.

What is the most significant sports law case that you’ve been involved in?

It is difficult for me to talk about significant sports law cases.  I am not a litigator.  Therefore, most of my sports work is for clients that are confidential.  As for expert witness work, I have generally worked with counsel prior to trial.  I am extremely ethical, and will not compromise my ethics for anything.  Therefore, since I am not willing to be a “hired gun” to say whatever the counsel wants, counsel generally finds others for trial.  My background and experience is extensive, and my credibility is unblemished, which I intend to continue.  If I agree with a case, a litigator will find no better or more credible expert than me.

What is the most rewarding thing about being a sports law professor?

The most rewarding thing is seeing the difference between the beginning of the semester, and the end.  Many kids come in saying they had no interest in “sports law,” and only took it as a requirement.  Most come out saying they’ve learned more in that semester than any other class.  I love continuing to hear from students after they get into the sports workforce.

 Do you have a pedagogical philosophy when it comes to your academic practice?

In general, I try to use a Socratic method, albeit for undergrads.  I ask lots of questions, and want to make sure kids are prepared and able to speak about any issue.  I also love to do Mock Trials with them, so that they can see what it is like to argue for a client with which you may not agree (they get to pick the cases, but not which side they want to represent).  I like using a lot of videos from actual sports issues that match up with what we are studying on that day.  It helps make it clear how these things are relevant.  Finally, I like to bring in outside speakers, experts in the industry, to talk about their experiences.  I like the kids being able to see people actually practicing in the sports law world.  Speakers have included, Travis Tygart, CEO of the USADA; Chris McCleary, General Counsel of the USOC; Rana Dershowitz, former General Counsel of the USOC and now General Counsel of Vail Resorts; USOC Ombudsman; USADA counsels; NFL agents; Mountain West Conference attorneys, and others.

Do you teach in the fall, spring and/or summer?

I teach in fall and spring.  One class per semester, Monday nights from 7:30-10:05.

Do you use a text? If so, which one?

I do use a text.  Mitten, Davis, Shropshire, Osborne and Smith, Sports Law: Governance and Regulation (Aspen College).

 

UNC Professor Barbara Osborne Discusses the Importance of Funding Athletic Programs

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UNC Sports Law Professor Barbara Osborne, whose “research focuses on legal issues in intercollegiate athletics and gender discrimination in sport,” made this observation in regard to gender issues discussed at one recent school board meeting. “Sports teach people teamwork, sportsmanship, persistence and how to rise above failure, and they lead to a real edge in the workplace,” she said. “To not offer girls the same opportunities that boys have to learn those same things in sports harms girls from being competitive in society.”

Victory Lap!

The gender issue in this case was presented to the Collierville school system in Tennessee by a group of parents and former graduate, Paige Eubank. At question was the treatment of girls in sports. The district’s schools were “unfairly favoring boys’ athletics.” As a result, the school board immediately formed a committee to investigate matters.

At the heart of Eubank’s contention were the requirements of “Title IX, a 1972 measure that aims to prohibit sex discrimination in programs and activities at institutions that receive federal funding. The law covers various programs, including sports.”

Eubank’s father, Jay, made it plain to the board that the complaint was not intended to cause legal action, rather to raise awareness and set standards that the community as a whole would support.

The complete article can be read at – http://memne.ws/2qt1nxa

Sports Lawyer Specializing in Collegiate Athletics Named MAAC Legal Counsel

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The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Council of Presidents has hired Gregg E. Clifton to represent the MAAC as its legal counsel. In his new position, Clifton will be responsible for handling all MAAC legal matters, advising the Council on governance and NCAA issues, and providing the league with guidance on contractual and related business law matters.

“Gregg Clifton is an accomplished attorney, well recognized in sports law for his experience in a wide range of important topics including broadcasting, venue contracts, and personnel matters,” notes MAAC Commissioner Richard Ensor. “The MAAC is fortunate to have him join us as legal counsel.”

Clifton is a Principal in the Phoenix, Arizona, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He is co-leader of the Collegiate and Professional Sports Practice Group and serves as one of the editors of the firm’s sports law blog. Clifton has extensive experience in the collegiate and professional sports world. He has advised numerous professional franchises on general labor and employment issues, including Title III ADA regulatory compliance and wage and hour issues. He serves as lead counsel for several Major League Baseball teams in their salary arbitration matters and has represented NCAA and NAIA collegiate clients regarding rules compliance, investigatory matters and in disciplinary hearings. In addition, he has handled Title IX investigations and compliance issues for NCAA and NAIA member institutions.

Clifton has also worked extensively in the area of agent regulation and enforcement in professional and college sports and regularly provides counsel on issues relating to NCAA and NAIA amateurism issues and athlete eligibility questions. He has also served as an expert witness in matters involving sports agents work and responsibilities, as well as athlete compensation issues.

Legal Expert Gil Fried Will Serve as Editor-in-Chief of Sports Facilities and the Law

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Hackney Publications announced today the launch of Sports Facilities and the Law (SFL), a periodical that will be guided in large part by Gil Fried, a sport management professor at the University of New Haven, and an illustrious advisory board of attorneys and facility management experts from across the country.

SFL’s mission is to provide information and solutions to sport facility executives, their counsels, and affiliates to help minimize legal issues and help solve legal problems.  Rather than just report critical issues, SFL will endeavor to provide context and solutions for managers and attorneys.

“We are very fortunate to have Gil, who is an internationally recognized expert, attorney, author, and lecturer in sport law, facility safety, and facility management, as our Editor in Chief,” said Holt Hackney of Hackney Publications, the nation’s leading publisher of sports law periodicals. “Gil will oversee the editorial direction of SFL (http://sportsfacilitieslaw.com/), including managing a highly qualified editorial advisory board. He will also provide his own valuable insight on articles that appear in SFL.”

The newsletter, which is available on a complimentary basis to facility managers, attorneys, academicians, and affiliated entities in the field, will be published electronically every two months. To subscribe, readers should visit the following link: http://sportsfacilitieslaw.com/#subscribe

“We are able to provide SFL for free because of the strong support from the industry, especially our initial advertisers, including Havkins Rosenfelt Ritzert & Varriale, LLP (HRRV) and Sadler Sports Insurance,” said Professor Fried. “They recognize that this will be a must-read publication that could help facility managers avoid unnecessary litigation and alleviate risk management headaches.”

Carla Varriale of HRRV added that such facilities “have unique liability issues. This publication will serve a broad audience by highlighting best practices and insights involving those issues. SFL brings the fresh perspective the industry needs.”

Sports Law Professor Ted Curtis and the Role of Experiential Learning

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During his time at the University of South Florida, Theodore Curtis was a member of the institution’s in-house legal team.  He represented the school on legal issues “in intercollegiate athletics, technology law and intellectual property.’

Curtis’ career began as a journalist for a “Boston-area newspaper in 1989.” Writing on “sports, business, law and politics,” would build the foundation for his current role as an associate professor in Lynn University’s College of Business and Management.

Experiential learning and educational relevance is essential, in Curtis’ view, to an effective teaching method. This is where the student excels. The hands-on experience has no substitute.

As an example, for several years now Lynn University sports management students, have participated in the Allianz Championship—one of the stops on the PGA Champions Tour. Every February in Boca Raton, these volunteers get the opportunity to serve “in admissions, corporate hospitality, scoring control and many other areas of the event’s operations,” learning—“first-hand and hands-on—of the inner workings of the highly-respected professional golf event.”

Curtis, is quick to point out, “There is only one way to fully learn about the complexities of the sports industry, and that is by diving in. By helping the staff from the PGA Champions Tour and the Golf Channel, our students gain invaluable experience and great resume-builders.”

Read more about Theodore Curtis at – http://bit.ly/2qevg01

University of San Francisco’s Dan Rascher Sees the Outside Hiring of College ADs as Temporary Trend

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Last year, Syracuse hired ESPN’s John Wildhack, the network’s Executive Vice President for Production and Programming, to manage its athletic department. Having no experience in athletic administration, one might think this to be a gamble. On the other hand, college athletics have certainly become a business, so why not get yourself a successful businessman with a proven track record.

This isn’t the first hire that bucks the norm. One only has to look at Dave Brandon, a former Michigan football player, who “took over as Michigan’s athletic director from his position as the chairman of Domino’s Pizza” That, however, turned into a mess. At Texas, Mike Perrin, a Houston trial lawyer, was brought in to clean up a mess of another kind.

On the other hand, Notre Dame’s Jack Swarbrick has certainly made his impact on college sports. He’s the school’s AD and a former partner at an Indianapolis law firm.

So, is there a trend here, or are these just the exceptions?

According to Dan Rascher, the director of the sport management program at the University of San Francisco, he describes this as a temporary trend unique in the fact that as reported in The Washington Post, “The professionalization of college sports is moving faster than the rate at which traditional administrators can be trained in the new expertise required to run the small corporations athletic departments have become. But in time, perhaps the span of a few years, traditional administrators will be people like Wildhack, or at least they will have been trained up through the ranks to develop his business-forward skill-set.”

More about Dan Rascher can be found at – http://bit.ly/2qaDV3I

Mark Conrad, Fordham Sports Law Professor, Weighs in on Franchise Relocation

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If ever there was an NFL franchise with a storied and steamy history, it’s Oakland. Al Davis took black and silver and a bad-boy image to a new level. And since the Raiders are moving, what better place than to Las Vegas—sin city. The move leaves Oakland fans in a state of betrayal and those Vegas hoteliers and eateries, not to mention the odds-makers, licking their chops.

Now comes the matter of money. Not much, just $1.2 billion for a stadium. Apparently, most pro sports stadiums start at a minimum $1 billion. Not to sweat anything though. Just borrow $850 million from your neighborhood Bank of America. Add to that $750 million in public funding from Nevada, and there you have it—debt, with a capital “D.”

Then there are those revenue streams needed to retire the debt. One method is the sale of personal seat licenses (PSL). This “requires those seeking season tickets to first purchase the right to buy those seats.” However, if PSL sales don’t meet expectations, then there’s a shortfall that the Raiders have to cover, not to mention another concern dealing with potential cost overruns.

This type of uncertainty alarms Mark Conrad, director of the sports business program at Fordham University. “It’s a high rate of leveraging,” he has stated. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Assuming the stadium is the way it is, it’s a lot of leveraging.”

Conrad goes on to say, “Oakland came up with a plan on paper that’s not really a plan yet. I think it’s a concerted effort by the league to go to glamour markets and vie for the future.”

More about Mark Conrad at – http://bit.ly/2pV3MMI

Professors Examine Whether State High School Athletic Association Policies Are Effective for Concussion Management

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(Editor’s Note: John Miller, Troy University, and Robin Ammon, University of South Dakota, recently wrote the following article for Concussion Litigation Reporter. It is exclusively reprinted here.)

Many interscholastic athletes, particularly high school football players, are likely to incur concussions while participating in a sport (McCrea, Hammeke, Olsen, Leo, & Guskiewicz, 2004). Copeland (2010) further indicated that 3.4 out of every 1000 athletes suffer a concussion in interscholastic contests or practices. Because of increasing documentation of sport-related concussions, public awareness has also increased. It is, therefore, essential that high school officials such as athletic directors, coaches, and athletic trainers be aware of the standard of care guidelines to manage the risk of concussion that could reduce potential litigation. A primary source of these guidelines may be found in the state athletic association policies.

Currently all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, have sport-related concussion laws in place (Weinberger & Briskin, 2013).  However, most state courts have expressed a reluctance to interfere judicially with the contractual relationship between a state high school athletic association and its member schools (Mitten, 2014). Courts have also taken the position that they are not in the best position to decide sports disputes and instead defer to sport regulators and voluntary associations to make decisions according to their own rules (Indiana High School Athletic Association v. Carlberg, 1997). Furthermore, Crane v. Indiana High School Athletic Association (1992) suggested that the state governing body’s rules, interpretations, and applications should be published to provide standard of care guideline to its member schools, students, and parents.

The results of a study on state high school athletic association policies for managing sport-related concussions revealed that concussion education policies for more than 70% of high school athletic directors did not exist (Miller & Ammon, 2017). However, nearly 75% of coaches were required to review concussion information or follow the standards set by the National Federation of High School Associations (NFHS). Almost 65% of the state policies required licensed medical personnel such as team doctors to make the final concussion diagnosis.  Disturbingly, more than 5% did not specify a policy as to who is responsible for a final concussion diagnosis. When describing the type of concussion protocols, 48% did not indicate any type of concussion protocols to be followed during a contest. However, 22% followed NFHS policy guidelines. While nearly 50% of the state policies did not specify return to play guidelines, 36% followed NFHS policy guidelines.  Alarmingly, one state policy allowed a concussed high school athlete to return to play after 24 hours. Finally, 58% of the policies indicated that only a medical doctor could provide the final approval to return a high school athlete to play.

The court in Crane (1992) mandated that all policies of state high school athletic associations must be clear and unambiguous, reasonably interpreted in light of their legitimate objectives, and consistently applied. Clearly, this is not the case regarding high school state policies for concussion management.  Without the implementation of standard guidelines to manage the risks of concussions, the potential exists for a concussed player to be placed in a situation that increases his or her exposure to greater harm, thereby increasing the likelihood of possible litigation against the school (Kleinknecht v. Gettysburg College, 1992; Osborne & Ammon, 2012; Pinson v. Tennessee, 1995). Ideally, the implementation and enforcement of standards for education, prevention, and approval for return to play should set a higher standard of care for sports programs relative to athletes who suffer from concussions. While knowledge by itself does not equal appropriate action, a uniform development and implementation of state policies dealing with concussive incidents would create a culture of safety for concussive incidents of high school athletes.

References

Copeland, J. (February 23, 2010). New data suggest shift in college football concussions rate. Retrieved from http://www.ncaafoundation.biz/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/nc

Crane v. Ind. High Sch. Athletic Association, 975 F.2d 1315, 1326 (7th Cir. 1992).

Indiana High School Athletic Association v. Carlberg, 694 N.E.2d 222, 1997 Ind. LEXIS 230 (Ind. 1997)

Kleinknecht v. Gettysburg College, 989 F.2d 1360 (3d Cir. 1993).

McCrea, M., Hammeke, T., Olsen, G., Leo, P., & Guskiewicz, K. (2004). Unreported concussion in high school football players: Implications for prevention. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 14, 13–17.

Miller, J. & Ammon, R. (2017). State high school association policies: What are they doing to manage the risks of concussions?  Paper presented at the Sport and Recreation Law Association conference. Las Vegas, NV.

Mitten, M. (2014). Seventh Circuit and the Wisconsin law jurisprudence. Marquette Sports Law Review, 25(11), 207-251.

Osborne, B. & Ammon, R. (2012). Heading off traumatic brain injury: An analysis of concussion legislation in the United States. Paper presented at the North American Society for Sport Management Annual Conference. Seattle, WA

Pinson v. State, 1995 Tenn. App. LEXIS 807 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1995).

Weinberger, B. C., & Briskin, S. M. (2013). Sports-related concussion. Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine, 14(4), 246-254.

Sports Law Professor Peter Carfagna Goes Online to Teach Students ‘How to Become a Sports Agent’

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First, it was called distance learning—correspondence courses being the medium. With the growth of the digital age, it became online studies. More recently, another name has stuck – the MOOC (massive open online course). To date these MOOCs have mushroomed in popularity.

Take Case Western University in Cleveland, it currently offers some 10 MOOCs, among them being, “How to Become a Sports Agent,” offered by Peter Carfagna, adjunct professor in the School of Law at Case Western.

This course was first offered in the fall of 2014 under the title, “Representing the Professional Athlete.” It generated interest from some 6,000 students in 140 countries.

Professor Carfagna’s background spans over 30 years of sports law and marketing. He guides the student “through the four stages of a professional athlete’s career” via “lecture videos and guest interviews of sports industry experts.”

Speaking highly of the course, Michael McCann, award-winning journalist and sports law expert, said, “This is an outstanding opportunity to learn sports law from one of the most successful sports lawyers in U.S. history and an extremely talented teacher as well.”

For more info about Professor Carfagna, go to – http://bit.ly/2pxWopN