Sports law is an umbrella term An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of related concepts, also called a hypernym used to describe the legal issues at work in the world of both amateur and professional sports A sport is commonly defined as an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play.[note] It is governed by a set of rules or customs. In a sport the key factors are the physical capabilities and skills of the competitor when determining the outcome . The physical activity involves the movement of people,. Sports law overlaps substantially with labor law Labour law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees. In Canada, employment laws related to unionized workplaces are differentiated, contract law In law, a contract is an agreement between two or more parties which, if it contains the elements of a valid legal agreement, is enforceable by law or by binding arbitration. That is to say, a contract is an exchange of promises with specific legal remedies for breach. These can include Compensatory remedy, whereby the defaulting party is required, antitrust law Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, are laws that promote or maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct, and tort law Tort law is a body of law that addresses and provides remedies for civil wrongdoings not arising out of contractual obligations. A person who suffers legal damage may be able to use tort law to receive compensation from someone who is legally responsible, or liable, for those injuries. Generally speaking, tort law defines what constitutes a legal. Issues like defamation and privacy rights Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or are also an integral aspect of sports law. The area of law was established as a separate and important entity only a few decades ago, coinciding with the rise of player-agents and increased media scrutiny of sports law topics.

Amateur Sports Law

The National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi- voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are located in Indianapolis, Indiana (NCAA) was formed in 1906 to regulate intercollegiate sports competitions. Membership is voluntary. The NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi- voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are located in Indianapolis, Indiana operates along a series of bylaws that govern the areas of ethical conduct, amateur eligibility, financial aid, recruiting, gender equity Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders or the sexes, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality, championship events and academic standards. The NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi- voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are located in Indianapolis, Indiana has enforcement power and can introduce a series of punishments up to the death penalty, the full shut-down of a sporting activity at an offending college.

Title IX Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a United States law enacted on June 23, 1972. It was renamed in 2002 as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, in honor of its principal author Congresswoman Mink, but is most commonly known simply as Title IX. The law states that is an increasingly important issue in college sports College athletics refers primarily to sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education . In the United States, college athletics is a two-tiered system. The first tier includes the sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies. The major sanctioning organizations include the law. The Act, passed in 1972, makes it illegal for a federally funded institution to discriminate on the basis of sex or gender. In sports law, the piece of legislation often refers to the effort to achieve equality for women's sports in colleges. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is charged with enforcing this legislation. This agency implemented a three-prong tests for schools to adhere to: (1) Are the opportunities for female and male athletes proportionate to their enrollment; (2) Does the school have a history of expanding athletic opportunities for women; (3)Has the school demonstrated success in meeting the needs of its students. In 1995 the Gender in Equity Disclosure Act was passed to require schools to report annually the information publicly on male-female athletic participation rates, recruiting by gender, and financial support. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown University v. Cohen, is an important aspect of litigation for women sports.

Unlike intercollegiate sports, international amateur sports are run by a variety of organizations. The International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee is a corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas on 23 June 1894. Its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees (IOC) is made up of each country's Olympic Committee, which in turn recognizes a national governing body (NGB) for each Olympic related sport. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the national governing body for all U.S. athletes in the Olympic and Pan-American Games The Pan American Games are a multi-sport event, held every four years in the year before the summer Olympic Games and between competitors from all nations in the Americas. The last edition was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2007. The next will be in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2011, followed by the 2015 games in Toronto, Canada. The IOC is the international governing body for the summer and winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games are a winter multi-sport event held every four years, starting in 1924. Consisting of winter sports, the Games have included alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating. Other events have been added as the Games have progressed, and some of them, such as. A critical piece of federal legislation, the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, guarantees certain due process rights including a hearing and an appeal for U.S. athletes under the governance of the USOC and its NGBs. The subject of drug testing A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen - for example urine, hair, blood, sweat, or oral fluid / saliva - to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major uses of drug testing are to detect the presence of performance enhancing steroids in sport or for drugs prohibited by laws, such as especially in international sports like cycling and track and field Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area. The throwing and jumping events generally take place within the is under the jurisdiction of each sport's NGB and international federation, the USOC, the IOC, and the World Anti-Doping Agency The World Anti-Doping Agency , French: Agence mondiale antidopage, is an independent foundation created through a collective initiative led by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was set up on November 10, 1999 in Lausanne, Switzerland, as a result of what was called the "Declaration of Lausanne", to promote, coordinate and. The final arbitrator in resolving drug related disputes is the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).

Labor issues in sports

In 1967, the National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of protected concerted activity. The NLRB is governed by a (NLRB) accepted that players have the right to form unions or players associations. It is now common for professional athletes Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, to organize into associations or unions in order to negotiate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with their sport's owners. Under federal labor law, players and owners must negotiate mandatory issues, those relating to hours, wages and working conditions, in good faith. All other issues are deemed permissive, and do not have to be negotiated. Once a CBA is in place, players agree not to strike and owners promise not to lock out players. By way of example, the 2005 National Hockey League The National Hockey League , often abbreviated to the NHL, is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which six are located in Canada and twenty-four in the United States. Headquartered in New York City, the NHL is widely considered to be the premier (NHL) season was cancelled because of an owners' lockout after the parties' CBA had expired. In 1994 Major League Baseball Major League Baseball is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates the National League and the American League by a joint organizational structure that has developed gradually between them since 1901 (the National League having been in existence (MLB) lost half its season and the playoffs because ballplayers went out on strike over the issue of a salary cap. Historically, the most controversial issues subject to CBA negotiation are free agency The term came into wide use in North America after sports leagues stopped using a "reserve clause", which provided a repetitive option for the club to renew the contract for one or more years but did not allow the player to terminate, minimum salary A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly wage that employers may legally pay to employees or workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labor. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about the benefits and drawbacks of a minimum wage, squad size, draft, salary cap In professional sports, a salary cap is a limit on the amount of money a team can spend on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Several sports leagues have implemented salary caps, both as a method of keeping overall costs down, and to ensure parity between teams so a wealthy team, grounds for termination and suspension.

In nearly all professional sports the issue of limits on the use of performance enhancing drugs has become an integral aspect of CBA negotiations. Drug policies are not uniform for all professional sports. Typically, each CBA explains the policy regarding drug testing, list of banned drugs In sports, the use of performance-enhancing drugs is commonly referred to by the disparaging term "doping", particularly by those organizations that regulate competitions.The use of performance enhancing drugs is mostly done to improve athletic performance. This is why many sports ban the use of performance enhancing drugs. Another, violations, penalties, privacy issues, and rights of appeal. Drug violations may lead to suspensions and loss of salary. The BALCO The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was an American company led by founder and owner Victor Conte. In 2003, journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada investigated the company's role in a drug sports scandal later referred to as the BALCO Affair. BALCO marketed tetrahydrogestrinone ("the Clear"), a then-undetected, performance- controversy involving high-profile professional athletes and coaches highlights the allegedly widespread use of performance enhancing drugs in different sports.

Player agents, made famous by the famous line from a player to his agent ("Show me the money!") in the Jerry Maguire movie, are generally certified by each sport's players' association. Once certified, player agents or contract advisors may negotiate individual player contracts. Agents that are entrusted to conduct business on a player's behalf owe a fiduciary duty A fiduciary duty is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust regarding the management of money or property between two or more parties, most commonly a fiduciary and a principal. One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, holds a fiduciary relation or acts in a fiduciary capacity to another,, i.e., a duty of remain loyal, act honestly, behave ethically and act in the player's best interest at all time, when negotiating. More than half the states in the United States currently regulate the activities of player-agents in addition to union regulation for bad acts. Super agents like baseball's Scott Boras and football's Drew Rosenhaus are frequently the subject of media profiles. The first body to assist player agents in learning the ins and outs of contract negotiations, endorsements and media relations was the Association for Representatives of Athletes (ARPA). The co-founders and leaders of ARPA, since absorbed into the NFL Players Association The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is the labor union of players in football's National Football League. It was founded in 1956, but only achieved recognition and a collective bargaining agreement in 1968. After a lost strike in 1987, the union was formally decertified, converting into a professional association in order, were Professor William Weston (University of Baltimore Law School) and Professor Michael E. Jones (University of Massachusetts Lowell). The late Bob Woolf is acknowledged^{[by whom?]} as one of the first player agents when he assisted Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of the Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in 1901 as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since 1912. The "Red Sox" name was chosen by the pitcher Earl Wilson to negotiate his player contract.

Labor issues are not unique to United States law. The European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5 has had to deal with countless sports-related legal issues. The most important development in this area was the Bosman ruling The Bosman ruling is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of association and direct effect of article 39 (formerly 48) of the EC Treaty. The case was an important decision on the free movement of labour and had a profound effect on the transfers of football players within the EU. The case, in which the European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice , is the highest court in the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union it is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its equal application across all EU member states. The Court was established in 1952 and is based in Luxembourg. It is composed of invalidated restrictions imposed by EU member countries and UEFA The Union of European Football Associations is the administrative and controlling body for European football and futsal. It is almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA (usually pronounced /juːˈeɪfə/ ew-AY-fə) (the governing body for football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball. It is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world within Europe) on foreign EU nationals. Bosman was extended to countries with associate trading relationships with the EU by the Kolpak ruling. The 6+5 rule is a current FIFA The International Federation of Association Football , commonly known by the acronym FIFA (usual English pronunciation: /ˈfiːfə/), is the international governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer. Its headquarters are located in Zürich, Switzerland, and its current president is Sepp Blatter. FIFA is responsible for the rule that seeks to limit the effects of Bosman and its offshoots on football clubs, and has sparked considerable legal controversy in Europe.

Antitrust Issues in Sports

Up until only a few decades ago, most United States professional sports leagues retained clauses in players' contracts that essentially made it so that the players could rarely leave their original teams by their own choice. These so-called reserve clauses were upheld because courts found that these sports leagues did not operate in interstate trade or commerce, meaning they did not fall under antitrust laws Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, are laws that promote or maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct. See Federal Baseball Club v. National League. This interpretation has largely been eroded today. However, Major League Baseball Major League Baseball is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates the National League and the American League by a joint organizational structure that has developed gradually between them since 1901 (the National League having been in existence (MLB) may still retain limited anti-trust exemptions (unclear whether the entire exemption has been overruled by Flood Act because the true extent of the exemption was vague). It is important to note that the formation of players unions for the purpose of negotiating contracts with management is exempt from anti-trust scrutiny under labor law; and the by-product A by-product is a secondary or incidental product deriving from a manufacturing process, a chemical reaction or a biochemical pathway, and is not the primary product or service being produced. A by-product can be useful and marketable, or it can be considered waste. Water can also be a by-product when a reation causes carbon dioxide of good faith negotiations between management and players unions in the form of a CBA is also exempt from anti-trust scrutiny.

Tort Law Issues

Until recently, torts were never a part of the landscape of sports law. However, in 1975 an Illinois' appeals court established the notion that players can be found guilty of negligence if their actions are "deliberate, willful or with a reckless disregard In the criminal law, recklessness is one of the four possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for "guilty mind"). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both a mens rea and an actus reus, i.e., a person cannot be guilty for thoughts alone. There must for the safety of another player so as cause injury to that player." See Nabozny v. Barnhill. Negligence torts are typically harder to prove in contact sports Many sports involve a degree of player-to-player and/or player-to-object contact. The term "contact sport" is used in both team sports and combat sports, medical terminology and television game shows, such as American Gladiators and Wipeout, to certain degrees. Contact between players is often classed by different grades ranging from non-, where violent actions and injuries are more common and thus more expected (assumption of risk or self-defense). Spectators can also sue for negligence if their injuries could not have been expected (not foreseeable) given the nature of the sporting event they were attending. A baseball fan sitting in the bleachers could reasonable expect a baseball could come toward the seat, but a wrestling fan sitting courtside could not reasonably expect a wrestler to come flying his or her way.

Sports' tort law extends into other less obvious areas. Team doctors could be liable for medical malpractice, a form of negligence, for giving a player a false clean bill of health just so that player may continue to perform. A player who purposefully causes bodily harm Bodily harm is a legal term of art used in the definition of both statutory and common law offences in England and Wales and other common law jurisdictions. It is a synonym for injury or bodily injury and similar expressions, though it may be used with a precise and limited meaning in any given jurisdiction. The expression grievous bodily harm to another athlete, coach or spectator may be guilty of committing an intentional tort along with a criminal act of assault and battery. The law of defamation protects a person's good character or reputation. The publication of false information about a well-known athlete (public figure) may be actionable if it was published with a reckless disregard for the truth or actual malice Actual malice in United States law is a condition required to establish libel against public officials or public figures and is defined as "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Reckless disregard does not encompass mere neglect in following. The growth of non-traditional media outlets, e.g. web pages, instant messaging Instant messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based communication between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared software clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet. More advanced instant messaging software clients also allow enhanced modes of communication, such as, cable, etc. has added a new dynamic to this area of the law.

Closely related to the subject of torts in some ways, is the area of publicity rights. While the tort of defamation protects a person's reputation, the right of publicity Personality rights is a common or casual reference to the proper term of art "Right of Publicity". The Right of Publicity can be defined simply as the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness or other unequivocal aspects of one's identity. It is generally considered a property right as permits a person to commercial exploit his or her likeness, name and image. This area of sports law includes trademarks, tradenames, domain names and even copyrights.

Business and Academic Aspects of Sports Law

The leaders of the businesses of sports include the heads of the major international and national amateur organizations of the IOC, USOC, and their respective NGBs. The owners of major professional sports teams ranging from the Rooney family in Pittsburgh to Al Davis Allen "Al" Davis is a American football executive, who currently serves as the principal owner (titled as "president of the general partner" or "managing general partner", depending on the source) of the NFL's Oakland Raiders in Oakland are all major contributors to the popularity of their respective sports and industries. The executive directors of the various players association, including one of the longest sitting union leaders - Donald Fehr - of the MLB Players Association, also have become well known publicly for negotiating CBAs in the best interests of its players. The owners of each professional sports league elect a commissioner who serves as that sport's media voice. Perhaps the best known commissioner is the NBA's David Stern. Television and other media executives and reporters play a critical role in presenting sports before the public allowing instantaneous unfolding of occasionally civil and criminal sports acts. The so-called Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction during an NFL Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the premier association of professional American football. It was first played on January 15, 1967, as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues' champion teams would play in half-time In some team sports such as association football and rugby, matches are played in two halves. Half-time is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time teams swap ends of the field of play, in order to reduce any advantage that may be gained from wind or a slope to the pitch, for example. While it show raised legal issues of broadcast indecency, by way of example.

The field of sports law as an area worthy of definition and academic inquiry owes a debt of gratitude to Professor Robert Berry who organized the material and taught the first course in Sports Law at Boston College Law School.^{[citation needed]} Shortly thereafter, the late Robert Waters(University of Miami Law School) and Professors Weistart and Lowell contributed substantially to the field.^{[citation needed]} At the non-law school level, the first Sports Law course materials and classes were independently created by Professor Glenn Wong (University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system. With more than 1,370 faculty members and more than 26,000 students, UMass Amherst is the largest public university in New England) and Professor Michael E. Jones (now at University of Massachusetts Lowell).^{[citation needed]}

The Tulane University Law School offers a certificate in Sports Law^[1] and runs the Sports Lawyers Journal, a student-run law journal funded by the Sports Lawyers Association (SLA).^[2]

At 1992 in Athens, was founded the International Association of Sports Law (IASL) during the 1st International Congress on Sports Law. The objective of IASL is the cultivation and the development of the Science, the research and the teaching of Sports Law and the institution of the Olympic Games.

References

1. ^ http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsAcademicPrograms/index.aspx?id=3566
2. ^ http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsjournals/slj/index.aspx?id=3822&ekmensel=c580fa7b_144_0_3822_1

1. Champion, Walter, Sports Law. 2nd edition, St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co. 2000. ISBN #: 0314238891
2. Dudley, William, Drugs and Sports. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2001. ISBN #: 1565106970
3. Epstein, Adam, Sports Law. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Press, 2003. ISBN # 0766823245
4. Jones, Michael. Sports Law. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999. ISBN # 0136765459
5. Weiler, Paul and Roberts, Gary. Sports and the Law. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1993. ISBN 0-314-02162-0
6. Wong, Glenn. Essentials of Amateur Sports Law. Westport, CN: Praeger, 1994.
7. Yasser, Raymond, et al. Sports Law: Cases and Materials, 5th edition, Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Co., 2003 ISBN # 1583607994

Further reading

• Gardiner, Simon, et al. (2005-12-13). Sports Law (3rd ed. ed.). London: Routledge-Cavendish. ISBN 978-1-85941-894-9.

External links

• Sports related legal forms.
• Court of Arbitration for Sport
• ASSER International Sports Law Centre
• International Academy of Sportslaw Practitioners and Executives
• International Association of Sports Law
• British Association for Sport and the Law
• Sport and the Law Journal
• Entertainment and Sports Law Journal
• Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association
• Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Journal - http://www.anzsla.com.au/anzslj/
• American Bar Association - Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries
• Marquette Sports Law Review
• Derecho Deportivo en Línea

Categories: Sports law

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