Heitner Legal
Per Steve Berkowitz, the NCAA announced that it plans to appeal the recent decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a 2019 decision by Judge Claudia Wilken. This appeal would be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court if selected. As leading sports law expert Darren Heitner pointed out, this is far […]
Last week I wrote an article describing Marshall v. ESPN (see the Complaint here), the latest federal class-action lawsuit in which college athletes are seeking damages against the broadcasting firms, college athletic conferences, and licensing firms they allege violated their rights of publicity. Now I will analyze the fourth cause of action of the lawsuit, […]
In August of this year, the NCAA Board of Directors approved more autonomy for the Big 5 Conferences in a 16-2 vote. The Big 5, consisting of the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 12, now has the power to change the landscape of collegiate athletics. These conferences have the ability to vote on and enact new rules […]
The following article was written by Benjamin Haynes, Esq. This is David vs. Goliath. On one hand, you have Carter’s Clothing and Footwear, a small clothing store located in Massachusetts. On the other, you have Nike, the premier sports apparel company. Recently, the family owned store, Carter’s, filed a federal lawsuit against Nike. In this lawsuit, […]
The following article is a guest contribution by Benjamin Haynes, Esq. Haynes is a former Division 1 Basketball Player at Oral Roberts University and currently practices law in the State of Florida. On July 25, 2012, former Gardner-Webb quarterback, John Rock, by and through counsel, filed a class action complaint against the NCAA. This complaint alleges […]
The following article was written by Cyle Kiger. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has closed its non-public investigation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). After the UFC merged with four of its competitors, the FTC was reviewing possible violations of Section 7 of the Clayton Act and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Strikeforce, […]
The following article was written by Evan Zepfel. The Major League Baseball Commissioner’s power stems from Article I of the MLB Constitution, which grants the commissioner the broad power to act ‘in the best interests of the game’ (§2). The commissioner of baseball enjoys two significant legal advantages over the commissioners of the NFL and […]
Last Monday, Joseph Agnew, a former Rice University football player, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco based on the NCAA’s one-year scholarship rule. The rule restricts a school from giving an athletic scholarship to a student-athlete for more than one-year at a time. Agnew was affected by […]
A no-poach agreement is just slightly different than a non-compete agreement. A majority of states permit employers to place non-compete clauses in employer contracts and even have standalone non-compete agreements with employees that are separate from the employment contracts that are executed. California is known as being one of the few states that rarely permits a […]