“Sports Law” is actually a bunch of areas of law, from areas that are studied in the first couple years of law school like contracts, constitutional law, and torts, to more complex areas of law like antitrust law and labor law.

We will start out this class with a look at the broad view of sports starting at the collegiate level - looking at male and female sports, why college sports started out as amateur (unpaid) and has changed to becoming paid through the name, image and, likeness deals. 

The Ongoing class is designed so that students can jump in at any time and still understand what is going on with the topic.

Then we will look at male and female professional sports on a wide scale, then a brief look at international sports.

This class will attempt to give an overview of how the law is applied to the four major sports in the United States: the NFL, the NHL, MLB, and the NBA.

Every major sport is divided into two major large entities: the owners of the franchises and the players union. These two entities negotiate with each other every five to ten years (depending on the sport and the contract) to create a contract, which is known as a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). These contracts are usually available for download on the internet, and they can be hundreds of pages long (The NFL CBA is 456 pages long!).

While we won’t look at the entire contract, we will look at pieces of the contracts to understand various areas like how salaries are determined, is the money that the athletes get in their contracts guaranteed or do they have to earn the money with certain performance standards (If you get 5 touchdowns this season, you get this amount of $$, if you get 10 touchdowns this season, you get this amount of $$$), and what happens if you get injured, among other topics.

As we go through the different sports, we will compare them to each other and discuss why there is a difference between them. We may also look at previous contracts and see how the contracts have evolved and changed throughout the years as sports have grown from what they were early in the 1900s to now.

After this course, the learner should have a greater understanding of how sports operates as a business from the collegiate to the professional level.

Here is the schedule for January 2025 (schedule may change during the semester due to holidays and other potential situations):

Week of January 5 - January 12 - College Sports - The Overview - the NCAA
Week of January 12 - January 19 - College Sports - Name, Image, and Likeness - Court Cases
Week of January 19 - January 26 - College Sports - NIL - Contracts
Week of January 26 - February 1 - College Sports - College Recruiting, TV Deals, Coaching Contracts
Week of February 2 - February 8 - Major League Baseball - The League that started it all
Week of February 9 - February 15 - Major League Baseball - Salary Cap
Week of February 16 - February 22 - Major League Baseball - Player Contracts
Week of February 23 - March 1 - Major League Baseball - Unique to the MLB
Week of March 2 - March 8 - The NFL - Overview and History
Week of March 9 - March 15 - The NFL - Salary Cap
Week of March 16 - March 22 - The NFL - Player Contracts
Week of March 23 - March 29 - The NFL - Unique Contract Clauses
Week of March 30 - April 5 - The NFL - The Draft
Week of April 6 - April 12 - The NFL - Unique to the NFL
Week of April 13 - April 19 - The National Hockey League - Overview and History
Week of April 30 - April 26 - The National Hockey League - Salary Cap, Contracts
Week of April 27 - May 3 - The National Hockey League - Unique to the NHL
Week of May 4 - May 10 - The NBA - Overview and History
Week of May 11 - May 17 - The NBA - Salary Cap, Contracts
Week of May 18 - May 24 - The NBA - Unique to the NBA

I look forward to seeing you in class!