Your All-Access Pass to the Latest Legal Developments Impacting the Business of Sports and Entertainment.
The NHL announced on Wednesday that starting on July 6th, it will begin accepting applications for expansion NHL teams. The bidding window will be open until August 10th. If the NHL ultimately chooses to expand, it will be the first time that a team has been added to the league in about a decade and a half.
Many speculate that Las Vegas will be the home for the next team. AEG – NHL partner and owner of the Los Angeles …
Continue ReadingOn Thursday, June 25, Suicide Fantasy Sports LLC filed a lawsuit in a California federal court over alleged patent infringement with respect to one of ESPN’s fantasy sports games. In the complaint, Suicide alleges that ESPN’s “Gridiron Challenge” uses an elimination-based or “suicide” fantasy sports model that infringes on its patent from 2013.
According to the complaint, Suicide reached out to ESPN in 2013 regarding the patent and a potential license. ESPN declined, explaining that it would be discontinuing the elimination part of its game. …
Continue ReadingAnother class action suit is around the corner for the NFL and DirecTV. Football fan Thomas Abrahamian filed a proposed complaint in a California federal court on Wednesday for a class action suit alleging that the NFL and DirecTV have violated Sherman anti-trust laws.
NFL coverage is currently set up in the form of a ‘blackout coverage’ system. What this means is games will be broadcasted on a regional basis. If a person is outside of a particular game’s ‘broadcast region,’ they will be unable …
Continue ReadingOn Wednesday, June 24, fantasy sports company DraftKings Inc. reached a promotional partnership with ESPN. DraftKings had reportedly been in talks with Walt Disney Co., ESPN’s parent company, for an equity investment earlier this year. According to the reports from April, Disney was close to investing $250 million into DraftKings, an amount that would value the company at roughly $900 million.
Although neither company would discuss how much the ESPN marketing deal was actually worth, the agreement makes DraftKings the “official fantasy sports offering” on …
Continue ReadingOn Monday, June 22, Michele Sharp argued that the NCAA got what it wanted when Kean University fired Sharp and should not be dismissed from her wrongful firing suit. The former women’s basketball coach filed her original complaint in January 2014 against Kean and a number of its administrators. When that complaint was dismissed, she filed an amended complaint at the beginning of 2015, adding the NCAA and her previous counsel as defendants.
In the lawsuit, Sharp argues that Kean officials unfairly punished her …
Continue ReadingLast week, on June 23, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell presided over Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension in the “Deflategate” case. However, there is currently no timetable for a decision on the appeal, as the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players Association calls for a decision “as soon as practicable.”
The four-game suspension arose out of an investigation into the “Deflategate” scandal, where footballs were found to have been deflated to below the permissible limit under league rules. Attorney Ted …
Continue ReadingThe NFL is currently in the early stages of defending yet another lawsuit in connection with injuries allegedly sustained by a former athlete while playing in the NFL. In this case, Jesse Solomon – former linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Miami Dolphins – is seeking increased disability benefits for injuries he claims arose out of his time in the NFL.
Solomon claims that he has been denied approximately $100,000 in disability benefits per year due to his retirement plan’s …
Continue ReadingBy now, most people are aware that last summer, the United States Patent and Trademark Office canceled the Washington Redskins’ trademark registration after finding the team’s name and logo to be disparaging to American Indians. Last week, however, the team took a serious interest in a lower-profile case involving a band called the Slants.
Previously, the USPTO refused the band’s two trademark applications, declaring that “slants” is disparaging to people of Asian descent. On Thursday, June 18, the team threw its support behind the band, …
Continue ReadingAfter a mysterious scene on a Boston highway, Brandon Spikes finds himself without a job and facing criminal charges. At around 3:20 a.m. on June 7, Massachusetts State Police responded to an abandoned vehicle on I-495 in Foxborough. The vehicle had significant front-end damage and was left in the median. A roadside assistance operator informed the police that the driver of the vehicle had reported hitting a deer. There was neither a deer nor a driver present at the scene. The abandoned vehicle was …
Continue ReadingOn Thursday, June 18, Bill DeWitt, owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, reportedly stated that the team support staff participated in the breach of the Houston Astros’ internal database. Currently, investigators are looking at four or five people in the Cardinals’ office, and they have reason to believe that the unauthorized access occurred as early as 2012, a year earlier than was previously known.
As of now, the breach does not appear to be very sophisticated, as investigators believe that Cardinals personnel simply examined a …
Continue Reading