Feature: Selected Sport and Physical Education Career OpportunitiesNo.52
January 2008
 
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Careers in Sport Law
Mary A. Hums, Anita M. Moorman & Anastasios Kabourakis

 

We live today in an increasingly litigious society. Lawsuits and legal actions abound and arise from causes of action as varied as accidents or injuries, contract disputes and alleged violations of constitutional or human rights. Since sport is a reflection of society, it is only natural that these same legal issues would manifest themselves in the sport industry. The sport industry is a broad industry with many segments (Gillentine & Crow, 2006; Masteralexis, Barr & Hums, 2005), including professional sport, club sport, intercollegiate sport, recreational sport, sport for people with disabilities, facility management and event management. All of these areas have legal issues and need sport managers with legal expertise to handle them. The purpose of this paper is to discuss careers in sport law related areas.
Generally speaking, sport law careers can be separated into two broad categories. First are those careers in which one who is a licensed attorney engages in the practice of law in some segment of the sport industry. Second, there are a vast number of alternative career paths for those with law degrees but who are not actively engaged in the practice of law.
For a licensed attorney, a number of career paths are available in the sport industry including professional athlete representation, general counsel to a sport organisation, and litigation counsel for a sport organisation. While player agents do not have to be licensed attorneys, many agents are. Most major sport organisations will have one or more in-house attorneys often referred to as “general counsel” for that organisation. For example, almost all professional leagues, athletic conferences, national governing bodies, professional teams, universities, athletic departments, corporate sponsors, media companies and high school athletic associations will have at least one in-house attorney to advise and counsel the organisation in its day-to-day legal affairs. In the event that a sport organisation becomes involved in litigation, most organisations will then retain attorneys or outside counsel to represent the organisation. In addition, many law firms have developed sport law divisions to provide legal services to sport organisations in a number of specialty areas including labor law, anti-trust, mergers and acquisitions, sponsorship disputes and intellectual property. All the aforementioned careers involve a sport lawyer serving in an attorney client relationship.
However, there are numerous executive and administrative positions in the sport industry where a law degree or legal training is highly desired and particularly useful. For example, until the recent retirement of Paul Tagliabue as the National Football League (NFL) Commissioner, three of the four major league commissioners were lawyers. While Bud Selig was the only active commissioner at that time whom was not a lawyer, Major League Baseball has a long history of commissioners who have held law degrees. The very first Commissioner in professional sport in North America was Major League Baseball’s Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
In addition to high level executive positions held by lawyers, legal training is becoming increasing helpful to all collegiate sport managers who are responsible for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Compliance – both within the NCAA as part of the Legislative Services staff and among the 1000 plus NCAA college and university athletic departments. The NCAA rules and policies as expressed in the NCAA Manual and legislative interpretations require careful analysis and interpretation, which lends itself to those with legal background and training.
A career path that most often comes to mind in sport is being an athlete agent. People generally have an idea of what they think agents do, but what they actually do is probably quite different from the stereotype. Oftentimes people think of the life of a sports agent as glamorous, but in reality, it is a day-to-day job just like other jobs in the industry. According to Masteralexis (2005, p. 235), the functions of a sport agent include:
  1. Negotiating and administering the athlete’s or coach’s contract
  2. Marketing
  3. Negotiating the athlete’s or coach’s marketing and endorsement contracts
  4. Financial planning
  5. Career and post-career planning
  6. Dispute resolution
  7. Legal counseling
  8. Personal care.
All of these relate to some business aspect of the sport industry and most of these functions relate directly to legal aspects of the sport industry.
However, gone are the days when discussions around “sport law” career opportunities would simply trigger the question: “So you want to be an agent?” While sport agent may be the career most visible to the average sports fan, in fact, the industry presents numerous opportunities related to legal aspects of sport as well as to the related area of policy development and rules compliance.
Here it would be necessary to start with the United States and intercollegiate athletics, focusing on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and what is termed as “NCAA Compliance.” The NCAA is the national governing body for intercollegiate sport competition in the United States. With approximately 1000 colleges and universities as member institutions, the NCAA’s Core Purpose “is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount” (NCAA, 2007, Our Mission, p2). The NCAA has regulatory power over intercollegiate athletics, and as such, establishes a standard system of rules for its athletes, coaches and member institutions.
NCAA member institutions frequently experience problems stemming from unintentional violations due to lack of knowledge. There are also intentional violations of NCAA rules made in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. It has therefore become necessary for practitioners in the field to develop expertise and research skills that would serve institutional compliance efforts, as well as creating extensive consulting opportunities for themselves. Such a need has been identified both in academic scholarship (Kaburakis, 2005; Pierce, 2007; Werner, 2006) and popular press (Drape, 2007). Whereas a law degree and law practice experience are important, there is a current trend toward law firms in the United States hiring individuals with NCAA Compliance expertise to assist with such consulting efforts. Interestingly, some of the firms’ most involved in this facet of their law practice (e.g. Bond, Shoeneck and King, PLLC, Ice Miller, LLP, et al.) now hire non-practicing lawyers who focus solely on NCAA Compliance matters. This example of US legal entrepreneurship assumes the form of limited liability corporations (LLCs), where the major focus is the aforementioned NCAA Compliance issues which may include an infractions case, assistance with Compliance matters such as student-athletes’ (SAs) eligibility or amateur status.
Sport law and sport management programs in higher education aim toward training their graduates on the particular research methods required (e.g. conducting NCAA infractions’ and secondary violations’ research), providing them with the hands-on experience to deal with such matters on a full-time basis. Selected undergraduate, graduate and law students often serve as paid or unpaid interns at an institutional Compliance office, the NCAA national office, or a law firm with a sport practice arm. Thus, the students would be able to volunteer or fulfill a degree requirement while gaining the necessary exposure and experience to make them more marketable in their careers. Depending on the size of the hiring organisation, more positions may be available, or even specific departments dealing with different portions of NCAA or federal policy Compliance (NCAA academic eligibility, amateurism, gender equity, overall NCAA policy compliance focusing on coaches, student athletes, supporters, etc.) Although the industry trend appears to favor graduates holding a Master of Science (MS), Master of Business Administration (MBA) or law degree, applicants without those specific credentials may still be able to land full-time positions as they may have extensive work experience in athletics and compliance.
Another recent trend is for graduates with MS, MBA and Juris Doctorae (JD) degrees to land positions with the NCAA national staff. After serving in such positions for a number of years (anywhere from two to ten), these individuals frequently receive offers from NCAA member institutions needing someone who has honed his or her skills at the national office. The experience and networks gathered while working at the NCAA national office may prove instrumental when an institution pursues a case with the national staff. Although a graduate with the aforementioned qualifications might start at a salary of no more than US$35-45,000 (€23,4000- 30,300) per year at the national office, institutional positions frequently may even double that salary after recruiting an individual from the national office. Of course, this depends on the positions these individuals held previously, any additional qualifications or experience they accumulated and the department they were working in.
The avenues for alternative career paths in the US industry for sport show the way for international sport organisations. Sport organisations in the European Union and other regions operate using a federalised club-based system, and are slowly emulating the development of US commercial sport, while maintaining some of the relics of a socio-cultural model and “amateur” sport ideals of the past (Kaburakis, 2007). In these settings, there are not as many opportunities for unpaid (though under an official capacity with mentoring, monitoring and frequent feedback) or paid internships in a number of international sport industry sectors. Southeastern Europe and even Western Europe sport entities frequently operate based on the zeal and volunteerism of true “amateurs”. Professional administrators’ positions will have to be developed in order for such sport entities to expand fan interest and organise sport on a more professional basis, for the benefit of the sport and those governing it.
As the cases of soccer and basketball demonstrate (Kaburakis, 2007; Soek, 2007), there are outstanding opportunities for young professionals with the expertise, skills, passion and willingness to learn and assist sport institutions in their policy efforts. This comes as an outcome of new alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms within the international sport governing bodies for each sport, such as the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and FIBA’s Arbitral Tribunal (FAT). These entities, in a nutshell, decide on financial disputes between players and clubs. Appeals of such entities’ decisions are submitted to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The procedure and the internal regulations of these entities are indeed perplexing to the untrained legal eye and mind, hence specific skills and expertise are necessary. It is foreseeable that international sport policy consultation agreements are and will continue to become more available in the immediate future, considering disputes involving doping or financial hardship for clubs appearing before sport ADR panels internationally. ADR mechanisms exist in every country and deal with local/regional sport governing bodies. More and more, these ADRs are becoming sport-specific as well.
Young sport lawyers, as well as MS/MBAs, and even recent bachelor’s degree graduates, should prepare themselves for increased opportunities. They have an opportunity to assist in the process of making a better, more fair and balanced world of sport for the generations to come.

References
Drape, J. (2007). Facing N.C.A.A., the best defense is a legal team. The New York Times. Retrieved November 18, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/sports/ncaabasketball/04ncaa.html?pagewanted=print
Gillentine, A. & Crow, R.B. (2005). Foundations of sport management. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.
Kaburakis, A. (2005). NCAA DI amateurism and international prospective student-athletes – The professionalization threshold. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Kaburakis, A. (2007, September). Player restraints and transfers -- Policy and legal issues. Proceedings of National Sport Law Institute - Marquette University Law
School, Increasing Globalization of Sports: Olympics, International and Comparative Law & Business Issues Conference, Milwaukee, WI.
Masteralexis, L.P. (2005). Sport agency. In L.P. Masteralexis, C.A. Barr, & M.A. Hums, Principles and practice of sport management (2d ed.) (pp. 221-252). Sudbury,
MA: Jones & Bartlett. Masteralexis, L.P., Barr, C.A. & Hums, M.A. (2005). Principles and practice of sport management (2d ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett.
Pierce, D.A. (2007). Applying amateurism in the global sports arena: Trend analysis of NCAA Sstudent-athlete reinstatement cases involving amateurism violations. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Soek, J. (2007). Termination of international employment agreements and the “just cause” concept in the case law of the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber. International Sports Law Journal, 3-4; 28-45.
Werner, M.R. (2006). A case study of the use of risk management in NCAA compliance at a Division I institution. Doctoral dissertation, Eastern Michigan University. Retrieved November 18, 2007, from https://dspace.emich.edu:8443/dspace/bitstream/1970/165/2/diss_EdD_06_WernerM_1.pdf


Contact
Dr. Mary A. Hums
University of Louisville
USA
Email: Mhums@louisville.edu





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