Sports Law

Business experience generally. Understanding how a business works inside and out is extremely helpful for being able to provide proper guidance to your clients. There are many ways to gain this experience, MBAs are one way to go. Another would be to intern doing something other than law but in a sports-related position. The big thing you want to be able to do is to show a set of skills that is easily transferable to the job you want. If you don’t already, you should subscribe to Sports Business Journal. That provides the most up to date sports business info.

I think we covered this in the webinar but I want to repeat it here. If you have the opportunity to go to one of the few law schools that has a robust sports law program, go there and do that. Use all of the resources there to help you network and gain the proper internships. Otherwise, you should go to a law school that has a great business law program. Try to take any practical course that gets your hands on contracts. At the end of the day, unless you are practicing some very niche part of sports law, your practice is going to be very generalized and business focused.

The people who stand out tend to have varied experience and have a record of working or education in sports (i.e., undergrad degree in sports management or a thesis about something sports related). Volunteering for sports-related organizations is helpful as well.

Resumes that clearly show a link between the skills needed to do the job and the person’s experience stand out the most.

Red flags include the typical: Very general resume with no clear link between skills needed for the job and experience; no prior history of desire to work in sports; typos.

Again, I think we covered this but just in case: Network your butt off. Go to conferences, reach out to people in the industry near where you go to school/work, create those relationships and do so in an authentic way. Keep an eye on Teamworkonline.com and TheWhiteBronco.com for internships. Teams, leagues, associations start looking for fall interns in January/February – spring interns in August/September.  And remember to think of sports as broadly as possible and look at any business or organization that touches even a small slice of sports. For going in-house with a  team, as mentioned before get as much experience as you can with contract drafting/redlining/negotiating. Hell, be your own lawyer when looking over your own personal apartment rental agreement or any contract you sign.

Absolutely. For the most part, this is done at the league level. However, each league is set up differently. OTT isn’t the only thing to think about. Radio is changing as well. With podcasts, social media “stories”, etc., there are so many ways to incorporate advertising and also to tell the stories your organization wants to tell. I do not see license agreements going away and they are becoming far more technical. Having an understanding of the technology/platform is certainly helpful.

I would suggest that you think about what you want to do for your career. Is it working for a team or league? Is it as an advocate for athlete’s rights in college or in the pros? After you come up with an answer to that, think about what not to write about. You don’t want to write about something that may reflect poorly on the type of organization you want to work for. Stay away from the “hot topics” for those organizations.  Go with a topic that is new or not part of litigation. If you want to be an advocate for athletes, go right ahead and hit those hot topics. Just remember that it is likely that your potential future employers will be able to access your comment. Topics that will be interesting and aren’t as controversial include things like fantasy sports, esports, and the wearable technology licenses.

I am always proud of the production we put on for our fans on game day and throughout the year. Everything I touch has that ultimate goal. The most memorable thing I have accomplished or helped work on are the coaches contracts for the coaches we currently have. It was truly surreal. Everything moved extremely quickly and I learned so much through that process. I was thrilled to be able to utilize my skills to work through those negotiations and play a part in putting together this team.

Honestly, I had very few actual legal skills from law school. I didn’t know how to be a lawyer, none of us did. I knew how to read, analyze, and write, but not how to handle clients, draft motions, probate an estate, etc.

What I did to gain those skills was go to practical CLEs and then just start doing whatever it was that the CLE was about. In Massachusetts, there’s MCLE, but I am sure in your state there are other similar organizations. It was a great way to learn practical tips and get good resources (binders full of checklists, sample documents, etc.) for future use. I then took on a few clients. Now, remember, I was licensed when I did this. If you are waiting for bar results, maybe you can work with a local organization as a temp or paralegal. If you don’t have a job lined up you can use the time to really work on your resume.

I have dealt with sexual harassment, misogyny, and just a lot of bs in my career… none of that has occurred while I’ve been in sports law. I am fortunate to work for a great organization and my boss is amazing. My being female is of no consequence in this position. In our league, I would say we are close to parity with regards to the number of female to male attorneys. Everyone was extremely welcoming and it has been a pleasure to be in this industry. That being said, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done with regards to the number of women in sports overall. That was one of my reasons for starting the podcast. The biggest challenge that women face is having the internal confidence to go for the positions they want. Unfortunately, there is still very little female representation at the highest levels in the industry. That leads to women not believing that they can have those positions. It’s a subconscious thing. Have the confidence to know that you are good at what you do, can hold your own against any person, and are valuable enough to take up space in the old boys’ club.

Keep an eye on Teamworkonline.com and the TheWhiteBronco.com for listings. Most teams use Teamwork but some leagues use other boards and Dan Werly does a great job of capturing those on TheWhiteBronco. Typically the internships will be listed towards the end of the fall season for the following summer. Think of volunteering for smaller organizations that may not be able to pay you.

General practice firms that work with small businesses would be great exposure. Criminal defense firms, not so much. Try to focus on firms that work with businesses in all manner of activities, not just big M&A.

As mentioned before, anything related to business.

The short answer is “Yes.” Sports law is really anything that touches sports in the legal world. There are very few things about sports law that is different from general business law. Of course, we have the coolest products!  A sports law practice can focus on things such as advocating for athlete’s rights in college or professional sports, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, marketing/publicity rights of athletes, IP work (enforcement, portfolio management, licensing, etc.), cap specialization and player contracts, litigation work on pre-emption of CBA issues, general business contract work, media rights, etc. Any niche area of law you can think of, there is a sports practice related to it. This is mostly because aside from the uniqueness of our product and our employees, at the end of the day it’s a business.

I think a lot of times when thinking of sports law, people think of certain agents who are bombastic and old school. As with our general society, acceptance is ever evolving. In my experience, people in sports law have been very accepting of all types of differences. There is always room for growth. I think some people are still very conservative with what they share and certain things like mental health are still a bit stigmatized. However, I know people who are making the way to change that. The same is true for LGBTQIA issues. There need to be trailblazers for there to be change whenever you talk about acceptance. Don’t be afraid to be that trailblazer.