There’s also a “morals clause” in most NBA contracts too. I imagine it’s much the same for the NFL, MLB, etc.. Here’s an example of what a morals clause for a contract between an NBA player and team reads like “at any time fails, refuses or neglects to conform his personal conduct to standards of good citizenship, good moral character (defined here to mean not engaging in acts of moral turpitude, whether or not such acts would constitute a crime), and good sportsmanship, to keep himself in first-class physical condition, or to obey the team’s training rules.”

In case you’re interested in reading more about the “morals clause” Jason check out this link I found: http://marketing.about.com/cs/customerfocused/a/kobebryantendor.htm

Hope this helps you.

Has Vick actually lost any endorsement contracts yet? The companies have probably just pulled all relationships and suspended his contract till a conviction.

That’s an interesting question that I was thinking about in relation to the Vick matter. What is the language of a typical endorsement contract vis a vis the right of each side to terminate?

Kobe left Adidas in July of ‘02. No company dropped Kobe like a bad habit. No contracts were canceled, probably because companies were aware of how Fila lost out to Webber a few years back after canceling his shoe deal without a conviction. McDonald’s and Nutella chose not to renew their endorsement deals with Bryant in January of ‘04, when they had an option to cancel. Usually dropping an endorser of your product when a structured contract is in place, without the option to terminate at any time, is impossible. Can’t legally happen without a settlement. Of course, it does depend on the contract…but without a conviction there’s no termination.

As Jones stated, he had no shoe deal from Mid-July of ‘02 till the 24th of June ‘03. Kobe signed with Nike a few days before the allegations. Allegations became news around the start of July.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/news/2002/07/15/bryant_adidas_ap/