Sports Business

• A job very well done by Red Bull [Red Bull's Project X = Sports Marketing Idea of the Year].
• Maybe not the world just yet, but starting off at the high school level is a good strategy [Can Under Armour, IMG Take the World By Storm?].
• St-Pierre t0 serve as the face of Under Armour’s Underwear [Under Armour signs UFC champ Georges St-Pierre to multi-year endorsement deal].
• I actually just yesterday had this discussion with somebody [End of the Day, Live Events Make Sports, Brands, King…].

Baseball

• A little baseball trademark law conversation [Wide world of ‘Series’].

Football

• No sense of urgency on the part of the owners [League rejects "lock-in" bargaining proposal].
• A two-paragraph statement that included no explanation – bothers me [Bryant loses final appeal].

Basketball

• BJ Armstrong answers a few questions while promoting the launch of Windows 7 [An Interview with BJ Armstrong].

During this past year’s All-Star Break, Pete and I were discussing his options regarding where he would play this Winter.  As a rising star within the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Pete had offers from teams in Venezuela and Puerto Rico.  We determined that while Venezuelan teams were offering Pete more money, Puerto Rico was a better fit.  He latched on to Ponce’s manager, Eduardo Perez, and signed a contract to play for Ponce.  Everybody was happy, and Pete continued to perform amazingly down the final stretch for the AAA Memphis Redbirds.  He was named Reliever of the Year for the Redbirds, where he had a record breaking postseason as the team’s closer.

During the All-Star break, Pete signed with Ponce as a free-agent.  But apparently, there was a discrepancy with the contract’s date or something along the lines that Ponce never turned it into the league office in time (we still do not know the actual problem and probably never will).  Then, on October 8, we get word that Arecibo drafted Pete Parise.  This was news to me, Pete, and everyone in Ponce’s organization.  How could Arecibo, Ponce’s rival for the top spot in the PRBL, draft Pete when Ponce had already secured the rights to my client?

This occurred on October 8.  Not until this past Tuesday was the matter finally resolved.  And to tell you the truth, the battle may not be over.  From October 8 to now, I have talked to the manager of Ponce and Arecibo at least five times every week, and even more often through text.  I have come to have a great relationship with people like Eduardo Perez and Pachy Rodriguez, and wish that all parties involved could leave this dilemma as winners.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.

In the beginning, I had to turn in an allegation letter, stipulating the facts of the matter at hand and outlining everything that happened from Day 1 of Pete’s conversations with Ponce.  Arecibo played by the PRBL’s mandate, which was to place Pete in the draft.  But unfortunately, that mandate did not follow the PRBL’s own rules.  Since Pete had already signed with Ponce, his name should have never been in the draft pool, in the first place.  It took many weeks, but the PRBL finally had a hearing regarding the matter, and earlier this week ruled that Pete had actually officially signed with Ponce.

So Pete is off to Puerto Rico to play for Ponce…for now.  Pete is pumped to give Ponce his all, and has been training non-stop since the close of the Memphis Redbirds’ season.  At least it is nice to know that my client is a wanted man!

You’ve landed a talented athlete as a new client. A professional contract is fast-approaching. When the contract is signed, will the athlete’s online presence be ready?

In sports, the athlete’s name is the brand. So it should come as no surprise the bad guys on the internet, known as cyber-squatters, may try to take advantage of your athlete’s name and brand.

An example: In California, a single cyber-squatter was recently convicted of registering the domain names of nearly 800 basketball players. Domain names are Web browser addresses, like SteveNash.com and ChrisBosh.com. The affected players ranged from NBA pros to top high school and college players. Because of this one squatter, hundred’s of athletes were unable to take the first step into online branding. This was just one squatter — there are thousands of squatters on the NET trying to make money from athletes’ brands.

As an agent, you need to start managing your client’s online brand early —before fame and success attract the cyber-squatters. It’s critical for agents to help athletes create a comprehensive online branding strategy.

Here are 5 simple tips to help agents prepare and protect a player’s online brand:

1. Register a Dot-Com Domain Name

Domain names are Web addresses, so they are the focus of your online branding plan. Having a domain name with your player’s first and/or last name in it, like RogerFederer.COM, is the Grand Slam of Internet branding. The domain is also part of the player’s main email address.

But, web domains are a scarce resource, and are registered on a first-come-first-serve basis —  so even RogerFederer.COM doesn’t own Federer.COM

Once you start searching for an available domain name, you’ll be surprised how hard it is to find an available domain name. If your client has an uncommon name, you may be lucky and still be able to acquire CLIENTNAME.COM. Other good domains to register are nicknames. Shorter domain names are usually better, dashes and digits in a domain name are not as easily remembered by site visitors.

The Dot-Com domain is the most memorable and upscale—it’s far better than the other top-level domains (.NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, etc.).

To register a domain, visit a Domain Registrar like Godaddy.com (http://GoDaddy.com). If the client’s name is available, you can register it for about $8 a year – you’ll need to renew every year or you lose the name. There are also many websites, such as Afternic.com and Sedo.com, that help you buy and acquire domains that are already registered — though auction prices can be exorbitant.

As long as you’re able to get the athlete’s main domain, it’s not worth going overboard speculating on a bunch of domains when an athlete is just starting out. However, keep in mind that the squatters will try to take advantage of typos in web addresses, so you may consider acquiring common misspellings of your client’s name (for Tennis, think Nadall.com, Nedal.com).

Later in this article I have some tips for what to do if you can’t get the name you want.

2. Create Social Networking Accounts

When fans want to find out about an athlete, they’ll go to the social networking sites; MySpace and Facebook are the biggest. With MySpace, you’ve always been able to get a page like http://Myspace.com/CLIENTNAME, so, you’ll want to grab that. Facebook now has that feature, too. And you’ll want to start and take ownership of a Facebook Fan Club for your client.

What content do you put on all these social media sites? It doesn’t matter—you can leave them blank to start with. The main point is that you control the real estate for your brand.

If you or your client does create some content on a social media page, keep the site very professional. Don’t let the athlete use these accounts for gossiping with friends, uploading photos or video of last Saturday night’s party, or other unprofessional uses. Future sponsors and advertisers will be watching, so you need to keep the client’s content squeaky clean and  presentable. Once something is on the Internet, it’s nearly impossible to take it down.

But remember: The main point is to acquire these online properties, even if you don’t use them at first. It’s far better to have nothing on a Web pages than to have cyber-squatters fill the page with advertisements.

3. Create a Twitter Account

Twitter, an online Short Message Service (SMS) site, is extremely popular and growing so quickly that it gets a checklist item all to itself. When fame first strikes, Twitter is where the trendsetters will talk about your client. Beware: Twitter squatters are already grabbing up all the famous Twitter account names.

Signing up for a Twitter account is free, so sign-up for an account name that matches the client’s real name. You may want to update the Twitter status occasionally with things like recent victories and upcoming games. But again, the key is to own the Twitter account for later use and to prevent someone else from controlling the Twitter account.

4. Setup Email and Instant Messaging

Fans, sponsors, advertisers and other vendors will want to communicate with an athlete. When your client owns a COM domain, you can automatically receive all email sent to any address at @CLIENTNAME.COM.

But, as part of a comprehensive branding plan, create free accounts at Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and HotMail: CLIENTNAME@gmail.com, CLIENTNAME@yahoo.com, and CLIENTNAME@msn.com. Setup the accounts so that they invisibly forward email to a single address.

Additionally, try to get brandable accounts for AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger.

5. Setup Voicemail

For a business phone number, you can set up a free GoogleVoice (http://voice.google.com) account, which comes with a free phone number in almost any area code. Configure GoogleVoice to automatically forward voice-mail to your email accounts as an audio/text attachment. Or you can forward all GoogleVoice calls to your cell phone (the forwarding will be invisible to the caller).

If your client needs to speak with the press by phone, he or she can easily make phone calls through the GoogleVoice account using their existing cell phone. Have the client use the GoogleVoice as a business phone number for all sports-related activities to prevent the athlete’s personal phone information from becoming mixed with the athlete’s career info. Keeping an athlete’s professional life and personal life separate will also help protect the athlete’s privacy.

Troubleshooting Your Brand

What do you do if you can’t get all of the above items? Well, if your athlete’s name is very common like Joe Smith, then he’s a little late to the Internet party. But you can still try for domains like “JoeSmithHockey.com”.

What if fame has already struck and the athlete’s brand is already cyber-squatted? There are laws to protect an athlete’s name and brand. Contact an intellectual property attorney who specializes in trademarks. If the athlete’s name is fairly unique, having a lawyer send a letter to the various social media sites can often get them transferred to the player. Gaining control of a squatted domain is a little more complicated, but an attorney can definitely help to acquire it. Solving cyber-squatting problems through the legal system will cost you a lot more time and effort than doing it right the first time.

Be Ready for Fame…

Most importantly, it’s critical to be a few steps ahead of the cyber-squatters. With the first whiff of fame, squatters will notice an up-and-coming player and grab up all the prime Internet real estate related to that player. You can reduce future legal costs by keeping up with online trends and by beating the squatters to the prime Internet real estate. Your client’s future sponsors will appreciate a clean online-brand that isn’t full of Internet spam.

Remember: Your job as an agent is to help plan for the athlete’s entire career. It’s never too early to get a player’s brand ready. By spending a little effort up front, you can make future success that much sweeter.

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the 2008 Princeton Sports Symposium as a general attendee.  I covered the event prior to attending and then wrote a short wrap-up.  Overall, I was extremely impressed with the event, and came home with many ideas concerning how to improve our own symposium hosted at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

This year, I have the honor of actually participating on one of the 2009 Princeton Sports Symposium panels.  It is actually one of the first panels of the day, titled, “Partnership Activation Rising Stars.”  The entire agenda may be viewed here.  As was the case last year, Leverage Agency is the title sponsor of the event.  I cannot wait to see many of the people that I was introduced to last year, and meet plenty of new faces.  The important facts are as follows:

What: 2009 Princeton Sports Symposium Sponsored by Leverage Agency

When: Friday, December 4, 2009 (starts at 9:00 a.m. with Continental Breakfast)

Where: Friend Center, Princeton University (pictured to the right, map)

As a side note, I asked my girlfriend to date me a day before I left for last year’s symposium.  We are still together to this day.  Unfortunately, I will miss our actual one-year anniversary, but I will make it up to her (as if any of you care about that).

Don’t tell Creative Artists Agency (CAA) that the company is #2 to anyone in any sport.  They just don’t want to hear it.  Even in baseball, where Scott Boras is known as the king of the diamond.

Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated reported earlier this week that in a phone interview with CAA baseball agent, Joe Urbon, the agent stated that Jason Bay is “the most complete player on the market.”  Quite a bold statement by Mr. Urbon, who was well aware that some guy named Matt Holliday is also a free-agent going into the 2010 season.  Should Bay be given the edge because he had to compete in a very tough AL East while Holliday went from a mediocre AL West to a soft NL Central?  It is true that Holliday did struggle quite a bit in the AL.  He only hit 1 homerun in the first month of the 2009 season

Boras’ response: “Holliday is the only young complete free agent player available.”  I added the emphasis.  Interesting sly tactic by Mr. Boras, who subtly noted that his client, Holliday is 29-years-old, while Bay is 31-years-old.  You better believe that this factor, alone, drives up Holliday’s price.

I think it is smart for Urbon to make comparisons between Bay and Holliday.  It will only drive up the price of his client.  Let’s just hope that this is not an Urbon vs. Boras competition that stems from past experiences like the notorious case of Tacoby Bellsbury!

What: Panel: The Impact of Social Networking on the Sports World, Presented by the New York State Bar Association’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section

When: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 (8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.)

Where: Herrick, Feinstein, LLP, 2 Park Ave., New York, NY (14th floor amphitheater) / map

Moderator: Matthew D. Pace, Herrick, Feinstein LLP

Panelists:

• Lawrence Epstein, EVP and General Counsel, Ultimate Fighting Championship
• Jeffrey Gewirtz, SVP & General Counsel, NETS Basketball/Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
• Steven Herz, Founder and President, If Management
• Elizabeth Matthews, EVP & Deputy General Counsel of MTV Networks

Discussion: How social networking is impacting the business of sports today from the perspective of copyright owners, distribution partners and athletes.

• How are Leagues, Teams and Athletes using social networking to promote themselves and their products?
• What are the risks associated with use of social networking platforms?
• Who controls the ownership of content — the League, the Team or the individual?
• Is this strictly promotional or is there a business model to monetize this?
• Does this impact the League news policies? Does this impact on the exclusivity of television agreements?
• Does this fall within a news exception or other fair use category? How would that affect copyright owners?
• How does the DMCA operate in this area, and how does it affect copyright owners? Is there law comparable to the DMCA in international markets?
• Can the fan in the stands capture photos or video and distribute them electronically to those outside the stadium?
• Does this, or real-time scores and blogs pose a threat to the content owners’ rights?
• Relevant cases – Mark Cuban’s position against bloggers, Olympics blogging policy, Viacom v. YouTube and Google, New York Rangers vs. NHL

Cost: Students can attend for free.  New York State Bar members pay $25.  Nonmembers have to front $35.  Click here for more information and to register.

Last week, the single game penalty turned into a year-long ban.  The NCAA suspended Bryant for the rest of the 2009 season and any bowl game that OK State might play in.  Oklahoma State appealed the suspension, which seems rather harsh based on the situation (unless there are facts that have been withheld to the public).  We may find out the result of that appeal as early as tomorrow.

It sure seems as if OK State gets picked on a lot by the NCAA.  Remember Andy Oliver?  He played at the same institution before signing with a professional team in the 2009 draft.

The NCAA flexes its muscle again.  Are you impressed?  If Bryant would have solicited advice of an attorney, would the NCAA have pulled an Andy Oliver and tried to say that he was ineligible for that too?

Shouldn’t the NCAA be the advocate for its student-athletes above everything else?  I perceive the institution in a different light.  Its actions lead me to question its purpose at times.  With Brandon Jennings performing at a high level in the NBA (yes, it is a very small sample to look at) after saying no to college and playing a year overseas, shouldn’t the NCAA try to do more to show that it cares about its players.  Suspending them for a season without giving solid justification, makes me think that athletes will want to get in and out (or never in) of college as fast as possible.

Again, if the penalty is merely in response to Dez lying to NCAA officials, then I think it is excessive.  If there are facts unknown to me and the rest of the general public, then that is another story.  OK State was 4-0 without Bryant…until last weekend.  41-14.  Season over.  Reminiscent of last year’s College World Series.

Here is our very last division preview for the 2009-10 season.  Hopefully you are enjoying the start to the NBA season.  It is tough to stay focused on it when we are in the midst of a great football season and a really exciting World Series.  Anyway, my pick in the Pacific is…the Lakers.  Yeah, it is a boring pick, but I had to go with the purple and gold.  I keep joking with my friends that the Kings are my sleeper pick.  If it actually does come through, remember where you heard it (disclaimer: I really think that the Kings have absolutely no shot).

What: 2010 Tulane Law School National Baseball Arbitration Competition

When: January 22-24, 2010

Where: Tulane University Law School. Map.

The Tulane Law School Sports Law Society has been busy inviting law schools to compete in the 2010 Tulane Law School National Baseball Arbitration Competition. I received an email invite last week, asking if my school (University of Florida Levin College of Law) would be interested in attending.

The Baseball Arbitration Competition is a simulated salary arbitration competition modeled closely on the salary arbitration procedures used by Major League Baseball.  Each team will represent either the assigned player for that round or the team for which that player plays. The goal of each round is to determine the salary for that player for the upcoming season by persuading the arbitrator(s) that the position advocated for is more appropriate.

The competition assumes that each party has previously submitted their final offer, and that good faith negotiations have concluded.  Each problem will include these final offers; the competitors’ objective is to persuade the independent arbitrator, through both a written submission and through oral arguments, that the offer tendered by their client is the most appropriate compensation for that player.  Players used for this competition will, barring unforeseen circumstances, be actual Major League Baseball players eligible for salary arbitration in that year.

The deadline for registration is 5:00 p.m. on December 15.

Cost: $150 per team (2-3 people per team. Only 2 people may participate in any single round).  Schools may bring up to 2 teams.  Click here to register.

Competition Website | Competition Rules

Sports Business

• “Take the opportunity to meet as many people as you can.” [Sports leaders explain the key to success]
• A sign that lacrosse is growing in the U.S.? [MLL, NLL lacrosse star John Glynn signs with agent Matthew Norfolk]

Baseball

• Even if they don’t make it in baseball, they may make some good money off of the rights fees [Story Of Indian Pitchers Bought By Sony].
• All because of a misunderstanding [Sports Law Blog's Joe Rosen Signs Red Sox Reliever Hideki Okajima as Client].
• That Vernon Wells contract… [Bad Contract Swap Meet].
• A great read for players, parents, scouts, and advisors [Showcases Have Turned Baseball Into A Year-Round Sport].

Football

• Keep your mouth shut and your tweeting at bay [The Cost of Larry Johnson’s Gay Slur on Twitter: $213,000].
• The UFL vs. CFL portion is a good read [Sports Agent Corner: UFL vs CFL, “Runners”, and the Stay-or-Go Debate].

Also, one last note.  Buffalo Wild Wings is hosting a cool contest.  Register to win a roster spot to play in an exclusive football game at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, this spring.  You can register at any Buffalo Wild Wings location through November 8 (no purchase is required). The winners will be selected November 18 and will receive round-trip airfare and hotel accommodation for the February 13 game, among other prizes. The winners will be split into two teams and given celebrity coaches (ESPN’s Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg) and captains (Jerome “The Bus” Bettis and Marshall Faulk).

They also want me to share a coupon with you, which is good until November 1 (yeah, not much time to use it).  You can print this page (there is a button to do that on the top of this post), to use the coupon.