When: September 28-30, 2012

Where: Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California

The Competition will include 4 rounds of negotiation problems in sports topics.  The San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants baseball game will be held in multiple luxury suites at Petco Park on September 28.  The Competition will begin on the morning of September 29.  The final rounds will end late morning September 30.  The 11th Annual Sports Law Symposium will follow on the afternoon of September 30.

For examples of past negotiation problems, click here.

Cost: Register here.

• National Sports Law Negotiation Competition ($450.00 registration fee for two competitors)
• Additional Coaches and Faculty Advisor(s) ($60.00 per additional person)

SPORTS LAW SYMPOSIUM ONLY Tickets:

• $55.00 – Guests
• $35.00 – Thomas Jefferson School of Law Faculty, Staff, Alumni & San Diego County Bar Association Members
• $25.00 – Law Students

National Sports Law Negotiation Competition (NSLNC 2012) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Football

• A must love/hate Rosenhaus quote – “I love to hear myself speak” [Drew Rosenhaus: From Law Student to NFL Power Broker].
• This year, the hour after the NFL Draft ended was not so busy for agents [Lockout keeping Rutgers' undrafted players shut out from NFL].
• Which players will choose sooner playing time and acceptance over a chance in the NFL? [UFL aggressively trying to poach undrafted rookie free agents]

Basketball

• He helped Z-Bo get a 4-year $71 million contract [The Business of Sports: Raymond Brothers, Esq.].
• The background of this website makes me dizzy.  Good interview, though [Checkerboard Chatting with Sports Agent, Jared Karnes of A3-Allegiant Athletic Agency].

Baseball

• Jim Callis thinks that teams are going to pay top dollar for talent this year because it may be the last time they can pay high school players over-slot bonuses [Jim Callis Chat: April 27].
• For when you have a lot of time to kill [All-Time Draft Database].

Miscellaneous

• Calling on Ron Shapiro for help with negotiations [Famed Sports Agent Helps Hopkins Nurse Exceed in Business].

Shabbat Shalom: Friday Wrap-Up (5/6/2011) from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

I have been working very closely with my mentor, C.J. Laboy, on finishing a deal for two clients to endorse a small snack food company. My first marketing deal has been very unique in that the CMO of the company and I were faced with a difficult challenge. He was interested in partnering with our clients, but the company is too small and cannot afford the endorsement package that we were discussing.

I thought back to the negotiations class I am enrolled in and the best lesson I have received (among many) from my professor, Earl Hill (who was a former tight end for Wisconsin), is that one has to create value by adding issues and “expanding the pie.” Negotiating is more of a team effort between those who sit on opposite ends of the negotiating table than most people realize; both sides have the same goal of reaching an agreement and there are many ways to accomplish that. I thought back to the revolutionary endorsement deal involving David Wright and Glaceau, the company that makes VitaminWater.

I inquired with the company about making a deal that would involve part cash and part ownership. The CMO was open to the idea and conversations about the endorsement resumed. C.J. and I have been doing our due diligence on the value and growth opportunities of the company in order to put a value on the company’s offer. When that happens, we will continue with negotiations and hopefully finish up my first endorsement deal.

I will be taking the summer off from blogging (unless I can report finalizing this deal before my internship ends for the semester), but during that time, be sure to follow me on Twitter @marc_h_miller, where I regularly tweet news and articles related to agents and sports business in general. Also, be sure to add me to your LinkedIn network.

I wish all of my fellow college students and young professionals the best of luck with your summer internships and leave you with two of the best lessons I learned from my very first internship with the Single-A Hudson Valley Renegades:

• No task is below you.
  • I was remembered as the intern who got poison ivy all over myself while trimming the ivy around the outer stadium fencing and gained respect from everyone for putting my own comfort behind the comfort of the most important people: the fans.
  • Be remembered as the intern who did anything and everything and you will be surprised how willing those above you are to open their network to you, teach you about the business, or let you get different experiences.
• Your title is not binding.
  • Going back to that internship with the Renegades, I was hired to put on the in-game promotions. By the end of the summer, I was selling tickets over the phone and was fully-versed in ticket operations software.
  • If your internship is part-time, go approach people in a different department and offer to volunteer the time you are not spending on your primary task(s). Everyone can use help and what is help to them is experience to you.

Knocking on Heaven’s Door from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

While the book might be one of the more expensive books you purchase, in my opinion, it is worth every penny.  Be warned, that Carfagna uses quite a bit of legal jargon, and while he does an excellent job of explaining a lot of the legal concepts in the beginning of the book, it is probably best suited for someone who has at least taken an introductory class on contracts and/or intellectual property.

The title may be a little misleading.   Negotiating and Drafting of Sports Venue Agreements is not only about drafting and negotiating of stadium lease agreements (although an entire chapter is dedicated to that specific topic), it also includes detailed discussions about naming rights agreements, presenting sponsorship agreements, media rights and concessions agreements, hospitality and health food agreements, and agreements with state-operated entities.  With each type of agreement, Carfagna gives his take of what the team values, what the other negotiating party wants, and what each party is likely to concede in order to reach a reasonable agreement.  Further, Carfagna includes exhibits at the end of the book, which give the reader a good idea of what a reasonable agreement may look like (while including that these are only templates and should certainly be altered on a case-by-case basis).

For Sports Law nerds like me, this book is a must in a series of books created by Carfagna.  Even if you are never involved in the negotiation or drafting of a sports venue agreement, many of the provisions discussed at length in the book are applicable in other types of agreements.  Reviewing those concepts in the contexts of sports venue agreements makes is certainly more preferable than most alternatives.

Carfagna’s last book, which is an absolute must read for Sports Law enthusiasts with an interest in the sports agent profession, is Representing the Professional Athlete.  I will likely be making that book required reading for a brand new class in Sport Agency Management that I will be teaching at Indiana University Bloomington in the Fall.  If I teach a more general Sports Law class in the future, I will be sure to incorporate Negotiating and Drafting of Sports Venue Agreements into the curriculum, as well.

Book Review: Negotiating and Drafting Sports Venue Agreements from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Over 60 antitrust suits were filed against the NFL between 1966 and 1991.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act states that it is illegal to enter into any contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade.  If the court cannot rule as to whether a restraint is per se illegal, it will look to see if it is unreasonable under the “rule of reason” test.  Test aside, the NFL has been able to protect itself from a majority of antitrust lawsuits based on the nonstatutory labor exemption.

The nonstatutory labor exemption protects the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) from being in violation of antitrust laws, as long as there exists good-faith bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions.  It recognizes that some restraints on competition will be a part of collective bargaining, but that these restraints are justified by the benefits of collective bargaining.  With no collective bargaining agreement in place and assuming that union decertification occurs, would the nonstatutory labor exemption survive?  Do the parties want to find out?

In 1989, the NFLPA filed a lawsuit and claimed that once the 1982 CBA expired and negotiations reached an impasse, the nonstatutory labor exemption ceased to exist.  If the parties do not reach an agreement today and there is not another extension for talks to continue, it could certainly be argued that the parties have reached an impasse.  Anyway, in the 1989 case, the infamous Judge Doty held that the impasse did in fact put an end to the nonstatutory labor exemption.  That holding was overturned because it was found that a collective bargaining relationship between the NFL and the NFLPA still existed.  Then the NFLPA decertified and players filed antitrust lawsuits against NFL owners.

No one wants to go down that road again.  Lawsuits cost money.  Appeals cost even more money.  And from what we know about Judge Doty, he tends to lean towards protecting the players, as evidenced by his recent ruling on the NFL’s Lockout Insurance policy and his decision in the aforementioned 1989 lawsuit.  Even if the NFL ends up proving that decertification is merely a ploy to open up the door for sham antitrust lawsuits and convinces a judge that even though the NFLPA “decertified” the entity is still in effect a union, it will take a lot of money, time, and energy to get to that point.  The NFLPA seems ready to go to battle.  Will the NFL fold its hand or fight it out in court?

NFL Labor Battle: To The Courts? from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

The Chicago White Sox signed their 3 players:

• John Danks signed a 1-year, $6,000,000 deal.
• Tony Pena signed a 1-year, $1,600,000 deal.
• Carlos Quentin signed a 1-year, $5,050,000 deal.

The Florida Marlins signed their 6 players:

• Burke Badenhop signed a 1-year, $750,000 deal.
• Clay Hensley signed a 1-year, $1,400,000 deal.
• Edward Mujica signed a 1-year, $800,000 deal.
• Ricky Nolasco signed a 3-year, $26,500,000 deal.
• Leo Nunez signed a 1-year, $3,650,000 deal.
• Anibal Sanchez signed a 1-year, $3,700,000 deal.

The Tampa Bay Rays signed their 3 players:

• Dan Johnson signed a 1-year, $1,000,000 deal.
• Andy Sonnanstine signed a 1-year, $912,500 deal.
• B.J. Upton signed a 1-year, $4,825,000 deal.

Does this tell us that the file-and-trial strategy is an excellent deterrent to drawn out negotiations between team and player?  There are still plenty of teams and agents who will negotiate right up to the day of players’ scheduled arbitration hearings.  The White Sox, Marlins, and Rays do not have to spend resources and time building up their cases in anticipation of a hearing.  My most recent count tells me that over 30 players are currently headed on the path towards a hearing.  While we know that a majority of these cases will settle, time is money!

My guy to watch = Josh Hamilton.  His salary figure is $12,000,000.  The Texas Rangers submitted a figure of $8,700,000.  Since Major League Baseball uses a final offer arbitration system, should the case go to a hearing, the arbitrators would have to pick one number or the other – no middle ground.

The File-And-Trial Arbitration Teams Sign Their Players from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

Jack Bechta should be praised for opening up a lot of his practice for the world to understand how he recruits and maintains his clientele (even though he recently ignored my multiple requests for information regarding the representation of coach Jim Harbaugh up until yesterday, but I will get into that story later in this article).  Recently, Bechta wrote about his practice of making a pitch to athletes bound for the draft.  And I give him major kudos for writing the following line -”The fact is that, players make agents, agents don’t make players.”

Thus far, I am aware of Bechta securing the right to represent tight-end Will Yeatman from the University of Maryland.  Yeatman is not highly coveted, and currently is projected to go undrafted, but that can certainly change with a good Pro Day and/or Combine performance.

Bechta likely picked a place familiar to Yeatman, where there were few distractions, to make his pitch to the TE.  The fact that Yeatman is from San Diego, California probably played in Bechta’s favor, as he is based in the same city.  Thus, it is likely that Bechta did not even have to fly out to Maryland to make his pitch.

Back to Harbaugh.  Bechta used to make a point to let the world know that he represented Jim Harbaugh.  When the entire world wanted to know what Harbaugh would do after Stanford beat Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, Bechta did not say a peep about Harbaugh.  He also refused to answer any questions about who was Harbaugh’s agent of record.  Many people speculated that Harbaugh switched from Bechta to David Dunn of Athletes First roughly a month prior to the Orange Bowl victory.  But then this article explained that Harbaugh was actually being represented by Bechta and Dunn – competing agents – at the same time.  It appears that Bechta was designated as Harbaugh’s rep for negotiations concerning Stanford and Dunn was handling all negotiations with NFL teams.

NFL Agent’s Pitch To Players And Joint Representation Of Jim Harbaugh from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

At the time Calcaterra wrote his piece, Jayson Werth and Adrian Beltre were still free agents.  As Dan Furey pointed out yesterday, Werth is off of the market, after signing a contract that almost made Furey fall off his chair.  But Calcaterra did bring up an interesting general argument when it comes to Boras clients.

What happens if, in the course of a negotiation over Client A, someone on the Sox alludes to the fact that they’d prefer to spend money on Client B, or someone very much like him? I’m curious about how Boras handles that. I’m curious as to his explanation about how hitting the Sox as hard as he can in the course of a negotiation for one of his players doesn’t necessarily harm the interests of another who is obviously sought by the same team. One possible answer is that subordinates handle negotiations and are “walled off” from the man himself to keep things kosher, but I don’t think either Adrian Beltre or Jayson Werth hired Boras to be represented by a suboirdiante.

I also do not buy an argument stating that Boras does not handle his marquee clients’ negotiations himself.  This topic reminds me of a post that I published on May 8, 2009, which partly discussed David Dunn of Athletes First’s representation of Mark Sanchez and Kellen Clemens, who at the time was fighting with Sanchez for the starting quarterback role.  In the post, I quoted Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com, who wrote:

Every agent should want his client to be a starter — and should be doing everything he can to make the case for the player to start.

Clemens needs an agent who’ll be doing just that.  And Sanchez needs an agent who’ll do the same, especially since his contract will have a big-money one-time bonus triggered by participating in 35 percent of the snaps this year, of which Dunn will get a fee.

Dunn, however, has no choice but to keep his head low and his mouth shut.  So, neither guy will be getting the best possible representation.

It’s a conflict of interest.  And one of the two players should hire a new agent.

Should it also be said regarding Boras’ representation of free agent players at the same position?  While it may not be an issue of who is starting, it could come down to who is signed by what team and for how much money.

Does Scott Boras Ever Feel Conflicted? from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

The main issue in CBA negotiations has, and will be, the percentage of NFL revenues to player salaries.  Other major concerns include, NFL rookie salaries and the legal inability of franchises to recoup signing bonuses from players who breach contracts or refuse to perform.

The authors of the article take the position that the owners cared so much about labor peace and preventing a potential labor stoppage back in 2006, that they agreed to a CBA that had unfavorable terms.  There is a thought that former NFL Commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, lobbied ownership to accept the deal because he wanted his legacy to be that he presided over almost two decades of uninterrupted labor peace.

Many pages are dedicated to providing a formal history of the NFLPA, its major players, and the numerous legal actions it has been a part of over the years of its existence.  It certainly is not a short read, but I believe that it is important to have a good understanding of the history of negotiations between the NFL and the Players Association in order to have a full grasp on what is going through the minds of the bargaining parties today.

The use of media by both sides of the negotiation table is nothing new.  In fact, it was heavily used in the NHL’s battle with the NHLPA earlier this decade.  It is also being heavily employed by the NFL and the NFLPA during this round of CBA negotiations.  This time, new media in the form of blogs and Tweets are involved, as well.

In such contentious negotiations, it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine which side has a better case.  And at the end of the day, it does not matter; everyone suffers if a season, or part of a season, is lost due to a labor battle.  Is the NFL bargaining in good faith?  Should there be a rookie salary cap?  Does the union truly have all the financial information it needs to bargain?

Interestingly, when the authors released the piece, they wrote that there is no need to create artificial deadlines, “as  these will obstruct the natural development of negotiations between the parties.”  DeMaurice Smith certainly did not agree, as the NFLPA had an “internal deadline” for agreeing to a new CBA, which apparently has already passed.  Going back to my previous point about new media, check out where the news was posted – on the League’s own blog focused mainly on labor issues.

Skip to the end of the IPLJ article and you will see the authors’ predictions, which includes the belief that Ownership will lockout the players.  And then there is decertification talk, which has been gaining momentum as of late.  Every NFL team has approved of a plan to decertify the NFLPA if there is not a new CBA agreed to by March 3, 2011.  I assume that the date is subject to change.  Decertification would mean that the NFLPA is no longer a union; players could then sue the league under an antitrust claim.

Will There Be A 2011 NFL Season? from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules

This is sure to spark some conversation.  Let’s hear it.

Why Pick A Non-Attorney Agent Over An Attorney-Agent? from Sports Agent Blog - Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Negotiations, NCAA Rules