Outline
Monday, August 27, 2007
7:03 AM
I. Introduction
A. Major v. Amateur Sports
1. Major
a. team v. individual sports
2. Amateur
a. collegiate- governed by the NCAA
b. non-collegiate- IOC
B. Previous Case Law
1. unclear court decisions so less ability to predict your case if you go to court
2. settlements are likely
II. Moral Integrity of the Sport: The Role of the Commissioner and the Law
A. Pete Rose v. Bart Giamatti
1. see Pete Rose (player) v. Bart Giamatti (baseball Commissioner) 721 F.Supp. 906
2. What should be the appropriate division of responsibility among individual freedom, organizational authority, and public scrutiny in addressing gambling, drug use, racial and domestic abuse, and other controversies?
3. Is it truly in the best interests of the sport to ban the all-time hits leader from the game for betting on his own team to win?
4. Why is authority over this issue reserved to the league speaking through its commissioner, rather than left for direct dealings between individual clubs and their managers and players?
5. Should owners, when they act collectively as a league, be treated as a single entity for purposes of contract, antitrust, labor, and other substantive areas of law?
6. To what extent should public law, speaking through judges, venture to overturn decisions made by private leagues, speaking through their commissioners?
B. The Legal Scope of the Commissioner’s Authority
1. Functions of the Commissioner = CEO
a. role: supreme voice of the best interests of the game
b. professional sports have commissioners (except for boxing)
2. What is the source of the commissioner’s legal authority to act in the given case? Why is this authority given to the commissioner rather than to an individual club, to an outside arbitrator, or to a public official or judge? MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION IN SPORTS LAW
a. under major league agreement: given jurisdiction to hear and determine finally any disputes between leagues and clubs or to which a play might be a party, certified to him, and authorized, in case of conduct detrimental to baseball to impose punishment and pursue appropriate legal remedies
2. What is the scope of the commissioner’s power- that is, under the asserted source of authority, in what situations is the commissioner empowered to take action in cases of this type?
3. What procedures should the commissioner follow in deciding on the course of action? What is the source of these procedural requirements?
4. If there are factual doubts or disputes, what standard of proof should the commissioner employ in the given case- reasonable suspicion, preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing evidence, or proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
5. What remedy or penalty may the commissioner employ in the specific case?
6. Finally, and most importantly, what is (and what should be) the jurisdiction of a court (or an arbitrator) to review the commissioner’s action- i.e. the commissioner’s answers to questions two through five. What legal theories can legitimately be employed to challenge the action? What standard of review will a court use in these challenges?
7. CASES
a. (see Milwaukee Am. Ass’n v. Landis)
i. Good-faith submission to arbiter is proper, and decision is binding, unless unsupported by evidence, or without legal foundation.
ii. Commissioner of organized baseball held authorized to disapprove option contract between ball club assigning existing agreement with player, but reserving right to recall.
b. Is the Commissioner of baseball vested by contract with the authority to disapprove player assignments which he finds to be “not in the best interest of baseball”? (see Charles O. Finley v. Bowie Kuhn)
i. Broad authority of commissioner of professional baseball to investigate any act, transaction or practice not in best interests of baseball, to determine what preventive, remedial or punitive action is appropriate in premises, and to take that action is not limited in its exercise to situations involving major league rules or moral turpitude.
ii. Question whether commissioner of professional baseball was right or wrong in disapproving attempted assignments of three players by professional baseball club on ground that assignments would be potentially harmful to game of baseball in view of unsettled circumstances of baseball’s reserve system was beyond competence and jurisdiction of federal court to decide.
iii. The whole business of professional baseball, and not any particular facet such as the reserve system, is exempt from the federal antitrust laws. Sherman Anti-Trust Act, § 1 et seq., 15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.
C. Challenges to the Best Interests of the Sport
1. Misconduct on the field, court, or ice
a. baseball owners had uniformly paid players their salaried for time lost due to league suspensions for on-the-field misconduct
2. Gambling
a. (see Molinas v. National Basketball Ass’n)
i. Evidence of professional basketball player, who was indefinitely suspended by president of basketball league, for gambling, was insufficient to establish that refusal of league teams or players to play in exhibition games in which player participated was result of any conspi
ally authorized and socially beneficial activities of government and private entities, relative importance is determined by their proximity to central functions of particular public or private enterprise, and conduct alleged to be invasion of privacy is to be evaluated based on the extent to which it furthers legitimate and important competing interests.
v. Intercollegiate athletic association’s drug testing policy involving monitoring of urination, testing of urine samples, and inquiry concerting medication did not violate constitutional right to privacy; interests in freedom from observation during urination and privacy of medical treatment and information were reduced by students’ voluntary participation in intercollegiate athletics and outweighed by association’s interest in safeguarding integrity of competition and protecting health and safety of student-athletes.
4. Sports and Social Ethics
a. is there a tangible risk posed to athletes by competing against HIV-positive opponents? is there a “reasonable accommodation” feasible?
i. treatment of minorities by sports
a. under-representation in leadership positions
b. racism by managers
c. does disciplining an athlete solely for something he says during the off-season offend traditional American norms or freedom of speech or should a private employer be permitted to punish or fire an employee whose public speech might embarrass or injure the employer’s business?
i. the appropriate social reaction to offensive forms of speech
d. exclusion of blacks by MLB
ii. treatment of women by sports
a. sports writers access to players in their locker rooms
b. (see Ludtke and Time, Inc. v. Kuhn)
i. Terms of city’s lease of its stadium to baseball team caused baseball commissioner’s policy excluding accredited female sports reporters from locker rooms of stadium’s clubhouse to be state action within Fourteenth Amendment, where advertising and massive publicity about team and individual ballplayers were essential to profitability of stadium lease entered into pursuant to special legislative provisions,
