By: Zach Anne
Amid an incredibly successful 2021 campaign for the Michigan State Spartans football team, the University decided to invest heavily in …
By: Trey Frye
As the college football season begins, the University of Mississippi is making headlines for more than on-field performance and expectations. …
By Grant Mantell
On February 1st, 2022, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores brought a class action lawsuit against the National Football …
By: Alex Kirby
The former head coach for Washington State University’s football team, Nick Rolovich, was terminated on October 18, 2021 for failing …
As research on TBI’s have become more prevalent, it has created difficult discussion among fans about football’s long term effect on player health, the player’s assumption of risk, and consideration of their multi-million dollar contract or sponsorship(s). - Read more...
Cities and states typically grant large subsidies for new venues that host professional sports teams. These subsidies come in the form of tax-exempt bonds, which are typically repaid over many years using levies, such as sales or hotel taxes. Investors who purchase these bonds do not pay taxes on their income, which allows for cheaper interest rates and lower costs on projects. Are these bonds mutually beneficial to both team owners, who advocate for the venues, and localities to justify granting bonds to build the venues? - Read more...
In this case, the women are the referees, and they just booked FIFA with a red card. For years, the soccer federation, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has dealt with allegations of bribery, vote-rigging, and corruption. This October, FIFA faces a new allegation: gender discrimination. On the heels of the successful 2014 Men’s World Cup, FIFA began implementing plans for the tournament’s counterpart: the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Ontario, Canada. For example, this autumn, FIFA announced that in the 2015 tournament, female players will play on turf instead of grass. - Read more...
The Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones breathed a collective sigh of relief this past week when a state judge ruled that a lawsuit brought against Jones by Jana Weckerly, a former stripper, was barred by the statute of limitations. Ms. Weckerly brought the suit against Jones in September, alleging that Jones had sexually assaulted her in 2009 and seeking over $1M in damages. She later made an amendment claiming that Jones and his attorneys had paid her over the past four years for her to keep her silence. In addition to arguing that the statute of limitations barred the suit, counsel for Jones and the Cowboys denied Ms. Weckerly’s allegations and described the suit as an attempt to extort Jones. Counsel also moved for sanctions against Ms. Weckerly for filing what they described as a “frivolous pleading for the purpose of harassment.” Sexual misconduct charges are not uncommon in professional sports. The dismissal of the Jerry Jones lawsuit conjures memories of similar suits against Kobe Bryant, Ben Roethlisberger, and more recently, Colin Kaepernick. Charges against Bryant, Roethlisberger, and Kaepernick were ultimately dropped, but the accusations left dark shadows on otherwise illustrious careers. - Read more...
All of us sports lovers have seen the movies with college recruitment themes in the storyline. These movies highlight the drama, excitement, and limits imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) surrounding the recruitment of players to colleges and universities. (For a list of recruitment-themed movies, visit Jon Talty, The 10 Best sports movies with recruiting story lines, AL.com, July 31, 2014.) Some of the most memorable movies are Necessary Roughness (1991) and Blue Chips (1994). In Blue Chips, despite the coach’s distaste for illegal recruitment, he contacts a “friend of the program” who buys one player a Lexus, another receives $30,000.00 in a gym bag, and yet another player’s mother gets a new home and a job. Similarly, in Necessary Roughness the smaller school gets stuck with the bottom-of-the-barrel players and the larger school receives nice uniforms, a plush bus, and personal tutors. Recently, this excitement and drama came to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California with the decision on Edward O’Bannon, et al., v. National Collegiate Athletic Association; Electronic Arts Inc.; and Collegiate Licensing Company. - Read more...