Week 12 Sport Law Post

What does tradmark law protect? Provide two sport examples.

Trademark law protects any word, name, symbol, or device that an organization uses to identify ad distinguish its services from the services of another organization and to indicate the source of the service.

Examples include the Texas Longhorns logo and the Houston Rockets logo.

Sport Law Related Article of the Week:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=6430091

"Many Division I schools are distorting the number of students participating in sports so they can comply with Title IX, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Among the tactics is to pad rosters of women's teams with unqualified players or even men."

Week 11 Sport Law Post

What is the sports broadcasting act and how does it apply to the NFL?

It is an exemption form the Sherman Act, Section 1. It allows for professional hockey, football, baseball and basketball to pool and sell their rights in game telecasts. Basically, a league can sell the rights to its games as a package to a network.

The NFL can negotiate with a network for all of its games. For example, it can negotiate with Fox to have all NFC games broadcast on Fox and with CBS to have all AFC games on CBS. It also has been extended to allow a home team to black out the games of competing teams while it is playing a home game.

Sport Law Related Article of the Week:

Former players sue NFLPA for royalties

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6385459

Former players have sued the NFLPA claiming that their images and likenesses were used, yet they were denied royalties. "The suit alleges breach of fiduciary duty by the players association and its for-profit Players Inc. subsidiary." The suit claims that thousands of former players are entitled to royalties from usages of their images in products ranging from video games to trading cards.