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The College Football Playoff is Expanding: Are There Reasons for Concern?
By: Brandon McCoy The College Football Playoff (CFP) Board of Managers decided in September 2022 that they will expand the playoff from 4 teams to 12 teams as early as the 2024 season. Fans and teams alike welcomed the adoption of the current 4-team playoff, as it was seen as more equitable than the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) model, which pitted the top two ranked teams in one winner-takes-all game for the championship. Still, the playoff has been dominated by the college football “blue bloods.” Every champion has come from either the SEC, ACC, or Big Ten, and until the 2021-2022 […]
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Volume 13, Issue 2 is now live!
The Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law is thrilled to share that Volume 13, Issue 2 is now live. The Issue begins with an essay from Professor Irene Calboli and Vera Sevastianova on the impact of the ongoing Russo-Ukraine conflict on fashion and trademark law. From there, this Issue of JSEL features four scholarly pieces on timely topics of sports and entertainment law from Professor William Berry, Chui Ling Goh and Professor Jack Anderson, Professor Stacey Lantagne, and Professor Brian Porto. Check out the full issue here. Check out the individual pieces below: Essay Fashion in the Times of War: […]
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Volume 13, Issue 1 is now live!
The Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law is delighted to share that Volume 13, Issue 1 is now live. The Issue begins with a Foreword from Pepperdine Law Professor Maureen Weston on athlete mental health and the law. Professor Weston tragically lost her son Cedric Halloran last year, and Co-Editors-in-Chief Erin Savoie and Eli Nachmany have dedicated this Issue to Cedric’s memory. The Issue also includes articles from Utah Law Professor Jorge Contreras, Kentucky Law Professor Brian Frye, and Syracuse Law Professor Roy Gutterman, as well as a book review by JSEL Supervising Print Editor Alexander Amir. Check out the […]
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New Jersey Voters Reject Gambling on New Jersey College Athletics
In addition to voting in state and local elections last week, New Jerseyans passed judgment on a ballot question concerning betting on college sporting events in the state. The question read: “Do you approve amending the Constitution to permit wagering through casinos and current or former horse racetracks on all college sport or athletic events?” It also included the following extra information: “Currently, wagering is prohibited on college sport or athletic events that take place in New Jersey. Wagering is also prohibited on an event in which a team from a New Jersey college participates.” New Jersey voters rejected the question. […]
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Understanding the NFL’s Removal of the La’el Collins Suit to Federal Court
By: Eli Nachmany Dallas Cowboys right tackle La’el Collins has filed suit against the National Football League (NFL), challenging part of his five-game suspension for failing to cooperate with league drug testing protocols. Various articles get into the back-and-forth between Collins and the NFL on the suspension, including Collins’s allegation that the NFL misled an independent arbitrator about Collins’s past record of suspensions and the NFL’s claim that Collins attempted to bribe a drug-testing official. This post focuses on an underlying procedural issue, removal, that has gotten less attention in the mainstream press coverage, but is quite important. Collins originally filed […]
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The NIL Era Has Arrived: What the Coming of July 1 Means for the NCAA
From September 2019—when California became the first state to pass a name, image, and likeness (NIL) law—until now, the intercollegiate athletic community has fielded a deluge of new enacted and proposed regulations from states, Congress, the NCAA, and now individual institutions. As the proverbial NIL floor was shifting, there was one thing on everyone’s minds: July 1, 2021. As of July 1, college athletes nationwide can monetize their name, image, and likeness. If an institution is in a state without an effective NIL law on July 1, the institution is responsible for adopting its own NIL policy. Meanwhile, institutions in states […]
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NCAA v. Alston at the Supreme Court
March 31, 2021 marked an important moment in the history of college sports. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case involving the NCAA for the first time in nearly 40 years. This article provides a comprehensive summary of that argument. What is Alston and how did we get here? The question at issue in NCAA v. Alston asks whether the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation for student-athletes are violative of federal antitrust law. Shawne Alston, the lead plaintiff who represents a class of former student-athletes, filed the original complaint in 2014. Almost seven years later, Alston represents a culmination of […]
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NBA. NFL. NFT? How Nonfungible Tokens are Making an Impact in Arts, Entertainment, and Sports
This post is one article in a two-part series on NFTs. Read along to learn more about how NFTs work and where they’re leaving a mark in the arts, entertainment, and sports industries. Then, read our next installment, which covers in more depth the legal implications of the proliferation of NFTs. Trading cards are in the midst of a renaissance. The crisp collectibles have long been ingrained in the fabric of American sports, but the trading card market is now experiencing such a notable boom that the popular sports and pop culture media and podcast network, The Ringer, just launched a […]
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The Sustainability Rebrand
The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second. The fashion industry is dominated by the glorified notion of conspicuous consumption: just watch as Burberry burns millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise rather than tarnish the brand’s exclusivity. Sustainability, conspicuous consumption’s arch nemesis, has sorely needed a rebrand. Sure, Burberry assured the world that the energy generated from the burning of its products was captured, making the bonfire environmentally friendly. But this lip-service is less satisfying to a rising segment of sustainability-conscious consumers. “A recent survey from Boston Consulting Group found that […]
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Another Media Merger, the Same Story: What the CBS-Viacom Merger Tells Us About the Entertainment Industry
In 1999, the impending merger between Viacom and CBS was a major topic of discussion in the media world. Two decades later, the same exact conversation has once again resurfaced. In December of 2019, CBS and Viacom once again began the process of merging following Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval. However, now in its second iteration, a merger such as this one is not unique and is now small in comparison to others before it. Just a few months earlier, Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox was approved – a deal worth $71.3 billion – sending shockwaves throughout the entertainment industry […]
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Whose Song is it Anyway? Professional Sports and the DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides protection for copyright holders to quickly allow for the removal of their material from the Internet if it is used illegally. It has a major presence in much of our entertainment world, particularly in the streaming community. The process of a DMCA takedown takes place as companies and copyright holders locate a use of their trademarked property being used illegally, and file a DMCA notice, which is sent to the poster and the hosting website for a notice of takedown. While the DMCA was introduced in 1998, the ever changing world of entertainment is […]
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Mission Impossible?: The Legal Implications of Managing Deepfake Celebrity Videos
As the social media site TikTok has exploded over the past year, thousands of recognizable influencers and celebrities have joined in on the fun—including some who may not know it. Most notably, one user, deeptomcruise, has built a following of over 777k with videos of the Mission Impossible star golfing, doing magic tricks, and telling stories from his career. The only issue? Deeptomcruise is not actually Tom Cruise. Instead, the account uses photorealistic “deepfake” technology—a technique that uses artificial intelligence to create moving images of famous stars, athletes, and politicians that are so close to life that they’re almost impossible to […]