Sports

Our team advises and represents leading organizations in the sports industry, drawing on experience and insights regarding the unique employment and labor issues they face.

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Our lawyers have decades of experience representing many of the leading sports organizations in the world on labor and employment matters.

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Your Strategic Partner

Our experience includes work with professional sports leagues, individual teams, athletic conferences, national governing bodies and additional sports organizations at both the professional and collegiate levels.

We collaborate with attorneys who focus on subject matter areas that are of specific concern to employers in the sports industry, providing practical and informed advice on a range of matters, from labor management relations to collective bargaining, arbitration, player discipline, wage and hour, and workplace safety. Our attorneys have successfully litigated many complex class and collective actions in state and federal courts throughout the country. Our attorneys’ experience handling high-profile, sports-related issues has been recognized by respected publications such as Chambers USA, The National Law Journal, The Sports Business Journal, and Law 360.

Key Capabilities

Advice and Counsel

We regularly advise employers in the sports industry, including sports associations, professional clubs and universities, on issues of day-to-day risk and compliance, including with respect to their contracts, arbitration agreements, gambling policies, drug testing regulations, and more.

Arbitration

We have handled significant and sensitive arbitrations for our sports clients on issues ranging from the interpretation and application of collective bargaining agreements and player contracts to player disciplinary matters, eligibility issues, drug testing programs and policies, workplace safety, employee benefits, employee separations, discrimination matters, and more.

Complex Litigation

We have served as counsel in precedent-setting cases and in widely publicized class and complex cases in federal and state courts and agencies throughout the country, involving, among other things, claims under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and federal and state discrimination laws. We also have prevailed in high-profile actions involving tort, contract, and other claims brought by current and former players against sports leagues and teams. For example, we have secured dismissal of players’ tort and discrimination claims under Section 301 of the LMRA and on the merits and have successfully confirmed arbitration awards relating to high profile player discipline at the district and appellate court levels.

Employee Benefits

We regularly counsel sports clients with respect to their employee benefits, such as pension and other retirement plans, welfare benefit programs, and executive compensation. We have successfully represented employers and multiemployer plans in disputes involving their benefit plans, including securing the dismissal of a class action lawsuit challenging changes to benefits under a new collective bargaining agreement and of tort claims on ERISA preemption grounds.

Higher Education

Our team has been at the forefront of recent changes in the landscape of college athletics, including issues relating to whether college athletes are employees for purposes of labor and employment laws. Together with Littler’s Higher Education group, we provide advice on NCAA and NAIA compliance; Title IX compliance and litigation; NCAA investigations; name, image and likeness issues; and other issues relevant to higher education.

Investigations

We have advised on and conducted high profile investigations into employee and player misconduct, discrimination, harassment, and other matters within the sports and entertainment industry. Our role as trusted advisors to our clients for decades uniquely positions us to understand the complexities and challenges that arise with respect to investigations in the sports industry.

Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining

We have represented several major sports leagues in negotiating and enforcing collective bargaining agreements.

Labor and Employment Issues in Corporate Transactions

We advise clients on labor and employment issues in corporate transactions, including transaction planning, due diligence, deal documentation, and post-closing restructuring and compliance issues.

Pay Equity

We provide pay equity and pay transparency advice, using an in-house team of data analysts and statisticians to perform the steps crucial to a defensible audit.