guncurug

I know I haven't done this in a while but I will try to be a little better about it going forward.  In any event, here is this week's installment, which started on Tuesday but didn't get published until Wednesday:

The NBA is buying the New Orleans Hornets from George Shinn and Gary Chouest, as Shinn was unable to complete a deal with minority owner Chouest.  It's likely that the combination of financing difficulties and the uncertainties surrounding the Hornets lease at the New Orleans Arena made the deal untenable for Chouest.

The NCAA just has a knack for finding itself in court.  I think it may because it is an academic organization composed of college presidents who, for the most part, have never been outside of academia and as a result don't always think through the practical ramifications of the policies that they decide to put into place.  A good example of that is the cause of this latest piece of litigation: the one year scholarship rule.  Currently, all athletic scholarships are one year, renewable scholarships, which are renewable solely at the discretion of the university.  The NCAA has in place a provision prohibiting a member school from granting a scholarship for a period that exceeds one year.

Joseph Agnew, a former Rice University football player has filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to overturn the NCAA's rule on one year scholarship limits as well as the NCAA's limits on total number of scholarships that a school may extend in any given sport. In addition, Agnew claims that the limits constitute an unfair price-fixing scheme under federal anti-trust laws.  The plaintiff's attorneys seek certification as a class spo representing all athletes whose scholarships were not renewed. 

This is one more legal action for the embattled NCAA which paid out more than $84 million in legal fees last year. The group is battling Congress over its tax exempt status and it faces a class action suit from former students concerning over the appropriation of the players' likenesses.  On top of litigation, its members face rising costs from the arms race that has been sweeping Division I athletics as well as the costs associated with Title IX compliance and coping with the Great Recession, all of which combined to result in numerous schools having to go the route taken by Cal, Berkeley, which recently announced it was dropping five varsity sports.

Expect to see fewer schedules of English Premier League games in favorite newspaper or online site in the coming days as a British High Court has ruled that the fixtures are copyrighted by the English Premier League.  The EPL and four other bodies  brought the case against companies including Yahoo over their unlicensed use of fixtures (schedules to Americans). 


The ruling is contrary to one from the European Court of Justice, which in 2004 ruled against protection of fixture lists, but the High Court found that compiling the fixtures required sufficient work to warrant protection.  To compile the fixtures, the scheduler has to take into account television, of course; making sure that no teams played at home in the city on the same day and making sure that dates were left open for European competition, while still ensuring that the clubs competing in Europe and the domestic cup competitions.


I'm not too sure an American court would agree.  Given the 2007  from the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals in the case involving Major League Baseball and the operator of fantasy sports games, in which the Court uphheld a District Court decision that the operator's First Amendment right to free speech trumps the players and MLB's right to publicity and MLB cannot control the use of game results or a player's name and statistics.  Major League Baseball's  petition for certiorari was denied on June 2, 2008, so the Eighth Circuit decision stands today as the law of land at least in Missouri and several neighboring states.  The various players in fantasy sports are now treating the case as the basis for their bargaining, which is another reason why I don't think you would see the same result her.