Courses

Professional Sports and the Law

Section 1, Spring 20

Schedule Information

Enrollment: 19/20

Credits: 2

Course Description

The Professional Sports and the Law course explores the relationship between various legal disciplines and the business of professional sports. Course topics include: league commissioners' scope of authority; player discipline and grievances; antitrust (the development of the baseball and labor exemptions, and an overview of player restraints (drafts, restrictions on free agency, discipline, etc.) and disputes both between leagues and among the teams in a league; contracts (the Collective Bargaining Agreement and its salary cap, and uniform player contracts) and contract negotiation; duties and regulations of agents; and athletes', teams', and leagues' intellectual property rights. The course will be taught together by UVA Law alum and legendary sports lawyer/agent Donald Dell (who has taught the course for many years) and Mark Levinstein (who wrote the class case book) a well-respected sports and antitrust trial lawyer at Williams & Connolly, in Washington D.C. (who has taught the course the past two years). Additional guest speakers (sports attorneys and/or sports business personnel) may also visit the class, schedule permitting.

Course Requirements

Exam Info:

Midterm Type (if any): None

Description: None

Final Type (if any): Flex with Paper Option

Description: Flex exam at end of semester, with a paper option in lieu of exam due via EXPO. The paper submission deadline is the last day of the exam period at noon (EST).

Final Exam Notes:

Flex exam at end of semester, with a paper option in lieu of exam due via EXPO. The paper submission deadline is the last day of the exam period at noon (EST).

Written Work Product

Written Work Product:

Other Work

Other Course Details

Prerequisites: None Concurrencies: None

Mutually Exclusive With: None

Laptops Allowed: Yes

First Day Attendance Required: No

Course Notes: This course will meet in 12 sessions scheduled for Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

Graduation Requirements

*Satisfies Writing Requirement: No

**Credits For Prof. Skills Requirement: No

Satisfies Professional Ethics: No

*Yes means professor requires everyone in the course to submit a substantial research paper (which is the requirement standard in Academic Policies), so no paperwork required to be submitted to SRO. No means student must timely submit paperwork to SRO if intending to use a paper in this course to satisfy the Writing Requirement.

**Yes indicates course credits count towards UVA Law’s Prof. Skills graduation requirement, not necessarily a skills requirements for any particular state bar.