Impactful Performance-Enhancing Drug Cases
In the 1950s and 1960s, more records began to be broken and more competitors began to push themselves and their bodies to the limit. With this increase of performance came an increase in the necessity for chemicals to aid the body and give it the boost it needed to blow the competition out of the water. One early case that brought the doping situation into focus was that of the British Olympic cyclist Tom Simpson. In 1967 during the Tour de France, cyclists were often prescribed amphetamines to aid in performance. Simpson, who had taken this legal pill before, was told that the laws of France had changed and he would be unable to take the amphetamines during the Tour. He took the pills anyway, along with codeine and other narcotics, and died during the first day of racing on the summit of Mont Ventoux. The response from the cycling association was to ban the distribution of the drugs but only for certain times, leaving the door open for addiction and abuse at other times. Only after the 1998 Festina cycling team incident did the cycling association finally start taking a hard-line stance on performance enhancing drugs. The endurance of cyclists was often attributed to performance enhancing drugs rather than natural capabilities, creating a rift between cyclists and the public and turning against those in the sport. The same sentiment was echoed throughout other sports – people wanted to believe in the innate abilities of the athletes, rather than have their accomplishments tarnished by artificial aids. Baseball had its share of doping scandals during the late 1980s and early 1990s, though they paled in comparison to the notorious doping problem that plagued the Tour de France. Anabolic steroids, steroids which are known to promote muscle growth and aid in endurance, were present in the sports, often used in the attempt to build muscle faster and gain a competitive edge over others . The baseball players who were involved in these scandals were soon banned, yet ironically gained fame and money in the process and popularized the use of performance enhancing steroids. Eventually this led to the 1994 steroid scandal which implicated NFL players, as well as criminal organizations that were trafficking in the substances. It wasn’t until the late 2000s that this issue was addressed in a large-scale fashion. When baseball and track-and-field became increasingly popular on television during the 2000s – spawning new hosts, spin-offs, and guilty pleasures like reality TV – so too did the use of performance enhancing substances in professional sports. Even the National Football League had a growing problem with the abuse of anabolic steroids, with many players allegedly using the substance largely unnoticed by management. There were numerous steroid incidents in baseball, and even several instances of track-and-field athletes testing positive. This resulted in lost opportunities to break records – as one of the main tenets of doping is to break long-held records in order to attain a sense of superiority over everyone else. Currently however doping in baseball, the NFL, and track-and-field has subsided. National Football League players are subjected to blood tests while in training camp, all players in Major League Baseball are required to be tested via blood on a yearly basis, and violations resulting in proof of use lead to suspensions. Though professional cycling continues to perform drug tests on both male and female cyclists, there has been no cycling scandal on par with the suspensions of Lance Armstrong in 2012-2013. These recent events have left many wondering if this new trend in drug testing will lower the chances of the athletes faking results.
Controversial Employment and Contract Cases in Professional Sports
Contract negotiations, of course, are commonplace in professional sports. They are not, however, always amiable. And when they aren’t, they can turn into high profile lawsuits that test the limits of contracts, and the legal interpretation of various clauses contained within those agreements.
Negligent Misrepresentation – The Mallard Case In 1982, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted quarterback Todd Marinovich. He was cut mid-season. He went on to be picked up by the Los Angeles Raiders in 1987. When he was cut in November of that year, he decided to sue the Raider’s owner, Al Davis, for negligent misrepresentation. In short, he alleged that Davis took advantage of his youth and his status as a rookie, and supposedly speaking on behalf of a representative from Coca-Cola, Davis’s comments had induced Marinovich to sign a contract without negotiating over salary or benefits. Negligent misrepresentation involved "one who, in the course of his business, profession, or employment, or in any other transaction or business transaction or subject of a confidential or fiduciary relationship, or on the basis of special confidence reposed in him, supplies false information for the guidance of another who is prevented from doing an effective investigation." The alleged misrepresentation had to have caused the harm that the plaintiff was claiming in order for him to succeed. Marinovich’s claim was unsuccessful, but this case set the stage for the legal principles surrounding many future sports contract disputes.
Interference With Business Relatons/Contracts Team owners, coaches and agents often come into conflict with one another and have to resort to the court system to resolve their differences. One of the most recent, and perhaps high profile of these cases was the legal battle involving the Michigan State football program’s head coach, Mark Dantonio, and his former mentor, and now resident at the University of New Hampshire. In October, 2011, Dantonio sued Coach Bob Devaney for $450,000 alleging that the University of New Hampshire had created what amounted to an illegal non-compete agreement; that the contract Dantonio had with Michigan State included a provision that prohibited Devaney from hiring any former MSU staff member. Coach Dantonio succeeded in that claim. The contract dispute raised questions about the legality of non-compete agreements in the coaching industry and the tension between public and private universities. One of the more famous cases involving interference with business relations is that of Arthur Carrington, a former Cleveland Browns wide receiver. Carrington was upset that he was not given the opportunity to accept a multi-year contract, and took matters to court. He learned, however, that in the State of Ohio, an athlete who has signed a multi-year contract cannot break the contract because the team involved might offer him or her larger salaries if it were possible for them to break their contracts after the first season.
Intellectual Property Disputes in the World of Sports
The sports industry has seen its fair share of high-profile legal disputes involving intellectual property. Notable trademark cases in the 1990s involved the NCAA’s actions against retailers selling unlicensed merchandise in favor of licensed products (i.e., officially sanctioned apparel) as well as the NFL’s legal challenge to what it considered to be the "sale of counterfeit and replica jerseys." The 1970s saw landmark litigation in the realm of copyright protection with the historic MLB Players’ Association v. Nolan R. McLean Productions, Inc. case, which forged the road to allow for greater protection of player likenesses through various forms of media, especially video games.
In terms of patents, athletes have developed new technologies for enhancements to sports equipment across various platforms. New ones continue to be created, with recent examples including a golf putter and a basketball training device, aimed at providing an advantage to players in their respective sports. Developers and entrepreneurs face an uphill battle to protect their concepts while vied for on a limited budget by big companies with deep pockets and established brands.
Sports Law and Athlete Rights
Looming over every league and every athlete since time immemorial has been the specter of their rights in the workplace. Specifically, athletes have sought to bargain for improved working conditions to fit their distinct needs. Political opinions, private religious holdings and personal lifestyle choices have all found purchase in the labor market, impacting how teams and organizations receives and compensate their employees. At the same time, the question of which particular disputes are governed by which law has complicated matters further.
Take for instance Tom Brady’s recent filing against the NFL. In his quest both to obtain (again) a championship ring and recover a lost paycheck, Brady has argued that many of the actions taken by the NFL—and Commissioner Roger Goodell—were in violation of the laws that adhere to employee treatment and grievance reporting. In essence, though Commissioner Goodell may have the purview to levy punishment, he can do so towards privately-defined "conduct detrimental." Since that term is defined nowhere in the CBA, the NFLPA has sought to address the vagueness of the matter in Brady’s favor. Yet in doing so, it’s possible that they’ve addressed it not enough. The phrase conduct detrimental is repeated 10 times in the CBA, suggesting that such a term is vaguely defined at best. Attempts in the present case to define it as something like "conduct harmful to the reputation of the league" would be met with opposition, and could well put the league in the position of having to adopt a set definition. Such a definition might even mark a seminal event in league history, wherein the ability of the commissioner to mete punishment based on unrestricted discretion might be held in opposition to the interests of a player he punishes.
It might be the case that arbitration decisions are unreviewable by a court of law—and indeed, such a ruling was applied just this past year in the case of the New Orleans Saints Bounty Program. All of these questions are thorny, particularly as they have often led to public strikes between the players and the owners. The most memorable of these events came in 1998, when Major League Baseball saw its entire season wiped out due to a lockout in which both sides fought over the intensified battle for who held the most leverage. In the end, a settlement was struck, but even after the umpires, misfire calls and blow up home runs could not stabilize public perception and confidence in MLB.
In more recent years, some controversies in the labor and employment spheres have not derived from league-wide strikes and publicity, but rather from relevant cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. These seem to have more to do with defining a new kind of compromise, requiring more of the leagues than was ever asked in the past. As recently as 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education that even non-player athletes were entitled to protections under Title IX, which enabled increased access for women in education and athletics. Its application to athletes is a relatively new and controversial development, and one that could significantly change the way league balance of power is conducted.
Antitrust Litigation in Relation to League Operations
The application of antitrust laws to the operations of professional sports leagues has been subject to a great deal of litigation over the past fifty years. In these cases, plaintiffs have sought to enforce productive rivalries among leagues to foster competition as well as to promote the own objectives that are consistent with profitability.
There are often central questions in these cases such as whether a league (and league personnel) may sell a copyrighted or trademarked product (if one considers that the sports results can be protected as a brand) or whether the league can impose restrictions on other teams that foster monopoly power. A common scenario is when the league restricts the number of teams to protect its brand, or restricts the movement of teams from city to city.
As a general rule of thumb, a state or federal statute dealing with restraint of trade (such as the Sherman Antitrust Act) is typically enforced on a prohibition against unreasonable restraints of trade. The existence of reasonable restraints implicates many definitions as to what is and is not permitted, therefore allowing a great deal of room for interpretation.
Examples of various types of antitrust issues include Illinois Brick and its progeny . In the early 1970s, a number of suits were brought by plaintiffs seeking treble damages under the Sherman Act. The acts of the major leagues were challenged under bundle of rights theory, in which case it was alleged that the major leagues used their exclusive licenses to publish league statistics and to broadcast their own games to keep competitors out of the market.
Also challenged was the major leagues’ ability to restrict certain purchases by its teams as a form of collective bargaining. Likewise, there were challenges based upon the structure of financial awards in each league and the extent to which the leagues could restrict player movement and negotiate on their behalf.
Generally, many of the antitrust challenges failed based upon preemption and vestige of the labor exemption, which in essence rules that the problem that is created for competition was the product of a process of collective bargaining between the leagues and teams and the players’ union, the authority of which was not disputed. There are occasional successes in the courts, but there is the occasional chilling effect on the business practices of the leagues or individual teams.
Cases Centered on Injuries and Tort Liability in Sports
Sports injuries have often become a source of litigation, resulting in landmark cases that set widespread legal precedent. One of the earliest and most noteworthy is Simpson v. Hobart (1974), which addressed the liability of boxers, referees and promoters. At age 18, Artie Simpson was a 155-pound welterweight boxer who sustained a career-ending eye injury during a match, leading to a lawsuit against the referee and promoter for negligence. The court found for the promoter, deciding that the referee was operating under "competing and conflicting interests," i.e., helping the promoter keep public interest up by having an exciting fight regardless of the safety of the combatants. This ruling ultimately established that the promoter (in this case, the defendant) had a duty of care to the boxers, resulting in a legal standard for modern promoters to provide a safe match.
The landmark v. Baltimore Orioles (1976) case addressed the responsibility of property owners to protect spectators at sporting events, and is a must-know do to the level of detail in regards to the owner’s duty to protect. The Maryland Court of Appeals held that a spectator has a similar duty of protection from risk as they do the players, or the fans. Following the legal precedent, in 1980 a lawsuit (Looney v. Cinemus 1980) would be decided similarly in California, addressing the liability of a movie theatre for being used as an unofficial sports venue, and injuring a fan.
Controversial Cases of Discrimination and Equality in Sports
For as long as there have been sports, there have also been laws prohibiting certain individuals from competing in them. In the United States in particular, racial segregation and gender discrimination were commonplace throughout much of the twentieth century, as were laws prohibiting certain players from making a living by partaking in any sort of sporting activity. It was not until fairly recently that most of these discriminatory laws were made obsolete.
Racial Segregation
The Purdue School of Aeronautics could have denied Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard access to its program due to his race, but it didn’t. Pollard didn’t care for the fact that Purdues’ football team was segregated, though he appreciated the lack of segregation within the classroom setting. So after his first year at Purdue, Pollard transferred to Brown University, where he graduated with a degree in Sociology. While a receiver and defensive coach for the Brown football team, Pollard also made a name for himself in other ways; he was one of few African Americans to serve in World War I, and the first African American to coach a US pro football team. Following WWI, Pollard was hired as the new head coach for the Akron Pros in 1921. Pollard’s leadership helped make the Pros the first NFL champions. His work in football has been acknowledged by way of numerous accolades and honors, including induction into the Blue Dawn Club, as well as the Professional Football Hall of Fame, and he and his fellow teammates have received an annual reunion since 1998.
Gender Discrimination
In 1972, the United States passed Title IX, a landmark piece of legislation formed to improve gender equality in education. Three years later, the Act was amended so that it also covered women in educational sports. The subsequent year , however, the Act was challenged. In 1976, members of the Connecticut National Guard’s women’s basketball team, filed a lawsuit against the state for gender discrimination, in that they had been forced to accept less pay and fewer additional benefits than their male counterparts. Less than five years later, the women’s basketball team received a settlement of $1 million, paving the way for better treatment of women in college basketball. Since the enactment of Title IX, females’ participation in college sports has increased 400 percent. Others have followed suit, as the number of high school girls’ soccer and basketball teams has increased by 900 and 600 percent, respectively.
Eligibility of Immigrants
According to the NCAA website, "representatives of athletics interests are individuals or organizations that promote the institution’s athletic program through, for example, membership on an advisory council or committee or participation in promotional activities." At times, these representatives have been known to provide information that is misleading, or otherwise harms an individual’s chance of playing at the college level. In 1991, Miguel Angel "Coco" Monserrate used the NCAA’s Clearinghouse system to have his age verified, in order to have eligibility at Western Michigan University. As a direct result of being involved with a representative of athletics interests who provided him with misleading information concerning the age requirement, the Clearinghouse ruled Monserrate ineligible. Not long thereafter, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened, ruling that the NCAA penalties were inappropriate, unfair, and exceeded their authority. After a lengthy back and forth, the DOJ and the NCAA ultimately reached an agreement.