New Sports Illustrated Column: Were the Cubs Justified to Place Carlos Zambrano on the Disqualified List?

Here is my take for SI on the Cubs taking the unique step of disqualifying Carlos Zambrano from its team after the pitcher cleaned out his locker during the middle of last Friday night's game between the Cubs and Braves and told teammates he was done playing baseball.

Age Rules (and Age Fraud) in Women's Gymnastics

Andrea Eagleman and I collaborated on a paper that was recently published in the University of Baltimore Law Review. A working paper version can be found on SSRN here. The initial impetus for the article was to analyze gymnastics’ minimum age rule from an antitrust perspective. However, the research quickly morphed into the policy-related issue of age fraud in sports. Age fabrication was a high-profile issue during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and will likely be a part of next year’s Olympics as well. For example, the entire North Korean women’s gymnastics team has been banned from the 2012 London Olympics because of rampant state-sponsored age fraud. In most sports, athletes falsify their age downward. The reverse is true in women’s gymnastics, where gymnasts (in concert with their coaches and/or national federations) manipulate their age upward, purporting to be older than they actually are. An excerpt from our conclusion is below:

While gymnastics’ current minimum age rule would likely survive an antitrust challenge, the rule’s policy impact has been profound in two distinct ways, both negative. First, as predicted by Bela Karolyi, the enactment of the current age rule has helped usher in an era of increased corruption related to age fabrication. As the recent cases in China and North Korea evidence, the nefarious conduct reached governmental levels, where officials knowingly altered documents to further the fraud. Second, the countries that falsify such documents as a way to circumvent the age rule have created an unlevel playing field vis-à-vis those countries that follow the rule.

Scorekeeping: Tracking Subconscious Racism in Baseball

The following is a guest post is from Adam Felder and Seth Amitin and it concerns their fascinating new project Scorekeeping: Tracking Subconscious Racism in Baseball.

 * * *

We all talk about the performance of baseball players and our language permeates through every limb of the sport--the media, the fans, the players, the front offices, the public relations department, and so on. While these discussions often reference countable statistics such as home runs, batting average, and strikeouts, they also reference intangible characteristics that cannot be listed on the back of a baseball card. Descriptors such as “scrappy,” “hustling,” or “plays the game the right way” are bandied about despite there being no way of actually measuring these qualities.

Anecdotally, these intangible descriptors seem to be used disproportionately to describe white baseball players, while equally intangible pejorative terms (“lazy,” “lackadaisical,” “clubhouse cancer”) seem to be used to describe players of color.

Our study, “Scorekeeping: Tracking Subconscious Racism in Baseball” seeks to analyze the use of both complimentary and pejorative adjectives to look for any systematic racism present in baseball announcing. The study is being conducted by Seth Amitin, editor of DingersBlog.com, and Adam Felder, a social sciences PhD candidate at the University of Virginia.

Specifically, the study will analyze roughly 900 televised baseball broadcasts over a 30-day period—30 observers each watching 30 games and coding each incident of an announcer using an intangible adjective to describe a player.  Analysis will cite, amongst other things, the race of the player, the race of the announcer, the intangible adjective used, and the game situation in which the incident occurred. After compiling the data, analysis will be conducted to determine whether, all else equal, the use of these descriptors is linked to race.

Our team would very much appreciate assistance in completing the study. Specifically, there are two ways in which you could help:

1.)   Donate to our fundraising page on KickStarter. At the time of this writing, we are nearly 80% of the way to our goal. Should we end up overfunded, we can expand our scope beyond television broadcasts and begin to focus on radio and print as well.

2.) Volunteer to watch 30 days’ worth of one team’s games and code each incident. Our team will provide instructions for coding and a pre-formatted spreadsheet with which to code. Please note that it is almost certain that the 30-day window will include games that have already been played; you will need to be able to watch these games as well (an MLB.tv account is probably the easiest way to accomplish this). Upon completion of scoring the 30 day window, you would receive a small stipend for your efforts. If interested in data collection, please email Adam Felder (amf5ka@virginia.edu) or Seth Amitin (sethamitin@gmail.com)

Please feel free to contact either of the researchers should you have further questions.

New Sports Law Scholarship

Recently published scholarship includes:

David Adelsberg, Note, Did the MLBPA strike out? An analysis of union liability in Major League Baseball’s anonymous 2003 steroid testing, 28 CARDOZO ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 695 (2011)



F. Gibbons Addison, Note, A proposed wealth distribution system based on the underlying premise of revenue sharing in American pro sports, 89 TEXAS LAW REVIEW 1179 (2011)



Vikram David Amar, The NCAA as regulator, litigant, and state actor, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 415 (2011)



Andrew D. Appleby, Leveling the playing field: a separate tax regime for international athletes, 36 BROOKLYN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 605 (2011)



Carlos E. Bacalao-Fleury, Note, Brazil’s Olympic trials: an overview of the intellectual property challenges posed by the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, 2011 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS JOURNAL OF LAW TECHNOLOGY & POLICY 191



Jesse A. Bland, Note, There will be blood...testing: the intersection of professional sports and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, 13 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT & TECHNOLOGY LAW 357 (2011)



Joseph R. Brubaker & Michael W. Kulikowski, A sporting chance? The Court of Arbitration for Sport regulates arbitrator-counsel role switching, 10 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 1 (2010)



Van Ann Bui, Note, Varsity blues: a call to reconfigure the judicial standard for high school athletic association transfer rules, 34 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF LAW & ARTS 231 (2011)



Erin E. Buzuvis, The feminist case for the NCAA’s recognition of competitive cheer as an emerging sport for women, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 439 (2011)



Matt Carter, Note, Punting on logic: the Roberts Court to sack small business once again in American Needle v. NFL, 30 LOYOLA LOS ANGELES ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW 477 (2010)



Jessica Constance Caggiano, Note, Girls don’t just wanna have fun: moving past Title IX’s contact sports exception, 72 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH LAW REVIEW 119 (2010)



Tyler C. Haslam, Comment, Leveling the playing field: using rational basis with a bite as means of overcoming the NCAA’s violation of equal protection, 37 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 283 (2011)



Darren Heitner & Jeffrey F. Levine, Corking the Cam Newton Loophole, a Sweeping Suggestion, 2 HARVARD JOURNAL OF SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW 342 (2010)



Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Hurricane warning flag for Olympic sports: compliance practices in Biediger v. Quinnipiac University signal a risk to women’s and men’s Olympic sports, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 465-491 (2011)



Justin Hunt, Why single is better: the implications of a multi-entity ruling on revenue sharing and the NFL salary cap, 10 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 17 (2010)



Lee A. Linderman, Note, A congressional carve out: the necessity for uniform application of professional sports leagues’ performance-enhancing drug policies, 84 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW 751 (2011)



Joseph P. Liu, Sports merchandising, publicity rights, and the missing role of the sports fan, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 493 (2011)



David Mark, Comment, Taking one for the team: the persistent abuse of eminent domain in sports stadium construction, 5 FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 781 (2010)



Michael A. McCann, Antitrust, governance, and postseason college football, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 517 (2011)



David H. Mincberg, Note, Guns, collective bargaining and moral turpitude: Gilbert Arenas and the National Basketball Association, 10 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 43 (2010)



Damon Moore, Proposals for reform to agent regulations, 59 DRAKE LAW REVIEW 517 (2011)



Ryan Murphy, Note, Playing fair in the boardroom: an examination of the corporate structures of European football clubs, 19 MICHIGAN STATE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 409 (2011)



Blaine V. Roche, Congressional involvement in professional sports’ drug-testing policies: get involved but don’t infringe, 4 PHOENIX LAW REVIEW 489 (2010)



Nicolas Saenz, Note, Sports franchise bankruptcy: a new way for team owners to escape league control? , 10 VIRGINIA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT LAW JOURNAL 63 (2010)



Raheel Saleem, Comment, The Olympic meddle: the International Olympic Committee’s intrusion of athletes’ privacy through the discriminatory practice of gender verification testing, 28 JOHN MARSHALL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER & INFORMATION LAW 49 (2010)



Ayelet Shachar, Picking winners: Olympic citizenship and the global race for talent, 120 YALE LAW JOURNAL 2088 (2011)



Shannon K. Stevens, Comment, Baseball’s DNA testing policy strikes out: genetic discrimination in Major League Baseball, 412 SETON HALL LAW REVIEW 813 (2011)



Kelly M. Vaughn, Note, First and goal: how the NFL’s personal conduct policy complies with federal antitrust law, 96 CORNELL LAW REVIEW 609 (2011)



John R. Wallace, Note, Discriminatory & disparaging team names, logos, & mascots: workable challenges & the misapplication of the doctrine of laches, 12 RUTGERS RACE & THE LAW REVIEW 203 (2011)



Maureen A. Weston, NCAA sanctions: assigning blame where it belongs, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 551 (2011)



Alfred C. Yen, Early scholarship offers and the NCAA, 52 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 585 (2011)

NBA TV Interview on NBA filing charge with NLRB and lawsuit with federal district court

I was interviewed on NBA TV a couple of days ago by Dennis Scott and Matt Winer to discuss the NBA filing an unfair labor practices charge with the NLRB and a lawsuit with a federal district court, both directed at the Players' Association.

In Defense of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption

A draft of my latest law review article, In Defense of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption, which may be of interest to some readers, is now available to be downloaded for free from SSRN. Here is the article's abstract:

This Article challenges the overwhelming scholarly consensus opposing baseball’s historic antitrust exemption on policy grounds by providing the first comprehensive defense of the exemption. The Article does so by advancing two primary arguments: first, it argues that the common criticisms of the baseball exemption are largely without merit. Specifically, given the treatment of the other major professional sports leagues under antitrust law, simply exposing baseball to antitrust liability alone will not yield the benefits that the exemption’s critics believe, and in some cases would actually harm the public interest.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Article argues that the existing literature has overlooked significant pro-competitive benefits that result from baseball’s antitrust exemption. Specifically, because baseball is loath to lose its exemption legislatively, Congress has been able to use threats of revocation to help extract a variety of valuable concessions from Major League Baseball (MLB). These concessions provide pro-competitive benefits that would not have been directly obtained through antitrust litigation alone. Perhaps most notably, every single round of league expansion in MLB history has been directly preceded by a Congressional threat to revoke the sport’s antitrust exemption. Therefore, baseball’s antitrust exemption provides Congress with considerable leverage over the sport, ultimately leading to significant, but heretofore overlooked, pro-competitive benefits for the public.

Thus, this Article rejects the existing scholarly consensus, and concludes that baseball’s antitrust exemption ultimately has a net pro-competitive effect.

The draft article can be accessed here. Any comments or feedback on the draft would be much appreciated.

Is the NBA Lockout about Class Warfare?

Is the NBA lockout really about class warfare between owners and labor?  In an upcoming article in The Nation, Ari Paul considers that question.