Sports Litigation Alert Current Issue

By Jeff Birren, Senior Writer Shyler Drumm was severely injured by a classmate. His parents had previously complained to the football coach about the harassment Drumm was receiving from teammates. The coach told the players to stop bullying Drumm because his mother...

By Gina McKlveen, Esq. What do a former art professor and a prior head women’s basketball coach have in common? According to a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the answer is that neither have a private right of action for...

By Katelyn Kohler Branding and trademarks are essential elements for any new company, especially when it comes to naming teams and creating unique identities. For any business looking to secure a niche in the market, securing trademark rights early is crucial to...

By Mark D. Shirian. Esq. (Editor’s Note: Shirian is the attorney representing the plaintiff in the case.) Connor Calkins, a promising Division I wrestler at Binghamton University, entered collegiate athletics with aspirations of excelling at the highest level....

A Connecticut state court judge has granted a facility owner’s motion to dismiss the negligence claim of a plaintiff, who was participating in a hockey game when he was injured by another player, which led him to sue the facility owner. Plaintiff Peter Maro was...

By Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D., Senior Writer and Professor, Sports Media, Ithaca College, staurows@ithaca.edu As U.S. President Donald J. Trump returns to the White for a second term of office, uncertainties loom large in terms of the status of existing Title IX...

By Dan Cohen and Jennifer L. F. Cohen In the waning days of the Biden administration on January 16, 2025, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education (OCR) issued a Fact Sheet to “clarify” how Title IX will apply to universities’ name, image and...

By Joseph M. Ricco IV Six former Florida State University basketball players have filed a lawsuit against head coach Leonard Hamilton, alleging he failed to fulfill verbal promises of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) payments totaling $1.5 million. The players claim...

By Mark Geday and Samson Brill, of Morgan Lewis Following the successful takeover of Premier League club Everton by a US acquiror in December last year, eleven of the twenty clubs in the Premier League, the highest level of English football’s league system, are now...

By John Wendt On February 19, 2023, at 3:51 of the second period of the Adrian College – Michigan State American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) hockey game, Sydney Crawford of MSU was assessed a major penalty and given a game misconduct for Checking from...

By Charles Keller A legal case in Rockwall County, Texas, highlights serious concerns about negligence in high school athletics. Valencia Smith, representing her minor child, G.A., has filed a lawsuit against several coaches at Rockwall-Heath High School, alleging...

The Sports and Recreation Law Association (SRLA) has announced that Chance Miller, the Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and University Recreation at Coastal Carolina University, will be its keynote speaker for the 38th annual SRLA Conference, being held...

Venable LLP has announced that partners Desirée Moore and Ben Stockman have been named co-leaders of the firm’s Sports Law team. Their appointment marks “a pivotal step in formalizing Venable’s deep bench of sports law attorneys, who collectively have decades of...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that it filed charges against Florida-based Xtreme Fighting Championships, Inc. (Xtreme Fighting) and its CEO, Steve A. Smith, Jr., for allegedly engaging in a fraudulent scheme to illegally sell large amounts of...

The Minnesota Twins announced the following senior leadership transition at the beginning of 2025 – Senior Vice President, General Counsel Mary Giesler transition to the role of Special Council; and Vice President, while Deputy General Counsel Mari Guttman was...

Sungho Cho is an Associate Professor at Bowling Green State University, where he teaches sport law classes in undergraduate and graduate sport management programs at the University. Highly respected among the membership of the Sports and Recreation Law Association, we...

A new NCAA survey of the gambling behaviors of more than 20,000 student-athletes has provided an in-depth view into how the quickly changing sports betting landscape in the U.S. is impacting those who play NCAA sports.  Even with the proliferation of legal sports...

People who suffer from continued symptoms of concussion should seek a referral to physical therapy as soon as possible, new research from Oregon Health & Science University suggests. Even though most people naturally recover from concussions within four weeks, the...