By Drew Schott
As Senior Vice President and Senior Media Counsel at the National Football League (NFL), Lee Goldsmith has witnessed firsthand how the evolution of technology is impacting the league’s media operations. He demonstrated these developments with a small, yet powerful, gesture: holding up a phone.
“When I was at (MLB Advanced Media), it felt revolutionary to put a Phillies-Rays game on one of these,” Goldsmith said. “It honestly felt like this landmark, watershed thing and now, there’s nothing live that you can’t watch on one of these. The quality with which you can watch it has increased by a force multiplier.”
Goldsmith’s remarks came on April 11 during the “Sports General Counsel and In-House Counsel” panel of the Tulane Entertainment & Sports Law Conference. The discussion was moderated by Scott Wilkinson – Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of the Atlanta Hawks – and featured insight from Goldsmith, Wilkinson and Curtis Franks, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the FIFA World Cup 2026 (World Cup).
Goldsmith currently manages a team that specializes in matters including the NFL’s relationship with broadcasters, production issues, international media and NFL+, the league’s direct-to-consumer streaming service. As the entity responsible for handling legal and business affairs for the NFL’s media-related units, Goldsmith’s group addresses affairs including the legal implications of the league’s game packages and live game agreements with television networks and digital platforms in the United States and across the globe.
Additionally, Goldsmith mentioned the rise of digital licensing, as the NFL currently has deals with Reddit, TikTok, X and YouTube among other platforms, developments that Goldsmith linked to the league’s continuing attempts to reach new fans. He connected this to the league’s goal of engaging these individuals and making them avid supporters of the NFL “so that they keep coming back.”
“Back when MLB.com was first starting to grow as a start-up, it felt like such a lower ceiling,” Goldsmith said. “It felt like streaming a game, that was it. It felt like modernizing the fantasy interface so that you could get highlights in your app for your own players, that was it. Now, it feels so much more infinite. Frankly, it feels as though there’s more of an ability for events, there’s more of an ability for teams and there’s more of an ability for leagues to customize and personalize that experience.”
Franks shared that because media rights for the World Cup were sold years in advance, he and his team do not handle broadcasting matters on a “day-to-day basis.” Rather, the World Cup’s legal unit is embarking on ancillary content agreements with YouTube and other social media platforms. Even though these sites are not carrying the actual matches themselves, they will provide content directly from the pitch including player interactions.
Wilkinson also discussed that the Hawks are addressing media-related legal matters outside of traditional broadcast agreements, including contracts with influencers.
Franks soon spoke about the importance of lawyers understanding their companies’ business models, as “the legal function is much more integrated into the business culture” of organizations. He believes this knowledge has led to individuals on the client side of agreements to increasingly view sports legal professionals “as a partner.”
Wilkinson expressed a similar sentiment, stating that he has become “more of a strategic business advisor” as his career has progressed and provides advice to the Hawks’ chief executive officer. He and his legal team service over 1,000 clients and help solve issues affecting individuals “from the owner to somebody (working) as a part-time security guard.”
“I do have a lot of folks that ask me questions because I’ve been around 27 years and I’ve seen everything four or five times,” Wilkinson said. “So, they can ask me what happened last time and I can say, ‘You can still do it, but this is what we did, and this is why this thing failed.’ If I do that in the right way, people will come to me and ask me. Then, I’m not just the person who says, ‘Oh, that won’t work.’ I can’t be that guy. I have to continually come up with new ideas and ways to solve problems. If you do that… if you come back with a couple good ideas, then you’ll be invited in to be one of their strategic legal and business advisors.”
Meanwhile, Goldsmith noted a rise in individuals working in sports business roles with legal backgrounds. He added that while most of the NFL’s Legal Department works on the seventh floor of the league office, his unit operates on the fifth floor alongside the media business units of the league including broadcasting and media strategy. This has enabled “more of an understanding of the role that lawyers can play,” since a member of the NFL’s media unit can stop by the offices of Goldsmith and his lawyers to discuss a proposed term sheet with a partner among other matters.
Before the World Cup, Franks worked as the Associate General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This role required him to understand new and consistently shifting developments, as he dealt with issues relating to name, image and likeness, transfer rules and the NCAA v. Alston case.
“You have to have a touchpoint,” Franks said. “It’s our job as lawyers to see around corners and no matter how old you are, you have to keep yourself plugged into what things are happening. You need to explain what these new trends mean and what these new things are because your job is to see around the corner.”
Goldsmith followed Franks’ remarks by stating that the NFL is trying to stay ahead in matters including licensing rights. He explained that the league is attempting to “make sure that we’re holding the right things back so that we can go have something to give when the next platform starts.” The NFL’s franchises play a role in these developments, according to Goldsmith, because they are looking to reach and build their fanbases.
Another legal issue discussed by the lawyers was enforcing clean zones, areas around sporting events designed to protect the exclusivity of event sponsors by limiting unauthorized advertising and certain practices such as ambush marketing by companies not affiliated with the event. Franks acknowledged that FIFA is “very aggressive” in enforcing clean zones and that stadiums will have all third-party advertising removed, including competitive branding to FIFA’s sponsors and partners.
Wilkinson shared that State Farm Arena – the Hawks’ home venue – is located in the middle of a clean zone, while Goldsmith shared that NFL lawyers work with the league’s event team, security and law enforcement in the host city of the Super Bowl to set up a clean zone ahead of the league’s championship game. Goldsmith added that the NFL’s development of clean zones is evolving amidst the different games and events held by the league.
“As we do newer types of bigger events – the draft… in Pittsburgh is a great example of this and our international games continue to grow and multiply – those are the types of things where the people that run our events are forced to figure out a clean zone for something that’s totally different than something they’ve been doing year after year after year,” Goldsmith said. “That’s why it’s an emerging space and the sponsorship business, rightfully, has a focus on it because of the fact that it’s a real, 3D way to ambush market.”
Events, “Sports General Counsel and In-House Counsel,” Tulane Entertainment & Sports Law Conference, (April 11, 2026), https://eslawconference.wp.tulane.edu/schedule-2026-draft/.
Drew Schott is a J.D. Candidate at Tulane University Law School. He served as a Staff Writer for The Sports Lawyer Monthly during the 2025-26 academic year.
