By Holt Hackney
As a litigator with nearly 30 years of experience representing public and private companies and their officers, directors, members and investors, attorney Steve Ma has become known industry wide for his work in those areas.
However, his skills in the sports and entertainment sector, and increasingly esports, may be what led him to join Saul Ewing in 2024.
There, his experience defending music publishers in licensing and copyright disputes as well as his emerging work in esports, caught the attention of the firm and it nationally known esports practice group.
To learn more about his work, we reached out to him for the following interview.
Question: How did you get your start in sports law?
Answer: I was lucky to have early opportunities as a young lawyer. I remember that one of my first assignments as a first-year associate at a law firm was to ensure that the finance department of an NFL football team was correctly complying with various court orders, including some court orders garnishing player’s wages for unpaid taxes or other reasons. Needless to say, some of my phone calls with the athletes and their agents were rather difficult because I needed to explain to them why the athlete’s paychecks were being withheld.
Q: In what ways does your current practice intersect with sports law?
A: As a business litigator, I help clients resolve disputes that arise in a wide array of sports and entertainment matters. Many times, I am able to assist clients resolve these matters even before a lawsuit has been filed with a court or an arbitrator. Oftentimes, these litigation matters have nothing to do with the athletes competing or the game itself – instead, these matters focus on the many issues that take place behind-the-scenes, including, for example, the sale and operations of a sports arena, the licensing of the music played on platforms and broadcasts, and the broadcast and distribution of sporting events.
Although these matters involve clients that are involved in sports and entertainment, they are still fundamentally rooted in contractual and/or tortious disputes. For example, I work with a client that was approached to invest in a new sports league employing a unique distribution system through web-based programming as opposed to network television broadcasts. The key issues involved in investing in a sports league are similar to issues raised in other investment opportunities – Did the sports league make material misrepresentations or omissions in its disclosure documents? Do officers and directors of the sports league owe fiduciary duties to its investors to disclose potential problems with the business? Does the “business judgment rule” protect the owners and operators from liability for a failed sports league?
Q: What are some examples of your typical clients?
A: As a member of Saul Ewing’s Sports & Entertainment Practice Group, our clients include a wide range of companies involved in the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, NASCAR, and college sports. In the esports industry, our clients include various video game publishers and esports teams.
Q: What trends are you tracking over the next few years in the Esports space?
A: We are currently seeing a good deal of litigation over video game ‘addiction’ – I think it will be interesting to see how some of those cases play out in the courts over the coming years. I also believe there will be an increased focus on gambling and daily fantasy related to the esports industry. Right now, many states are simply not set up to deal with esports wagering.
Q: What do you like most about being a lawyer in the sports and entertainment industry?
A: Constant change is what makes the sports and entertainment industry challenging and rewarding. The notion of “sports” itself is changing right now. Less than 50 years ago, professional sports in the United States was focused primarily on baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. Now new leagues such as the WNBA are getting a stronger foothold in the market. The sports industry is also adding entirely new competitions like the NBA Cup Tournament, and new esports ventures like the recently announced retooling of the NBA 2K League as a global entertainment brand. There are also entirely new competitions such as the Drone Racing League, which had events broadcasted on NBC, ESPN, and Twitter. As new technology and new media platforms continue to develop, the way we play sports, watch sports, and enjoy sports will continue to change.
