Sports law presents a built-in teaching challenge. The field itself evolves quickly—courts are almost constantly addressing questions about athlete rights, institutional liability, gender equity, labor relations, and league authority. Yet the primary teaching tool in many classrooms remains the textbook, which is effectively frozen in time at the moment it is published.
This creates a gap between how sports law is taught and how it is actually experienced in practice. By the time a case appears in a textbook, the legal and business landscape surrounding it may have already shifted. For students preparing to enter the industry, that lag can make it difficult to connect doctrine to the realities they will face.
Sports Litigation Alert (SLA) was designed, at least in part, to address that disconnect. Published biweekly, it tracks current litigation across professional, collegiate, and amateur sports through case summaries, legal analysis, Q&As, and an archive that stretches back years.
A recent survey of SLA subscriber-educators finds it showing up in syllabi at institutions across the country, in ways that have expanded well beyond reading and discussion. Some professors have stopped assigning a textbook altogether and made SLA the primary course material. Other professors assign SLA as supplemental material or as personal reading material for students to stay aware of sports law updates to prepare themselves for future careers.
Why It Works
Respondents were asked what they find most valuable about SLA and the answers consistently pointed to one thing: its timeliness
“The world of sports is ever changing,” Professor Taren Moore of East Carolina University wrote. “Our textbook provides precedent and case law for several policies and rules that are in place. SLA provides students with the opportunity to see how these policies/rules are handled in the current landscape.”
As another professor simply put: “Real-time, real-world examples of what’s happening in sports [law].”
This focus on real-time application is not new. Prior work on sport law pedagogy has emphasized the importance of moving students beyond simply understanding doctrine and toward applying it in practical settings. As one professor explained, tools like SLA allow students to engage with “real life, timely application of legal theories” and develop the ability to think on their feet when working through unresolved disputes.
In practice, that shift often shows up in how academics structure their classrooms. Professors describe incorporating mock trials, group-based case analysis, and exercises that require students to take positions on active disputes—forcing them to apply legal principles as they would in practice rather than simply identifying them in hindsight.
The case summaries themselves drew consistent praise—described as “excellent with good depth”—and several respondents noted that SLA adds context to classroom topics in ways a textbook cannot.
Accessibility also emerged as a key advantage. Professor Rachel Silverman from the University of Nebraska Kearney noted that “undergraduate students find the case summaries easy to read and understand,” particularly compared to traditional casebooks. SLA effectively does the translation work, allowing instructors to spend less time decoding legal language and more time developing legal reasoning.
Adjunct Professor Carla Varriale-Barker of Columbia University writes, “The Alert is a valuable practice and educational tool, I depend on it to be kept abreast of developments across the country. As a sports law professor. It is the perfect tool to engage your students,” she said. “It is written in a way that undergraduate and graduate students can understand it, while at the same time delivering enough substance that I think it is a resource for lawyers.”
Ten Ways Professors Are Using SLA in the Classroom
The survey asked respondents to describe how they incorporate SLA into their courses. Their responses reflect a range of approaches, but all share a common goal: connecting legal concepts to real-world current application.
- Textbook Replacement – Some instructors, like Professor Elizabeth Galloway of Stetson, assign SLA in place of a traditional textbook. The subject matter quarterly publications and accessible format with the archive make it viable as a standalone resource, particularly at the undergraduate level. Professor Galloway shared her syllabus here.
- Supplemental Reading – The most common approach. Casebooks provide foundational doctrine; SLA provides what has happened since. Students read current issues alongside traditional assignments, connecting doctrine to live developments. Former Professor Linda Sharp states, “although a great sport law text is an important aspect, the law is so dynamic that we need a reliable source for timely updates with cases and analysis. SLA provides those updates.” Professor Galloway also makes reading assignments, which she graciously shared an example of here.
- Mock Trials – Professor Steve McKelvey of the University of Massachusetts uses SLA to structure in-class mock trials where students argue current sports law disputes. Teams represent plaintiffs and defendants, submit legal briefs using SLA and its archives, and present arguments and rebuttals before the class. The exercise builds legal research, writing, and oral advocacy skills while requiring students to apply doctrine to active, unresolved cases. (See full exercise description here: Pedagogy in Sport Law Classes: Using Sports Litigation Alert Effectively and Creatively)
- Class Discussion Driver – Instructors, including Professor Topher Davis of University of La Verne, assign recent cases or articles and use them to anchor in-class discussion, often tying directly to course topics.
- Polling Exercise – Professor Gary Chester of Montclair State University wrote, “I reference cases and take a student poll on what the outcome should be.” Presenting the facts of a real case and asking students to predict the outcome allows them to apply legal doctrine in real time.
- Current Events – Several professors structure dedicated current-event conversations around SLA content, either in small groups or full-class settings, encouraging engagement with ongoing disputes.
- Research Papers and Case Comparisons – SLA’s archive allows students to track how similar legal issues evolve across multiple cases, making it especially useful for written assignments. As Professor Brian Crow of Slippery Rock University explained, “Students, generally in groups of two, must research a broad legal topic area, putting it into historical perspective, showing current examples of its application, and projecting how they will be able to use this knowledge in their careers. I encourage them to use the SLA archives as a resource and a starting point, although many (to their regret) choose to conduct Google or other Internet searches first.”
- Take Home Assignments – Some professors use SLA as the basis for structured take-home assignments that require students to engage more deeply with recent cases and articles. Professor Ted Curtis of Lynn University has students select recent SLA court-decision articles across different segments of the sports industry and evaluate both the legal holding and its broader fairness, governance, and justice implications. Dr. Silverman of the University Nebraska -Kearney takes a similar approach. “In the assignments, students must find an SLA article related to a case we talked about recently involving negligence, Title IX, etc. They summarize that case, then find a similar case on SLA and compare the outcomes of the cases. They discuss what was similar and different in each of these cases and the court’s decision.” Dr. Silverman provided her syllabus here and assignment example here.
- Final Project Resource – Professor Anthony Giacobbe assigns a final project requiring students to analyze a pending sports law dispute. “SLA is a great source for helping them select and learn about the case.”
- Career Development Tool – Several professors frame SLA not as just coursework, but as a professional habit. Giacobbe stated, “I advise students that they need to be on top of sports news for their careers and that [SLA] is a fantastic publication that gives them more in-depth information than they will get from other sources.”
What the Numbers Show
When asked how they integrate SLA, professors most frequently selected class discussion prompts and combined in-class and homework assignments. Supplemental reading and research-based uses were also widely cited.
In terms of content, case summaries, Q&As, and quarterly publications were the most commonly assigned components, while a significant number of instructors also incorporated the archive for deeper research.
The variation reflects how instructors are tailoring SLA to their course goals—some emphasizing immediacy, others leveraging its historical depth. One respondent teaching an asynchronous online course noted that students “enjoy finding an article that interests them each month and then responding to their peers,” suggesting the material resonates beyond required assignments.
Where Things Stand
The professors in this survey are preparing students for a sports industry actively being reshaped by litigation. NIL cases are redefining the economics of college athletics. Courts are grappling with whether student-athletes should be classified as employees. State gambling laws continue to shift.
A traditional casebook cannot keep pace with those developments in real time.
Instructors who have built SLA into their courses are giving students something a textbook cannot: exposure to the law as it is actively developing. As one respondent put it, SLA is “very timely” and “adds more context to topics we cover in class.” In a field where many of the biggest questions are still being worked out, that kind of context matters.
Instructors can explore taking a subscription to the Alert by visiting https://sportslitigationalert.com/subscriptions/
