Football

Is Tim Tebow in the Super Best Friends?

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Readers, please buckle your seatbelts and prepare to be astounded, because I am about to talk to you about football. Yes, I know — football and breasts don’t normally mix (hello, Ines Sainz) – but Elie, who would usually write about football and the law, is pulling me from the JV squad and letting me stand in as quarterback for this post. Let’s hope I don’t get sacked.

Speaking of quarterbacks, today we’re going to be talking about everyone’s favorite Heisman trophy winner, Gator-turned-Bronco Tim Tebow. Although Tebow is a relatively squeaky-clean guy, he has had his fair share of controversy in his football career.

Tebow, who was notorious for writing bible verses on his eye black, is rumored to have brought about the NCAA’s decision to propose the “Tebow Rule,” which banned college football players from displaying any messages on their eye black. Tebow also endured some major backlash after appearing in an anti-abortion ad sponsored by Focus on the Family which aired during Super Bowl XLIV.

Given that Tebow is the NFL’s equivalent of Dudley Do-Right, you wouldn’t expect that he’d be implicated in any sort of legal wrongdoing. But Tebow must have been a very bad boy and neglected his prayers during the Bronco’s bye week, because this week, he was named in a Florida restraining order request. You’ll never guess who his alleged co-conspirators are…

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How to Take Down the BCS? The Same Way We Got Capone: Tax Law

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I have friends who support the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) as an effective non-playoff means for determining the national champion of college football. These friends say that the BCS preserves the sanctity of the college football season (“Every game is a playoff”). They say it gives power conferences (like the Southeastern Confederacy and the Big Oil Alumni conferences) their due for their consistently tough conference schedules. And they say (somewhat counter-intuitively but almost certainly true) that a playoff system favors the team that gets hot at the right time, not the team that was the best in college football over the course of the season. They don’t say that the current system is perfect, but they don’t view a playoff as inherently better just because the champion will be decided “on the field” after a tournament.

Of course, these friends are elitist, anti-competitive pricks who support BCS teams and use their lawyer skills to avoid punishment from bar fights they start when their teams get their asses kicked.

Me, I’m a man of the people. Okay, not really. But I am a man who stands against the ridiculous accumulation of wealth by a cherished few. The BCS is just a huge pot of money that only a few conferences and athletic directors have access to. And as long as multimillion-dollar boondoggles are being thrown around, I think everybody should have a shot at getting in on the action.

Of course, it’s really hard to get rich people to give up some of their money for the greater good of a larger community. They won’t do it willingly. Thankfully, this is why God invented tax law. Our brother-from-another-mother, Caleb Newquist of Going Concern, explains how a political action committee is trying to use the tax code to stop the BCS….

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Are You Ready for Some Fantasy Football?

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You know fantasy football has taken over the American consciousness when a fake lawyer threatening fake sanctions in an ad campaign makes the news. This morning the ABA Journal ran a profile of Norman Tugwater, a fantasy sports lawyer played by Gary Busey:

“I’m getting ready to clean up with the mop of justice,” Tugwater proclaims in his YouTube video. “If you refuse to pay our athletes, we’ll come find you, and squeeze it out of you like a tube of toothpaste.”

Tugwater is actually actor Gary Busey, and his video is part of an ad campaign for VitaminWater. “I don’t think twice about coming after fantasy owners. In fact, I rarely think at all,” he writes on Twitter. He continues the taunts on Facebook, where he proclaims, “I wrote the book on fantasy sports law. I also have the only copy.”

That’s right, America is so into fantasy football that Gary Busey is getting work.

I’ve kept my head in the sand regarding fantasy football for a long time. But I can’t ignore it any longer. Let Gary Busey inspire you up below, and then join in ATL’s first reader-only fantasy football league…

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Sports and the Law: Supreme Court Rules the NFL Is Not a Single Entity

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Above the Law has regularly blogged about why the National Football League should not be treated as a single entity under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. See here, here, and here.

Today the Supreme Court agreed, ruling 9-0 to overturn the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in American Needle v. Nat’l Football League , in which the Seventh Circuit had held the NFL clubs sometimes exempt from Section 1 review.

In a concise, 23-page opinion (PDF), the Supreme Court explained that the NFL is not a single entity because “the NFL teams do not possess either the unitary decisionmaking quality or the single aggregation of economic power characteristic of independent action.”

This case will now be remanded to the Northern District of Illinois for further discovery and then review of its antitrust merits under the Rule of Reason. (More detailed discussions of the issues on remand are available here and here).

Additional analysis and background, after the jump.

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Career Alternatives for Attorneys: Football Coach

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We’ve written before about how cheerleading for football teams is a possible career for J.D.s, but what about coaching football teams? A Detroit Lions assistant secondary coach, Daron Roberts, has done just that. The Harvard Law graduate and former Biglaw attorney is coaching in the NFL, notwithstanding the fact that he had no prior coaching experience before he left Biglaw behind. ESPN the Magazine reports:

Roberts got the bug when he tagged along with a friend who was working as a counselor at Steve Spurrier’s prep camp in South Carolina. He had long been a gridiron fanatic; in high school, he spent twice as many hours at football practice as he did studying. But working at Spurrier’s camp, he began to entertain thoughts of becoming the next Jon Gruden (whose book, Do You Love Football?!, was a big hit with Roberts). Something inside the law student changed during those three days. “The best part was sitting with the campers at night,” Roberts says. “Our talks would switch from zone technique to girlfriends. That’s when I realized football is the most powerful conduit for reaching young men in America, and that I had to be a coach.”

You’ll forgive me if I feel a little kindred connection with Roberts. Here’s a guy who had a law degree and a high-paying job and gave it up to pursue something he truly loved. His story is further proof that you can break out of the Biglaw box, if you want it badly enough…

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Sports and the Law: Will Ben Roethlisberger’s NFL Suspension Stand?

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On Wednesday, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger became the first NFL player never charged or convicted of any crime to be suspended  under the NFL Personal Conduct Policy.  According to Commissioner Roger Goodell, the decision to suspend Roethlisberger was the result of  “some bad decisions” that Roethlisberger made in recent weeks, which emerged during the Georgia police’s investigation of him for sexual assault.

Allegations of sexual assault are not to be taken lightly.  However, not all such allegations are true.  See, e.g., the Duke Lacrosse scandal.  And whether Roger Goodell even has the power to suspend a player where no criminal wrongdoing is found is questionable. The issue depends entirely upon how one interprets a few important clauses in the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement…

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Tulane Cancels Class Tomorrow: Students Free to Party With The Saints

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Thumbnail image for Bobby Herbert dress.JPGI lived in Indiana for 13 months and 9 days (not that I was counting), so last night’s Super Bowl was a little bit disappointing. The night featured the return of the Manning Face, the ads were pretty boring (I did like the Auto-Tune one, Kash liked Google). A game between the two best offenses in the league came down to a defensive touchdown and (arguably) the best special teams play of all time.
Oh yeah, and the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. That warm fuzzy goodness you feel about the Saints winning for their city totally redeems every slightly annoying thing that happened last night.
The Saints get back to town tomorrow, and it should be obvious that the city will shut down to celebrate. And chances are, they’ll not really be getting back to work until Ash Wednesday.
Tulane Law School knows that its students like to party. And the administration won’t stand in the way. Tulane is shutting down tomorrow.
I just hope the Tulane Law students don’t try to make off with the Lombardi Trophy.
Check out the beautiful message from Tulane’s president after the jump. And Geaux Saints!

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Morning Docket 02.08.10

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Superbowl Saints victory.jpg* Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred was not a fan of the Focus on the Family anti-abortion Super Bowl ad. [Orlando Sentinel]
* ABA President Carolyn Lamm is making big efforts to improve loan assistance for law students — and is making no effort to follow sports. “I don’t even know who’s playing,” she said on Saturday of the Super Bowl. Who dat? [ABA Journal]
* Oops, did we just say “Super Bowl”? We meant to say “Big Game.” [New York Times]
* California law to release inmates early to ease prison overcrowding causes mayhem (among lawmakers). [Associated Press]
* Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, who will decide the constitutionality of Proposition 8, has been officially outed, though his sexuality has never been under wraps. [San Francisco Chronicle]
* Race and gender matter. [ABA Journal]

New Orleans, I Love You, But Y’all Need To Calm Down

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Bobby Herbert dress.JPGThis whole “the New Orleans Saints are in the Super Bowl” thing is starting to get a little out of hand. First of all, that picture to the right is of a man in a dress. Not just any man, that’s Bobby Hebert, former Saints quarterback and current Saints broadcaster, in a dress. It’s a tribute to bats**t craziness legendary Saints broadcaster, Buddy Diliberto, and there were hundreds of men dressed in drag to celebrate … football.
And this craziness has been well documented by a New Orleans legal system that has garned national attention. Remember the judge who took judicial notice of “Saintsmania”? That’s the kind of story that is pretty standard for Above the Law, but you can imagine our surprise when producers for ESPN called us asking for a copy of the order.
Then we had a story about the NFL claiming ownership of the phrase “Who Dat.” I figured that would garner some attention, but I didn’t expect Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, both Louisiana U.S. Senators, and most of Louisiana’s Congressional delegation to all start screaming at the NFL.
In a rare move, the NFL caved under the enormous pressure. WDSU 6 reports:

Initially, the NFL said shop owners would have to pay for the right to sell Who Dat stuff. But now it seems the NFL has backed off the position, saying they don’t own the right to “Who Dat” when it’s by itself. The issue is when the phrase is paired with an NFL or Saints logo. …
U.S. David Vitter also chimed in again Monday, sending out a statement.
“The Senator is pleased that the NFL is already coming off its original position. However, he is continuing to demand that the NFL drop any claim on the phrase Who Dat under any circumstances and will be sending a more detailed letter to the NFL Monday,” said Joel DiGrado, Vitter spokesman.

You know, if we could harness this kind of uprising, we could probably get the NFL to do something about its horrible overtime system.
The lesson is that the people in New Orleans take partying with the Saints very seriously.
And today we’re learning that this didn’t just start with the Saints Super Bowl appearance. The legal system was cowering to Saintsmania during the NFC Championship game as well.

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Who Dat Sey Dey Own Dat Chant?

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Who Dat chips.JPGBack when I used to practice law, I had the opportunity to do some low-level IP work for the National Football League. As Biglaw work goes, it was pretty fun. And I remember the staff lawyers at the NFL as a very nice and engaging group of men and women.
But sometimes, the IP gurus at the NFL really know how to act like an immense turd in a punch (super) bowl. Remember when the NFL cracked down on the “unlicensed” use of the term Super Bowl? Then there’s the NFL’s ongoing ridiculousness with American Needle. For the overlords of a sport that claims to be “America’s passion,” the NFL has a curious way of crushing the life out of anything that could even slightly siphon a dollar away from their clever system of unlimited revenue potential and fixed labor costs.
But the latest example of the NFL blitzing small entrepreneurs is arguably more ridiculous than everything that has come before. The NFL is claiming ownership over the phrase “Who Dat.” According to WWLTV in Louisiana, the NFL wants to own a chant:

As the Saints’ appearance in their first Super Bowl gets closer, the marketplace is being flooded with Saints merchandise and memorabilia as businesses are looking to cash in on the euphoria, but the NFL is cracking down on the use of their trademarks, including the iconic phrase “Who Dat.”

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of taking in a football game at the Superdome, the full chant goes: “Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?” So let’s be clear — the NFL claims it owns a chant of ungrammatical pidgin English that can’t even be pronounced properly without using a Bobby Boucher accent. The NFL doesn’t have what they call “the social skills.”
More details after the jump.

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Who Dat Needs A Continuance?

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Saints robot.JPGUnless you have been living under a rock, you know that the New Orleans Saints are going to the Superbowl! You also know that the Saints have never been to the Superbowl; the franchise was once so bad that fans would wear paper bags over their heads to home games. And you surely remember that the city of New Orleans doesn’t have gills, and thus has suffered some tragedy in the recent past.
City still recovering from tragedy + Beloved football team + Superbowl – Open container laws = Mass freaking hysteria. Children are skipping school, adults are having their stomachs pumped, and judges are playing along.
If Alabama lawyers asked for a motion to continue because their team made the BCS National Championship Game, you can best believe that New Orleans attorneys will not be working that hard around Superbowl time. Civil District Court Judge Michael G. Bagneris just made it official.
Read the judge’s order to respect the Saints (and grant a continuance) after the jump.

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Every Alabama Lawyer Should Try the ‘BCS Defense’

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Alabama Crimson Tide.JPGOn Wednesday, we told you about Alabama defense lawyers who filed a motion to continue based on a conflict with the BCS title game. The judge has said he will grant the motion, even though the judge is an alumnus of Alabama’s arch rival, Auburn. Deadspin explains this miscarriage of justice perfectly:

If you’re going to start creating judicial precedents on the basis of college football schedules, then shouldn’t you also conform those judgments to reflect a more proper demonstration of your allegiance? An Auburn judge should not only deny any motion filed by a U of A attorney, he should hold them in contempt of court and make them swear to tell the truth under an oath to Pat Sullivan. That’s some smash mouth law makin’!
Instead, Circuit Judge Dan King says that a man who has waited four years to see the memory of his dead mother honored in a court of law can wait a few more months, because “If I didn’t, they’d say, ‘He just didn’t grant it because he’s an Auburn fellow.’” Yes, “they” might say that. They might also say that “He’s an adult who doesn’t think that educated professionals should get the day off every time they want hold recess outside.” The Crimson Tide will solider on just fine without eight extra lawyers getting hammered in the Rose Bowl parking lot.

Auburn fans, it looks like Judge Dan King needs a friendly email reminder about which side his bread is buttered on.
It’s not like the motion went unanswered — plaintiff’s attorneys filed a response.

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