March Madness and Sports Law

As March Madness sweeps across college basketball, the Brooklyn Law School Library has added to its collection Legal Issues in American Basketball edited by Lewis Kurlantzick (Call #KF3989.A75 L445 2011), a set of essays on a variety of legal issues facing professional basketball. The book is the second in a series dealing with the legal regulation of athletics. The BLS Library also has the first in the series, Legal Issues in Professional Baseball (Call #KF3989.A75 L44 2005). The new book has five chapters including an introduction by the editor, a law professor at the University of Connecticut School of law, and these chapters: Technology and Legal Issues in Professional Basketball; Labor Relations in the NBA: Beyond the Words and into the Practice; Thunder on the Road from Seattle to Oklahoma City: Moving from NOPA to ZOPA in the NBA; "We Got Next”: the Once and Future WNBA; An International Dimension: Player Movement, the NBA-FIBA Agreement, and Foreign League lLmitations on American Payers. The contributors are Robert C. Berry, Pofessor at Boston College Law School; Russ VerSteeg, a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law and Pofessor at New England Law School; Jacquelyn Bridgeman, a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and Pofessor at the University of Wyoming’s College of Law; and James R. McCurdy, a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and Pofessor of Sports Law at Gonzaga University School of Law.

BLS students looking for a study aid on sports law can review Sports Law in a Nutshell by Walter T. Champion (Call #KF3989.Z9 C48 2009) on reserve at the circulation desk. The nutshell simplifies the complex world of sports law and provides a road map to issues such as contracts, torts, antitrust, liabilities, constitutional implications, labor law, and taxes. Sports Law Practice, a two-volume looseleaf set by Martin J. Greenberg (Call #KF3989 .G74 2009),is a more useful resource for the attorney or agent in the arena of sports law with sample forms, checklists, and examples that provide invaluable assistance in drafting contracts. Contractual analysis assists in understanding contract provisions and how to structure contracts and addendums.