Duane Morris LLP helped sportsbooks, teams and media giants like NBCUniversal and ESPN navigate a complex licensing and regulatory landscape to ink lucrative sports gambling deals, earning it a spot among Law360’s 2021 Sports & Betting Groups of the Year.
To read the full text of this article, please visit the Law360 website (subscription required).
A webinar replay is available for “The Changing Landscape Between Sports, Media and Gambling,” the third in our Game Changers: Strategies for the Business of Sports and Gaming Webinar Series with SeventySix Capital Sports Advisory.
New York Governor Cuomo and state legislative leaders have reached a tentative agreement on the Fiscal Year 2022 New York State budget paving a way for mobile sports betting in the Empire State. here is a link to the Senate Bill 2509 . The General Assembly must now vote to accept the budget and additional changes may be forthcoming.
To read the full post by Duane Morris partner Frank DiGiacomo, please visit the Duane Morris Gaming Law Blog.
A video replay is available of the Game Changers: Strategies for the Business of Sports and Gaming Webinar Series session, “Behind the Scenes of Betting and Professional Sports.”
In Dew-Becker v. Wu, 2020 IL 124472 (April 16, 2020), the Illinois Supreme Court, finally and definitively, has put to rest the question of whether DFS (daily fantasy sports) is unlawful in Illinois. In addition, as a result of the decision, the DFS industry dodged the potential impact of tens of thousands of lawsuits that otherwise could have been lodged against winning DFS players in Illinois by DFS contest losers seeking to recoup their losses under the Illinois Loss Recovery Act (LRA)(720 ILCS 5/28-8).
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
The NCAA basketball tournament is over, and in many ways it was a classic, with great games, great upsets and great storylines. March Madness, indeed.
However, this year, much of the madness occurred off the court.
It started with the videotape of the unprofessional ranting of now-former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice, who called his players every offensive name in the book, berated them, question their very being and flung basketballs at their heads. Rice’s trail of carnage includes former Athletic Director Tim Pernetti and former University general Counsel John Wolf. It included the “resignation” of Pac-12 Director of Officials Ed Rush, who suggested to his direct reports – the referees – that they punish one of the coaches in the league that Rush doesn’t like. And it included controversy over whether Baylor University women’s superstar Britney Griner is worthy of a tryout in the all-male NBA.
Continue reading “Workplace Madness: Important HR Lessons from NCAA Basketball”
The “paradise” stories for the post-playing careers of professional athletes are without a doubt under told. The success of Roger Staubach in building a real estate empire, the multiple businesses of NBA all-stars Magic Johnson and Jamal Mashburn, as well as success in politics by the likes of Steve Largent and Bill Bradley, are known to some. Also, consider the Super Bowl’s most valuable player, Joe Flacco, the proud recipient of a $120.6 million contract, alongside option bonuses of $15 million and $7 million, and superstar Ray Lewis, who, in retirement, has recently joined a new team: ESPN. Let’s not leave out baseball, with Alex Rodriguez in the midst of a $275 million contract running through 2017. Then what?
This recent Alert takes a look at what comes next for athletes after their playing days are over, and how they can avoid unhappy endings.
Celebrity is a currency of great value. TMZ, Entertainment Weekly, E!, and innumerable gossip websites and publications prove the point beyond dispute. A group of Olympians including Mark Spitz, Greg Louganis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Amanda Beard have sued Samsung Corporation for using their image to endorse the company without their consent. So, it’s not uncommon that commercial advertisers want to push the edge of the envelope and find ways of using the names, likenesses, and other indicia of celebrities (without obtaining their permission and without paying them) in order to get the attention of us, the consumers.
Partner Mark Fischer explores the often blurry lines between news and commercial endorsement in this blog entry from the New Media and Entertainment Law Blog.
On December 31, 2012, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Nalwa v. Cedar Fair, L.P., __Cal.4th __ (No. S195031 December 31, 2012), previously covered in this blog and this blog. In a 6-1 decision, the Court held that the primary assumption of risk doctrine applies not just to sports, but more broadly to recreational activities. “Where the doctrine applies to a recreational activity, operators, instructors and participants in the activity owe other participants only the duty not to act so as to increase the risk of injury over that inherent in the activity.” The Court held that this limited duty of care not to unreasonably increase the risk of injury over and above that inherent in the low-speed collisions essential to bumper car rides, and does not extend to preventing head-on collisions between the cars.
The California Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument for October 3, 2012 in Nalwa v. Cedar Fair, an important assumption of risk case which we have previously discussed in this blog. The case presents the following issues: (1) Does the existence of a state regulatory scheme for amusement parks preclude application of the doctrine of “primary assumption of risk” with respect to the park’s operation of a bumper car ride? (2) Does the doctrine apply to bar recovery by a rider of a bumper car ride against the owner of an amusement park or is the doctrine limited to “active sports”? (3) Are owners of amusement parks subject to a special version of the doctrine that imposes upon them a duty to take steps to eliminate or decrease any risks inherent in their rides?
Interestingly, the matter is scheduled for argument at the UC Davis law school.
