I am Helen Drew and I'm the director of the Center for the Advancement of Sport and a professor of Practice in Sports Law. We continue today with our discussion with my colleagues in this course, Dr Bruce Pitman, (former) director of the UB Institute for Computational and Data Sciences and Mr Gerry Meehan, a sports law and management expert who is serving as special advisor to this project. In the second segment, we explored using data analytics to address player evaluation, team performance and roster management. Mr. Meehan described a typical organizational chart for a pro sports team front office, while I explained how data related to personnel could be used to implement best practices from a legal perspective. Mr. Meehan and Dr. Pitman then addressed how data analytics enters into evaluation of a player and team performance using the tool known as clustering. Finally, I introduced some of the types of legal and regulatory restrictions that apply to the use of data, for example in salary arbitrations. In this segment, we're going to examine the regulatory, managerial and legal frameworks and discuss applying data analytics in more detail, including the area of athlete representation. To set the stage, Mr. Meehan will begin with an overview of the collectively owned league model which is described in detail in Chapter 10 of the Masteralexis, Barr and Hums textbook. Mr Meehan. >> Thank you Nellie, and welcome again to everybody to Week 3. This week's presentation relates to the current legal and regulatory aspects governing the operational aspects of professional sports. The public requires a little bit of background. It's governed by a clearly defined set of agreements, laws and regulations. It's interesting that before the modern era, which I would call the pre- 1970s era of league team-player relationships. The teams and leagues operated within an owner-controlled environment, almost something like the bullying owner era. Examples are plenty of misbehavior of the owners. The option clauses restricted people's movement for their entire career. It included other player movement restrictions, low pensions and adequate healthcare. And injury management was questionable in those days. Since that era, a gradual but steady erosion of owner control, accompanied by the expansion of player rights through strikes, lockouts, union representation, and player agency has led to an arguably fair balance between the rights and obligations of the athlete to his team. And the team to the athlete, as well as in the agent athlete setting. This has resulted in what could arguably be called the accomplishment by all participants of reasonable objectives. Owner of cost control through salary cap and fair share of league related revenues is the owners benefit. Players have a broad range of generous benefits and a fair share of those league related revenues. Agents have a system of controls that exist to protect players from unscrupulous representation, and gives agents understandable terms under which they will be authorized to represent players. The constitution and bylaws and resolutions of the National Hockey League, which is basically an agreement between owners and the league govern the relationships. Athletes are controlled, their lives are controlled basically by the collective bargaining agreements and memorandums of understandings as well as the standard players contract that they signed to perform and lead. Agents governing documents include federal and state law, professional association obligations, players association certifications, and common law principles of agency, including the fiduciary obligations of an agency to the principal. Let's look a little more closely at the examples of each setting. The league/owner relationship. Interesting changes in recent years of what I call the strong versus weak president or weak commissioner perspective has ended. Now we have a strong commissioner program evidenced by many of the rulings that commissioners make over both ownership and players through grievance examples. Many cases have been cited recently especially the Tom Brady New England patriots cases, but the assumption by the court says the players had a chance to negotiate out from under a strong commissioner, but they accepted something else in return. The Constitution bylaws and resolutions under the direction of the commissioner of the league's guide most of the issues, notably media broadcast rights and local and league revenue splits through media share. Also ownership matters. Who was acceptable to be in the league as an owner and whether or not individual or corporate ownership is required. It's interesting that in the NFL, individual ownership is much preferred and I think there's only one corporate municipal ownership in Green Bay. And of course, what's commonly most public.. franchise issues that include exclusivity of markets and possible market intrusion, expansion of the league, and relocation of teams that might be having financial difficulties. The owner/team and player relationships are governed by the collective bargaining agreement, CBA, the MOUs that follow up after CBS are negotiated, which from time to time, are negotiated, changes made or adjustments, and the standard players contracts that exists between the player and the league. The collective bargaining agreement and standard players contract control player rights and status at all stages of the player's career. For example, in hockey it includes undrafted players, players who were drafted but no yet signed, entry level development players, entry level professional veteran players, veteran players with or without arbitration rights, pre-agency and even into retirement, collective bargaining and contract rules prevail. Recall the three concerns of team management we talked about last time with Dr. Pitman: Player acquisitions, player retention and negotiation, team and player coach evaluation are all governed by these collectively bargaining principles. The player agent and team interaction is an interesting one. It's also governed by the CBA and standard players contract. because these provisions established permissible boundaries of athlete agent demands. The laws and rules and regulations establish ground rules for agency representation, and agents are governed by admission requirements by professional associations, bar associations, legal ethics obligations and of course most prevalent these days union certification and approval before an agent can actually operate as an agent negotiating a contract. [MUSIC]
