Sports

Our Sports Industry Practice Group provides informed advice and representation to sports-related organizations, drawing on experience and insights regarding the unique employment and labor issues they face.

Your Strategic Partner

Our lawyers have decades of experience representing many of the leading sports organizations in the world on labor and employment matters. Our experience includes work with professional sports leagues, individual teams, athletic conferences, national governing bodies, and additional sports organizations at both the professional and collegiate levels.

We collaborate with attorneys who focus on subject matter areas that are of specific concern to employers in the sports industry, providing practical and informed advice on a range of matters, from labor management relations to collective bargaining, arbitration, player discipline, wage and hour, and workplace safety. Our attorneys in the Sports Group have successfully litigated many complex class and collective actions in state and federal courts throughout the country. Our attorneys’ experience when it comes to high-profile, sports-related issues has been recognized by such publications as Chambers USA, The National Law Journal, The Sports Business Journal, Law 360, and many others.

Key Capabilities

• Advice and Counsel: We advise employers in the sports industry, including sports associations, professional clubs, and universities, in high-profile disputes and on issues of day-to-day risk and compliance.
   
• Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining: We have represented several major sports leagues in negotiating and enforcing collective bargaining agreements.
   
• Arbitration: We have handled significant arbitrations on issues ranging from the interpretation and application of collective bargaining agreements and player contracts to player disciplinary matters, workplace safety, employee benefits, and more.
   
• Complex Litigation: We have served as counsel in precedent-setting cases and in widely publicized class and complex cases in federal and state courts and agencies throughout the country.
   
• Labor and Employment Issues in Corporate Transactions: We advise clients on labor and employment issues in corporate transactions, including transaction planning, due diligence, deal documentation, and post-closing restructuring and compliance issues.
   
• Pay Equity: We provide pay equity and pay transparency advice, using an in-house team of data analysts and statisticians to perform the steps crucial to a defensible audit.
   
• A Focus on Higher Education: Together with Littler’s Higher Education group, we provide advice on NCAA and NAIA compliance, Title IX compliance and litigation, NCAA investigations, name, image and likeness issues, and other issues relevant to institutions of higher education.