Representing the Professional Athlete (American Casebook Series)

Representing the Professional Athlete begins with a comprehensive overview of the complex regulatory framework pertaining to the legal representation of pre-professional NCAA Student-Athletes. It then continues to provide the reader with an interactive, hands-on guide to negotiating, drafting, and litigating agreements in the context of representing a professional athlete through all stages of the athlete’s career, including retirement.

In so doing, the book first provides a detailed explanation of how to ensure a pre-professional athlete’s compliance with all of the most relevant NCAA rules/regulations and related litigation.

The book then explains to the athlete’s agent how to ensure compliance with all relevant athlete-agent laws and regulations in the context of negotiating and drafting the athlete’s first standard form representation agreement.

Subsequent chapters then show the reader how best to represent the professional athlete through the typical progression of a successful career, including the drafting, negotiating, and (where necessary) litigating of product endorsement and license agreements in the increasingly important context of protecting a professional athlete’s “rights of publicity.”

Interactive group negotiation/drafting hypotheticals are provided throughout the book, including in the area of fantasy sports, and in the area of protecting the athlete against agent misconduct and inappropriate investments. Particular attention is paid to the challenges of representing the "mature athlete" who is nearing the end of his or her career.

The book concludes with a Jerry McGuire-type litigation hypothetical and settlement agreement negotiation exercise involving the "super-agent" entering and exiting the "mega agency."

The book also includes timely updates to all cutting-edge issues in this expanding area of Sports Law — including updates to relevant cases and regulations from the Second Edition.

It also includes updated exemplar Agent/Athlete Representation Agreements, and Professional Athlete Licensing and Product Endorsement Agreements in Appendices to the book.