For as long as I can remember, I’ve always dreamt of making it as a professional athlete, just like any young kid does. The comradery, competitiveness, energy, I loved all of it. While each of these categories is outward facing, there is also another very exciting aspect of the industry and that is constructing the proper agreement and contract in place which best represents both the athlete and industry.

By way of an introduction to the concept, we walk through Sports Law. “Sports Law” being such a broad concept, but in reality, is a very limited term to use. Sports Law is an area of law that also incorporates the term “Sports Agent,” who is a party critical to the relationship and industry. There are other means to become a Sports Agent, but needless to say, as a result of the complexity, the interrelatedness, and the skill set needed to be the best Sports Agent out there, the training and experience provided by both a formal legal education, as well as real world experience, is required for the athlete to maximize their full potential, and value, in this industry.

Sports Law is quite frankly a made-up term, or a misnomer, as there is no definite term for “Sports Law” but merely refers to the many different areas of law involved within the sports industry.

Legal representation in the sports industry differs from traditional transactional work, as it goes far beyond simply negotiating terms between parties. It encompasses a large and complex system of actions and categories including, but not limited to, negotiation sales or acquisitions of sports franchises, developments of sports facilities, license/lease agreements, management agreements, naming rights, sponsorship agreements, television rights, radio rights, and media rights agreement, and so forth. Amongst the many things where law and legal representation are prevalent in sports, there is also a very well developed corporate world of sports which requires some Sports lawyers to produce the finest work, also reflecting the interest and desires of the heavily invested fan bases. Sports Lawyers utilize corporate governance work when helping navigate a national sports league governance, which basically means that corporate mechanisms and processes are utilized to run the business aspect of the sport.

Compliance, Enforcement Issues, Developing Collegiate conference compliance strategies and plans, and litigation in areas spanning from antitrust investigations to insurance coverage litigation.

Certainly, Sports law is far more complex than most would have originally thought. It is more than just hiring a guy in a suit to work with a kid who is permanently attached to a football. So the biggest question here is “why is this being introduced” or “why does this matter to the reader?”

Simply put, I wish to share with you all my passion, to show the importance of the industry, of the role within the industry, and to encourage you all to be more involved in this very important function of the sports industry. Passion and obsession, being unusually motivated, will be what drives the ultimate value to the client.

As far as passion and obsession, being unusually motivated toward this, it has been my dream for as long as I can remember to serve as a Sports Agent. Imagine a 10-year-old boy, ecstatic to run home from school and play video games. School was easy, and as such, boring. There was no creative outlet for me in a formal standardized learning environment. Video games offered an escape from this, but not in the same way as you are probably thinking. The escape wasn’t because I wanted to play a first person shooter—it wasn’t Halo or Call of Duty that drew my attention, but rather, this 10-year-old boy was locked into that television playing Madden, MLB the Show, FIFA, NHL, and any other sports game he could get his hands on. A simple game was the closest simulation to the real thing a 10 year old Nick could get, and seeing the new aspects of managing budgets and contracts, and just being in charge of a teams operations, built on top of the love I already had for all sports but now created a new love for the corporate and formalized side of the sports industry .

My favorite aspect was taking control of those virtual teams and managing players and their contracts, signing new players and trading budgets with other computer-controlled teams all while making sure his virtual team would reach the big dance, the championship game. Fast Forward to today, and that 10-year-old who was once ecstatic to run home and play video games, now has that same level of excitement representing clients as a Sports Agent, and turning those skills learned at a young age through simulation, into real life skills, getting the best value and situation for the clients.

Just to be clear, like most kids, I was still outside scraping knees, eating dirt, and playing competitive games with friends, but the intellectual stimulation offered by these games really offered a way out, and offered a more interesting way to learn as opposed to simply sitting in a classroom. It is also worth noting that virtual teams and management was a great pastime in between trips to the emergency room as a kid (Hey, kids do crazy things and get hurt. Recovery offered a lot of time to develop intellectually!

The purpose of this blog is to advise to both current and perspective clients as to the importance the connection between sports and Law is. While my active and current clients understand the value of combining law with sport, prospective clients seem to shy away from the interconnection between the two. The intention here is to let prospective clients know that there is value here and being a penny-pincher or dollar foolish only puts you at the lowest end of the spectrum in this industry. The fact is that by retaining a Sports Agent or Sports Lawyer, this places the athlete on the same level as those billionaire businessmen and women, doctors, and other generally higher-class ranking professionals.

At the end of the day, accountability and responsibility are key, and there is no reason for the athlete to take the journey alone. Together, with professionalism, aggressiveness, intelligence, and transparency in the negotiation room, we will maximize your value and turn your days of managing a football team in Madden, a soccer team in FIFA, or whatever virtual team you want to manage into a reality.

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