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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Good afternoon!

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: I'm Leonard Baynes, Dean of the University of Houston Law Center.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: I want to welcome you to the CLE that's brought to you by the Big 12 Law School Deans. The CLE is called, entitled, Navigating a New Era in College Sports.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: And as I mentioned, it's hosted by the Big 12 Law Deans. Last year was the first time that the Big 12 Law Deans assembled and collaborated on programming. We held a dean's workshop at the University of Kansas Law School, and a reception at the Stinson Law Firm in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: We had thought about doing a CLE to accompany the workshop at that time, but it didn't happen. But it's happening now.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Since when we… since then, we've been sharing opportunities to attend signature lectures among our collective alumni, hosted a joint reception at the Association of American Law Schools' annual meeting, and hosted an important CLE on the law affecting what was going on in Minneapolis earlier this year.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: By the way of understanding the Big 12 law school deans, first I have to point out, there's only 11 law schools in the Big 12 Conference.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: And they are Arizona State University, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, led by Dean Stacey Leeds, who's going to be president-elect of University of Tulsa, and she will serve as moderator of one of the panels today. Baylor University Law School, under the direction of Dean Jeremy Counseller.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: BYU Law School, under the direction of Dean David Moore. University of Arizona, James E. Rogers, College of Law, under the direction of Interim Dean Jason Kreag.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: University of Cincinnati College of Law, under direction of Dean Haider Ala Hamoudi. University of Colorado Law School, led by Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss, who will moderate one of today's panels.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: University of Kansas School of Law, under Dean Stephen Mazza.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Texas Tech University School of Law, under leadership of Dean Jack Wade Nowlin, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, led by Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: will be our third moderator today, and West Virginia College of Law under the direction of Interim Dean Susan Brewer.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: On the eve of the NCAA Sweet 16's men's basketball games here in Houston, this CLE kicks off a week of events with the Big 12 Law School Deans, including a Big 12 Law School Deans' Workshop at the Law Center.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: and an all Big 12 alumni reception

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: at the Houston offices of Norton Rose-Fulbright. That's taking place on Friday. This Friday, 5.30-7.30. So if you're one of the alums of one of the Big 12 law schools,

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: please feel free to RSVP and join us in this great networking event, where you can connect with other Big 12 Law alumni and celebrate March Madness in Houston. Kristina Van Arsdel will add the information about this reception in the chat.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: In today's CLE,

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Entitled, Navigating a New Era in College Sports, we'll hear from three perspectives. The General Counsel of Universities for Navigating Changes in NCAA rules enforcement.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Attorneys who will speak to the changing role and status of college athletes, raising questions of antitrust and labor employment law issues. And finally, we'll hear from two academic experts with their perspectives on collegiate sports, and evolving economic and societal norms.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: All three panels will have time set aside for audience questions. Please place your questions in the Q&A. We look forward to your participation.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: So let me introduce the, moderator of the first panel.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: So the first panel is going to be a discussion by the General Counsel. It'll be moderated by Dean Stacy Leeds.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Dean Leeds is the Willard H. Pedrick Dean and Regents and Foundation Professor of Law at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. She's, as I mentioned earlier, she's also president-elect at the University of Tulsa.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: She's an experienced leader in law, higher education, economic development, and conflict resolutions, and she has quite considerable experience as a professor and administrator at major universities. She's a top national scholar, public intellectual,

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: educator on Indigenous… Indigenous law and policy topics. So, without further ado, let me introduce Dean President-elect, Stacy Leeds.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Thank you, Dean Baynes, and I'll ask the panelists to join me on camera as well, while I'll make brief introductions. As Dean Baynes said, this is the panel of experts that serve in the role of University General Counsel, and I'd first like to introduce Dona Cornell. She serves as the Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs and General Counsel for the University of Houston

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Dean Stacy Leeds: System, as well as Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel for the University of Houston. She has both her undergrad and her law school degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. Next, I'd like to introduce Chris Holmes. Chris serves as a General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer and also Corporate Secretary at Baylor University. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from Baylor

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Dean Stacy Leeds: and his law degree at the University of Texas at Austin as well. And finally, help me join, Robert Payne, our final panelist. Robert is Deputy General Counsel at the University of Utah, and he also received his law degree at that same institution. So thank you all for joining me here today. This certainly is a dynamic and

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Dean Stacy Leeds: amazing time in college athletics. And I'd like to start off with Dona just asking you to help us recap the last 5 years of what's gone on in terms of changes. Tall order on a 70-minute CLE, but in particular, if you would help us with the development of the House antitrust case, and walk us through that case and how it was

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Dean Stacy Leeds: resolved.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Sure.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Happy to. Yes, it's been a wild time for all of us. We've all become experts in athletics.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Even if we didn't intend to do that at the early parts of our career. The House case was a class action case filed in 2020 on behalf of Arizona State University swimmer Grant House and Oregon women's basketball player Sedona Price

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: trying to take away the NCAA's power.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Restrictions on endorsements for college athletes and allow these athletes to share in television revenue, pay past athletes who were prevented from receiving what we call NIL payments, that's the name, image, and likeness.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The… in order to understand that, you kind of have to go back a little ways, and… and…

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: discussed the O'Bannon case that was a lawsuit brought in 2014 by a UCLA basketball player again… against the NCAA over the use… unpaid use of name, image, and likeness. He won at trial, the judgment was overturned on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Following the O'Bannon case, in 2019, California passed the first NIL law, and

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: 32 other states have eventually followed suit in that regard. And then in 2021, the Supreme Court

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: acted on this, the NCAA versus Alston case, and that's where they unanimously held that the NCAA restrictions on education-related benefits for college athletes violated antitrust laws. That was kind of the precursor and the notice to all of us on what was coming.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: This case allotted schools for college athletes,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: to provide enhanced academic support, like computers, internships, tutoring. There were previously very strict restrictions on what you could include in scholarships, but it didn't… that case did not immediately remove the compensation limits

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: But Brett Kavanaugh, when he wrote his concurring opinion, was very clear to all of us who were paying attention that the antitrust laws

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: should not… he basically said they… the antitrust laws should not be a cover for the exploitation of student-athletes. That's pretty strong language, and we've…

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Really kind of understood what was coming.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And he also referred to the other NCAA regulations that he thought raised serious questions under antitrust laws, and they would be struck down if challenged under the same legal principles used by the lower courts in Alston.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: So then, in July of 21, the NCAA announced new rules allowing NIL with limitations, and under that backdrop, the settlement was reached in the House litigation.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: It was approved by the court not until June of '25.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And… You know, we call it a settlement.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I… for those of us who are dealing with it every day, it's not really… it didn't really settle much.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: It… it created a 10-year injunction, replaced traditional scholarship limits, now allowing for the full cost of attendance, but imposed new specific roster limits that changed for the sports, provided a $2.8 billion

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: pot of money for paying damages for missed NIL opportunities for athletes from 2016 to 2025, and then established a permanent revenue-sharing model allowing schools to pay athletes directly.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Of note to some public schools,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: There are different issues in that injunction and settlement, one being the mandatory arbitration provision, which is an issue, ongoing issue, for many public schools in the entire country.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And I think what's also interesting is that it's a 10-year injunction that basically is binding

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: You know, my grand… my grandchildren who are in middle school play football.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: So it's kind of interesting that it's even going back that far, and what that means is still yet to be seen.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The revenue sharing aspect is optional.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Schools need to opt in to the settlement.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Student athletes are automatically opted in, but can also opt out, and some have done so.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: the amount of revenue that a school may share, and again, these are all… I have to say all this with a little bit of, you know, hesitation, because we all know these caps… I'm sure many of you have read the caps are…

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: soft caps, I think some people call them. But we'll just pretend that it's a real cap, capped at 22% of the average P-School's athletics

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: NCAA reported gross revenue with a 4% yearly escalator.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And I think it's important for everybody here to recognize we're talking about gross revenue when we're talking about revenue share, not net revenue. Most athletics programs in the country do not make money for the schools.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Including the University of Houston.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Both the… the… the Alston payments and the scholarships count against the cap.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The current revenue share cap right now is $20.5 million.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And this doesn't mean that pay-for-play

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: is allowed at this point. We are still paying these students for their name, image, and likeness. We are not paying them to play.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The way it works is we create written agreements with the student athletes. They take the form of an NIL licensing agreement. The school licenses the student's NIL in return for a payment for a certain amount of money.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The amount of money should correlate with the value of that student's NIL, and so there are differences and variances… variances. And none of this limits a student athlete from getting additional NIL from outside sources.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And we'll talk a little bit later, I know, in this program, about how all of this is enforced, and what we're all doing with regard to this. And then you throw on top of all of that, we… I'm sure some of you have heard about all of the

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: craziness with the transfer portal. Essentially, that is the marketplace for athletic services for our students.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And so all of the models that we had pre-House for governance of intercollegiate athletics don't exist anymore.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: It is very interesting. The $2.8 billion portion of the House settlement

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: has been stayed at this point because of a challenge by some former college athletes,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: female student athletes alleging that the distribution formula violates Title IX, and that, again, is also something we're going to talk a little bit

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: later about, basically they're arguing that they're not getting paid the same amount, and in fact, that is reality, because we have been making NIL payments, and the women are not getting the same… the female athletes are not getting the same as what the male athletes are receiving.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Thanks for that. There's so much complexity just in the case itself, not to mention the practical ways that different departments are trying to apply and comply with the settlement. Robert, will you take it next and talk to us about how the settlement process is moving forward, and particularly touching on issues of enforcement?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Sure, happy to do that. Thanks for the introduction.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I will say that, you know, we all breathed a little sigh of relief when the House

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: case settled. We thought it would provide a lot more certainty, and as Dona notes, we're still… still in the soup. It's better, but it's, there's still a lot of unknowns going forward.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: As Dona also mentioned, NIL, or revenue share is a may, not a must, so we don't have to. None of our D1 institutions have to provide it.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: We know that all the Power 5 institutions are going to do it, and the, you know, 300-plus other D1 institutions are going to have to make the decision whether to opt-in or not, and it's my understanding that about 82% of them have decided that they're going to pay some portion of RevShare.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And so, you know, now we sort of know who's going to do it. Then institutions have to decide, well, how much? How much of the $20.5 million am I going to pay?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And we're all sort of going through that, and the question, of course, is how much do you have to pay to remain relevant in college athletics?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And then, of course, there's the question of where does that money come from? You know, there is certainly a fallacy in sort of the public dialogue that institutions and their athletic departments are awash with cash, right? And we're just looking for places to put this money, and those

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: poor student-athletes, but as Dona noted, most institutions not only don't cover the cost, they come up with a deficit. In fact, if you look at

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: some statistics on the SEC, they bring in about $131 million, and by the way, they bring in the most revenue

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: against a $205 million cost to run all of their athletics programs. And then the question is, how do you come up with that extra $70 million? I'll be talking a little bit later about, you know, some of the methods to handle that.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So then we have to decide, you know, how do you divide up that money? Which sports get the money? Which student athletes get the money? How much do they get?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I think most institutions are following, kind of, the model that was set in the House case for the past damages settlement, so most institutions are

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: paying their football student-athletes around 75%, 15% to the men's basketball, maybe around 5% to women's basketball, and 5% over the other, you know, 10 to 12 Olympic sports in the program.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So we're struggling with that.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: We're struggling with, you know, how to make sure that third-party NIL continues to happen, because this is… the rev share is what we can do, but third-party NIL is also important, we all know, and so how can we facilitate that and help it happen in an ethical way?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: On reasonable business terms and for fair market value.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And we have to… we're struggling with, you know, how to recruit, how to keep our student-athletes.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: They have options. You know, as Dona noted, the transfer portal is a mess, and students are pretty much free to go wherever they want, whenever they want. So how do you attract them?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: How do you keep them? As Dona mentioned, we're working on our NIL agreements, you know, what do they look like? Do we… do we want them all to be roughly the same or similar? Do we…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: You know, how much flexibility do we want? Do we want to include in them buyouts for student athletes? In other words, you've come to our institution, we're going to pay for your name, image, and likeness, and by the way, we own that now.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: If you're gonna go to another institution, you're gonna have to pay to essentially buy back your NIL. We're thinking about those things, we're thinking about limitations on transfer.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And, you know, we talk about, at least here at the University of Utah, do we want to limit our student-athletes' ability? Because if we prevent them from going somewhere else, are they going to be happy here, and what good does that do us? So…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: all really challenging issues. We want to stay out of trouble, as, as Dona mentions.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Title IX,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: prevents, you know, requires some parity between men and women, and there are a lot of questions about how this rev share gets paid, and is it equitable.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And then we… not… these are all questions we have to answer internally, but we also are keenly aware of what's going on externally. So this… this whole system

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's sort of designed, you know, to…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: To try and put us all on a level playing field, and in order to do that, you have to have an enforcement mechanism that works to make sure that everybody's playing by the rules.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And, right now, we're struggling with that. You know, the College Sports Commission is designated as the entity that's supposed to be doing that, but it requires, you know, buy-in from all the institutions to do it. So we're, you know.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: passing around drafts of the participant agreement that's going to bind us to the CSC rules.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And, we've had some trouble getting that in place, so we're working with that, but we really need it, we really need the enforcement authority and to start.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Anecdotally, I understand that people believe there's about $500 million in third-party NIL that, is… has been given, but only around $127 million has been reported thus far to the College Sports Commission, so…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: you know, every one of those deals over $600 is supposed to be reported and vetted by the College Sports Commission and approved, and if students do it inappropriately, then, you know, we… there's supposed to be enforcement, and that's not happening. So that's a struggle. And then, of course.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: You know, we're all,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I'd say cautiously optimistic, maybe that's a little too strong that the federal government will actually do something, that Congress will step in and provide some guardrails to help us in this. And I believe Chris is going to be talking a little bit about that later.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So, let's see,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And then, I think, Dona kind of touched on this, and that is.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's a $20.5 million cap, but…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Institutions are creative, everybody's pushing the envelope.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: You know, if I tell my, multimedia rights partner that it's okay, the $6 million that you owe me, why don't you just keep that and use that for a third-party student-athlete, NIL,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: is that… are those institutional dollars? I would have had them in my pocket yesterday, and I've now given them out to you. And so, I think originally people would have thought, yes, that's… that's… that's part of your cap, and now the direction it's going is, well, okay, we won't call it part of the cap, but you just can't get any of that money back from your multimedia rights partner. So, it's an ever-changing landscape, and

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: These are… Some of the challenges that we're dealing with, so…

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Dean Stacy Leeds: As a single follow-up question to you, for our audience, can you just briefly describe what the jurisdictional contours of the CSC are versus the NCAA? You've got two competing enforcement bodies, so can you break both of those down in an elementary way?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Yeah, I'll try and do that. So, the NCAA, of course, has always… their job… we're a voluntary… the NCAA will tell you whenever you ask them to do something, well, we're just you, you know, we're just…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: you're all the schools that make up the NCAA, so we're… you make the rules, we follow the rules, it's a voluntary organization. Historically.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: The NCAA has enforced all of the rules that we have, as a body, put in place to govern college athletics.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Including the things that have resulted in findings of antitrust violations. Going forward, my understanding is that the NCAA will continue to enforce all of those rules.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: But that now we have the College Sports Commission that is separate from the NCAA, and its job

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: is to enforce the rules surrounding revenue share and NIL. So, making sure that all the institutions are not, you know, we'll report all of our information to the College Sports Commission.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: They will make sure that we're not exceeding our caps, they'll enforce things when people do exceed the caps, and they'll be in the position to monitor all of the third-party NIL to make sure that they are legitimate business deals with student athletes, and that they have a… there's a true fair market value. They work with Deloitte and Touche to

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: to, assess those transactions. So that's my understanding of the, kind of, the division of responsibility between the two organizations.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: All right, and Chris, as we come to you, hearing Robert and Dona, the single word that is the throughput on both of their descriptions is just this struggle to try to move forward to sort this all out. It raises more issues than we have resolution for, so what's happening in the field next? What are the next lawsuits? What are the next conflicts? How are those going to be sorted out?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, so we are seeing a significant amount of litigation continue even after the House case.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And the types of cases that we're seeing really are kind of falling into four general areas. The first relates to antitrust challenges to the athlete compensation rules, kind of the, those issues in and around the House case, and I'll cover those in a moment.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: We're not… we're also seeing, eligibility disputes.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The next area is NIL and revenue share contract enforcement issues, and then finally, perhaps most significantly, is the looming question of whether or not student athletes are employees of the institutions.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Dona did a great job of going through House. Let me talk, real quick about some of the litigation we've seen in and around House.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The, one case is the Chalmers case, and that involved, 16 former Division I student-athletes who had participated in intercollegiate athletics

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: 4 years prior to the filing of the House case.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And, so these, these plaintiffs came in. This was filed in the Southern District of New York against the NCAA and major conferences, alleging, you know, violations of antitrust similar to that that was brought in House.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The District Court dismissed that case with prejudice in April of 2025, in part based on statute of limitations issues. The Second Circuit affirmed that dismissal in December of 2025.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Another case that, that is in this, sphere is the Fontenot case, and Fontenot versus NCAA shows how the House settlement, the individuals that, opted out of that class action case.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And, how they're pursuing their claims outside of House. And that case is currently brought by 309 plaintiffs.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Each of them opted out of the House class action settlement. The parties have agreed in that case to try the case in stages, beginning with an initial group of 45 plaintiffs that were selected earlier this year. That group is now in discovery.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And so, the next area that we're seeing litigation in relates to eligibility, and I've certainly seen over the last several months, lots of news reports on these types of cases.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And these cases primarily attack various aspects of the NCAA, the organizations within the NCAA, their limitation on how long a student can play.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And typically, with recognizing there's some exceptions, that's called a four seasons over 5 years rule.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And the litigation we're seeing is whether or not play at a junior college or prior play at a division to schools should count in those calculations. And similarly, we've seen some litigation over red shirt rules and how those red shirt rules are applied.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Diego Pavia, a quarterback at Vanderbilt, brought probably the lead case in this category. Pavia had played 2 seasons at a junior college and three more at Division I schools, exhausting his eligibility.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: He argued that counting his junior college seasons against his NCAA eligibility clock was an unreasonable restraint on the labor market for college athletes.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The District Court granted him a preliminary injunction in December of 2024, allowing him to play the 2025 season.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: In response, and working to kind of make it equal across the country, the NCAA then issued a blanket waiver for all similarly situated former junior college students.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Which ultimately mooted the appeal of that case that was done at the Sixth Circuit.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: After remand, Pavia's amended complaint expanded to include 27 additional junior college plaintiffs seeking a permanent injunction for the 2026-2027 season.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: you know, Pavia's case definitely opened this process, and we're now seeing that there are more than a dozen junior college eligibility cases in various courts.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Another eligibility case is Fourqurean v. NCAA, where a Division II student-athlete preliminary injunction was reversed by the Seventh Circuit for insufficient evidence of anti-competitive effects.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: In another case, Patterson v. NCAA, where the Federal District Court in that case denied a preliminary injunction challenging the Four Seasons Over Five Years Rule, notably rejecting the idea that injunctions limited to individual plaintiffs

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Are adequately narrow because the ripple effects that those injunctions will have on other student athletes, but also the litigation from similarly situated players trying to get another season of eligibility.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: What makes these federal cases interesting is they draw our attention to a divergence that is developing between outcomes that we're seeing in federal cases versus outcomes we're seeing in state courts.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Federal courts have increasingly denied preliminary injunctions in eligibility cases.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: While state courts, often located in the same communities where the student athlete is wishing to continue playing, have been more willing to grant that immediate relief.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The Johnson case illustrates this type of scenario. Donovan Puff Johnson, an Ohio State basketball player who played for 3 seasons at North Carolina and 2 at Penn State, was denied a hardship waiver after injuries during the 2024-2025 season.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: He first sued in federal court in November 2025, for antitrust.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The federal court denied his preliminary injunction and motion for reconsideration, and Johnson then voluntarily dismissed the federal action and refiled in state court.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: in Ohio State Court in January 2026. That state court granted a TRO the very next day, making him immediately eligible.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The NCAA tried to remove the case back to federal court, but was unsuccessful. This case is awaiting a decision on Johnson's motion for a preliminary injunction.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: So the third area of lawsuits that we're seeing right now relates to what Robert was talking about with the contracts that institutions are developing related to revenue share with the students attending their institutions.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: These cases raise novel questions about the enforceability of these contracts, and what constitutes tampering in the new landscape.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: In June 2025, the University of Wisconsin and its NIL collective sued the University of Miami.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Alleging that Miami induced a student athlete to break a two-year NIL contract and a transfer.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: According to the complaint, Miami sent a coach and a prominent alumnus to the athlete's family home in Florida and convinced him to leave Wisconsin.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: When Wisconsin refused to enter his name in the portal.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The athlete disenrolled from Wisconsin and later enrolled at Miami, competing for Miami in the 2025-2026 season.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The lawsuit brings claims for tortious interference and seeks a declaratory judgment that Miami's conduct constituted tampering.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Miami has moved to dismiss on personal jurisdiction grounds, arguing that the contacts alleged to have occurred

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: occurred in Florida, the court has granted Wisconsin's request for a jurisdictional discovery, and that case is ongoing.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And then, I think the most recent development we've had in this area, I saw the news, just within the last week or two, is, the 18 Nebraska football players

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: who have filed an arbitration proceeding seeking to overturn a recent decision by the Collegiate Sports Commission, CSC, that's the enforcement mechanism that Robert was talking about.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: While Nebraska as an institution is limited under the House case to $20.5 million in revenue share under the House case, Nebraska has asked its multimedia rights partner to decrease

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: the amount of money the company is paying to the institution, and in exchange, pay that money to Nebraska student-athletes of more than $8 million for NIL activities. And the multimedia rights partner, importantly, doesn't really have

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: the specific items identified at those students… but they understand that they'll be able to identify it by the end of the school year, June, by the end of June.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The outcome of that arbitration proceeding is going to be very important to watch. This is the highest profile arbitration that we've seen under the new CSC enforcement mechanism.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The final area is employment.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And I know that we're going to have a couple of panelists after us that are going to discuss this in more detail, but the most consequential question is really probably coming out of Johnson versus NCAA. That's filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and it was filed in 2019.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: It's by former Division I student-athletes who allege that the NCAA and member schools jointly employ student athletes and owe them minimum wages under the FLSA.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: In July of 2024, the Third Circuit held that the athletes are not categorically barred from FLSA claims, and articulated an economic realities test.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Looking at whether athletes perform services primarily for the institution's benefit and under its control in exchange for compensation or in-kind benefits. That case is currently in the district court with motions to dismiss pending.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And even on the executive side, President Trump signed an order in July 2025 titled Saving College Sports, directing the Secretary of Labor and the NLRB to clarify athletes' employment status. This landscape with respect to employment remains extremely fluid.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: What should be clear from all of this is, with each of these areas, we've got a lot happening, and when we take a look at the fact that we're in 4 different areas with 4 different types of cases, it really does provide a pretty good indication of just how fluid our situation is.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Thank you for that, and I think that at least two of the three of you have already mentioned the issues that all of this raises around Title IX and opportunities for women student athletes. Let's go back to you, Dona, and talk through this issue.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Sure.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: So, you know, we thought we knew… we thought… we thought we really understood Title IX. It says you don't discriminate based on sex. That's, like, not that complicated. And we kind of had… have understood that in the athletics context, and we have provided

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: equitable opportunities for our student athletes. You know, this… they have to… same things have to be given. The same kind of scholarships, how a school… they're meeting their athletic interests and abilities.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: We've got to have pretty much equity there.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And then, you know, it's kind of funny because we, you know, Chris just was talking about

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Trump's order, and then we had, in January of 25, we had the Biden administration issuing guidance about Title IX and NIL, basically saying

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: we could be… if we're paying our student athletes through NIL deals, it could violate

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Title IX if they're not distributed equitably.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Wow.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: What does that mean? Obviously, none of us have been doing that. And then, of course, on February 12th, we had the Trump administration rescinded all that guidance. So here it is, take it away.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The distribution formula approved by the court in House for the $2.8 billion settlement is calculated using the NCAA-reported gross revenues in the following categories. Ticket sales.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: guarantees, media rights, NCAA and conference distributions, royalties, licensing, advertisements, scholarships, and ball revenues.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Many schools use the same distribution formula for revenue share, since the courts already approved this model for NIL back pay.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: That's… Probably the safest way to go.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: But this revenue share model

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Means that, as we've said, a large share goes to football, a lesser amount to men's basketball, even lesser amount to women's basketball, with a tiny bit left for other sports.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The only revenue-generating sports for most schools are football and men's basketball, which explains this discrepancy. And it's not uncommon for schools to distribute

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Unevenly for student athletes.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The other model would be to do it similar to how we used to do things, and…

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Make it more equitable.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: While it might be compliant with Title IX, it would disadvantage revenue-generating sports, could result in other legal challenges. Not could. It absolutely would result in other legal challenges. We know everybody likes to litigate everything around here.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: But Title IX is an area that, to me, is incredibly unsettled. We don't know what it's going to ultimately mean. It really… it ties back to what Chris was talking about

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: with regard to whether or not these student-athletes are employees or not. I mean, I know I'm… I've been singing this song for the last couple of years, because if you look at the 21-point test the IRS used for what… uses for what's an employee and what's not.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: You can… you just… just read the test, and you'll see where it takes you.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: But Title IX is an issue that's still outstanding for us.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Now, we've, heard about both of the last two presidential administrations having guidance and executive orders on this. Chris, I want to go back to you and talk about, a lot of people pushing and positioning for Congress to weigh in here. What do you see on the horizon there? What do you think is the most likely?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Well, I was… I was about to report that I'm tracking 6 different bills, but Senator Tuberville announced one yesterday, so my number, my number's changed.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: But, I think what I'd like to do is to kind of go through and explain really what the issues are that we're seeing Congress debating. Recognizing, again, we've got lots of different bills out there, but rather than try to go through each bill specifically, let me kind of focus in on the issues and kind of where the different parties are tending to line up.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: 

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: So, one of the bills that has had the most movement is the House's SCORE Act, and this has support of the leaders in the House Energy and Commerce, Education and Workforce, and the Judiciary Committee. Senator Cruz, who is chair of the Senate's Commerce Committee, also has been working on, working with colleagues to get a bipartisan bill out through the Senate.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: That, that he's hoping to introduce in the Senate.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: But realistically, these, let me kind of cover the issues that, these bills are addressing.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The first one is employment. The SCORE Act includes a provision that would prohibit student athletes from being considered employees.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Representative Trahan has introduced an act called the CARA Act, which seeks to explore how student athletes could benefit from collective bargaining

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: without necessarily classifying them as employees. So it seems that we're seeing, really the discussion in Congress on this issue is.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Is it really to these student-athletes' interest to designate them as employees, or is there a way to keep them from being employees

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: But perhaps even within the… with the Democratic Party, is there a way to actually tuck in, in a non-employee context, collective bargaining?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: I think the second area is, state preemption. So in the area of NIL, we've had different states, that have passed different laws, that would seem to, provide, specific benefits to students, to their institutions for students to stay in those areas.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: I won't name the state, but one state said, hey, we're gonna pass a law that if you're a high school student, you cannot get NIL or, revenue, from a college or university unless you go to our flagship.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And if you go to our flagship, then you can make NIL on only our flagship. But if you go to our flagship and make NIL, then we will permit you to receive that.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: So, the SCORE Act would prohibit state laws that govern or regulate student-athlete compensation, benefits, or employment.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Democratic Senators Cantwell, Booker, and Blumenthal have proposed a more limited protection with several carve-outs for specific state laws, such as consumer protection or state laws regulating agents. I'll come back and talk about agents in a moment, but

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The third area is limited antitrust protection. So we've talked about how different rules that the NCAA has have been attacked, for antitrust, and so I think what… what Congress is looking at is, hey, how do we… how do we

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Allow associations or conferences to have uniformity A level playing field.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Among their… among their institutions, without those rules that set… that help protect that level playing field, without those rules actually being, being attacked for antitrust.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Interestingly, another antitrust issue that you may see in the news, over the last couple of months has been whether or not,

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: the institutions should be permitted to negotiate, to pool together and negotiate with their media partners as a single entity. This would be an amendment to the Sports Broadcasters Act.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And there's been a lot of discussion recently about whether or not that would allow more finances into the institutions that could then be used for specific purposes that Congress wishes to have those used for.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: But at the same time, there's been, there's also been some, some organizations that have said, that's probably not gonna, that's not gonna generate as much revenue as, as is thought.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The most recent example of a bill seeking to amend the SBA is the bipartisan College Sports Competitiveness Act that was filed within the last couple of weeks by Senators Cantwell out of Washington and Schmidt out of Missouri.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Number 4 is a real cap, and we've been talking about how the House settlement, adopted, you know, its approach to up to 22% of the A5's annual athletic revenue, and the SCORE Act tends to follow that type of model.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The fifth area is governance. Many of the bills seek to modify the governance of intercollegiate athletics.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Proposals from Republicans tend to remain more deferential to existing structures and working to reform

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: the NCAA, within the NCAA, while the CARE Act that I mentioned earlier would propose a federal commission to stabilize college sports. So, the Democrats at least have indicated more federal oversight, a federal committee, a federal commission might be necessary.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The final area that I'd like to talk about is agents, and I think both political parties seem to recognize that more intense regulation of sports agents is appropriate. The SCORE Act would restrict agents, this is an example, to commissions of no more than 5% commission.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And would encourage agent registration, so I would expect that that seems to be a fairly uniform,

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Part of… of both parties' bills that we're seeing.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And then finally, another, we've got, President Trump involved as well. On… in a meeting on March 6th, President Trump said that an executive order would be coming out shortly addressing, intercollegiate athletics.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: It was an interesting quote, I'm just going to read a portion of it, because it kind of ties into our overall theme.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: I'm gonna put my exec… Referring to his executive order, and we're going to put it forward, and we're going to get sued.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: We're going to see how it plays, okay, but I'll have an executive order, which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem within one week, and we'll put it forward. We will get sued.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: That's the only thing I know for sure, and so I think on that note, I will say, I think President Trump is correct, based on our discussion, this morning. We do expect, or this afternoon, we do expect that the lawsuits will continue.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Great, thanks for that. As we're starting to push into the final one-third of our time, I'll remind our audience that if you want to put any of your questions into the chat, provided we have time, we'll try to pick some of those up at the end. But now I want to shift gears back to Robert. As universities are trying to figure out how they're going to fund this.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: People are getting very creative, and all eyes have been on the news coming out of Utah.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: And this question of what role private equity might play in, you know, this landscape. So, would you start us off by just talking to us about the context and also describing the Utah decision to enter into this space?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Sure, happy to do it.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I guess I'm gonna back up just a little bit and ask the… answer the question, you know, why do we do it? Why do we care?

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Yeah.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And I think it's just… it's important to recognize… this is the University of Utah's perspective, but I don't think it's unique.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: That our athletics department, although, you know.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: A fairly small economic unit within the institution is a…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: has an outsized role in terms of the importance to the institution. Our former athletics director used to say to me all the time that athletics is the front porch of the institution, and I think it's absolutely correct. And so.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's… it's the place that we…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: are introduced to students and greet them and recruit them and encourage them to come. It's the place where we create loyalty with our alumni and our donors.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And it has a real meaningful effect, and just as a couple examples, you know, when Alabama had its tremendous run in football and was winning year after year, during that time period between 2006 and 2020,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Their enrollment, their undergraduate enrollment increased 49%.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And that's the lifeblood of an academic institution. But not only that, they significantly increased the out-of-state students who were coming to Alabama. And of course, those students pay about 3 times what the state schools, or state students bring in.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: As another example, you know, when Boise won the Fiesta Bowl.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Prior to that time, their student enrollment was 85%.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Idaho and 15% out of state. And over the following years, they flipped that to 48% Idaho and 52% out-of-state students. So, it really… what our athletics departments are doing is critically important. And so, from the University of Utah's perspective, we need to keep

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: that program strong and successful, going forward. And the reality is none of us know what the future holds. I mean, I think what everybody has heard today is.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's a mess. It's far from settled, and it is. I mean, we fully expect

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: more movement among the conferences. There are talks about, you know, super leagues and the whole business, and if institutions are not remaining relevant and on the cutting edge, it's likely that some, many will be left behind, so we recognize that.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So, we need to be creative in this space. As we talked about a little bit earlier, you know, institutions are not covering the costs. Institutions are going into debt. I think I heard Ohio was $40 million in debt.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And, so we have to find ways to make up that difference. And I think what the public doesn't recognize is that football is the economic engine of our institutions, and it brings in the revenue, and it supports all of those other… other sports. So, if we want to

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: keep those other sports strong, we have to find ways to come up with a shortfall, because if we look at a cost-cutting method to covering the 20.5

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: plus 4% annually, that cost, it's going to mean losing sports, and that has huge implications. You know, there are expectations by conferences that you maintain, you know, a certain number of Olympic sports, so it has real ramifications for institutions.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So, so how, you know, how do we do it?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: we, you know, I think at our institution, we looked really carefully at the different options. As our president said, the first option, which is to do nothing, is not an option, because it will lead to, really, the demise of our athletic program.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And… but it was important to our president to,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: not burden the rest of the institution with the costs… with the significant costs of the athletics program. So, some institutions are going to look at

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: raising student fees to cover these costs. Some have done that significantly. And in a time when enrollment in higher ed institutions is decreasing, and it's becoming harder and harder to recruit students, that's… we think that's not a viable solution. Other institutions have looked at

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: you know, looking at other units within the institution to fund this economic model, whether it's, you know, funds from your bookstore or other auxiliary services. And so it's important that our… our president is really committed not to

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Not to tapping the rest of the institution, keeping the whole institution strong as we… as we move forward.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Another model, of course, is to go out and borrow money. There's a lot, you know, you just… just borrow what you need to meet your needs on a going-forward basis. But, of course, that just kicks the can down the road. At some point in time, you're going to have to pay for it, and those costs are ever-increasing, and that didn't seem like a good solution. So…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So we decided that, we, you know, private equity has been sniffing around the edges for years, and their model is that they want to find an industry.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: that is, from their perspective, underperforming in terms of revenue, and they want to come in, and they want to partner, and they want to boost the revenue, and they want to profit from it. And,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: you know, there are obviously risks with that. Aligning their interests and the higher ed… higher ed institutions' interests is not always easy.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And it's my experience they don't necessarily understand the complexity of all that we do as higher ed institutions. So there is definitely an education component on both sides of the equation.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I feel fortunate at the University of Utah to have the president that we do at this point in time, because he was actually the dean of our business school before. He understands creation of businesses, he understands private equity, he's surrounded people in his administration who understand it.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And we have people on our board of directors who are very savvy business people. So, my undergraduate degree was theater arts, and it's slightly different from what they're looking at in terms of the

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: the business, the business model here. So I feel… I feel good about sort of relying upon them to do the business analysis, and then, of course, our office is helping them to get there from a business perspective.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So, I think, you know, we have to balance those risks, and we have decided that,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: that going the direction of private equity is the right thing to do, and it's the right time to do it, from our perspective. We think there are…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: risks with being one of the… well, perhaps the first to do it. And that, you know, and I…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I traditionally don't like being at the tip of the spear, but oh well, here we are. But there are advantages to it, right? Because one of the things that's critical to the university is that we get the right partner in terms of an equity partner.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's not enough simply to lock arms with somebody whose whole motivation is revenue, right? Because they'll get there at any way they can. You need a partner who, at a minimum, understands the sports model.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And we think we found that partner in Otro Capital. They have been in the professional sports space, and they understand the ways to enhance a business's brand. They understand how to,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: How to make money off of sponsorships, and to bring in revenues through tickets, and to strike the right balance between keeping fan engagement.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And enhancing the fan experience while charging what fair value is for tickets. This is what we're told. I believe this to be true. We will see. And so,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So that's… that's the direction that we're heading, let's see,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And I think it's important to note that if you get the right partner… I mean.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: There really are,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: there are common interests between the institution and the equity partner, right? If we don't succeed as an institution, if we don't grow our fan base, if we don't…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: grow the businesses who support our institution, then they don't profit. So, it's in our interest to find a partner who can actually do that, who…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: is in a space that we are not. I mean, we're about education, and we're about healthcare, and we're about, you know, taking care of students, but we're not really good, from my perspective, about

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: effectively raising money. We're very decentralized, we're not tremendously disciplined, and we think that bringing in a partner is going to help

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: force us to be a little more disciplined in how we do this, and that's probably a good thing. So,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Alright,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: In structuring the deal, it's, you know, there are very important things to keep in mind. One is, they're really good at raising money, they're really good at that aspect. They may have a lot of advice and assistance in terms of helping us understand how we can improve our athletics programs, but that's… that is what we do.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And so, it's very important that we set up a structure where the institution maintains all the decisions about coaching hires and fires and what student athletes we bring in, and every aspect of whether we build buildings, whether, you know, all of that has to be preserved by the institution.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And in addition to that, we need… we must maintain our control over our brand and our reputation.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And so, in creating… we'll create a private entity, a for-profit entity that we'll own the majority share in, so that we can actually veto decisions that are not good for the institution and work collectively. So that's the structure that we're working to put in place.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And then I think you had asked one question about, you know, what about the exit? What happens, right? Private equity, they're not in it for the long run, they're in it for 5, 7, maybe, you know, outside 10 years. And then what happens when they've decided, okay, we're satisfied, we're…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: packing up our bags and we're going away. We're gonna preserve our ability to have a lot of say over what happens, about whether, you know, somebody… if somebody else comes in and takes… takes over their position.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And that might be the right thing to do. You know, we might be able to lock arms with another organization that has great insight and expertise.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: But we may also make the decision that, you know, we've… now we've learned. We've really learned how to do this, and we're going to bring it in-house and do it ourselves. So, I think that's… that's a very strong possibility of where we'll be in, you know, 7 years or so.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: I think everybody can see the potential upside on game day experience and on the operational front. I think all eyes are watching how you actually structure this deal, and as you described, what the longevity of it looks like. So, thank you for that.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Sure.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: So, on this webinar, we also have a number of law students that are making their way through their career, and some of the 11 schools that have law schools within the Big 12, you know, have sports law or sports law and business programs, but each of you have very different backgrounds, and so I want to ask all three of you if you'll just briefly talk about your past

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Dean Stacy Leeds: way to getting into a place where you can work on these topics, and any advice that you have for our current law students that are making their career journey?

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Dean Stacy Leeds: So, Dona, you want to start us off?

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I'm happy to start. So I… I came up… before I went to law school, I worked in the legislature and… and was very interested in the creation of laws that kind of pushed me into law school. And then, you know, I… I got out at the

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: height of the oil bust, and so I had to figure out what I was gonna do, and I went into litigation. I actually worked

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: for the Attorney General's office, and…

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: That was back in the day. They kind of threw you a file, and you just go try it, and you learn

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: On the seat of your pants.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And I ended up staying in litigation for 16 years, and that really is what… and ended up representing universities throughout Texas, and that's what kind of pushed me into,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: into representing different universities. I met the then-president at the University of Houston in a case that we tried, and he asked me to come move.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And I said no, and he asked me again, and I said no, and then I obviously said yes, and I've been here, you know, 24 years, which is an incredibly long time, and hard for me to even believe. It… the… the,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The trajectory of litigation to this. I explained to my friends that are in litigation

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: you know, you're going into trial, you're, you know, things are being thrown at you, you never know what to expect. Being a general counsel for a university

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Especially in 2026, is like being in trial all the time.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: like, I never know what's gonna happen, and with this administration, things change, and this… both the state and the federal, if you're a public institution, things can change for you.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: on a day… every day. And they sometimes do. And you just have to be prepared for that.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I think it's a great career. Sports law is an incredibly fascinating aspect of what we do. It's not all of it. It is more and more of it for all of us.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I think, than we ever really would have anticipated. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it does bring in all the other aspects. You've heard us talk about antitrust, you've heard us talk about employment. Those are all things that we deal with on a regular basis.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: And so I think it all ties together.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Great. Chris?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Sure, I had a litigation background for the first 10 years with a firm in Dallas, and then joined another private institution as their general counsel.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And then, came to Baylor about 24 years ago. So, I echo what, what Dona said in that, we, we are seeing, two things within, within higher ed and general counsel's offices. Number one, our offices are actually growing.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: The amount of law that is impacting our institution continues to grow. The legal complexity for our organizations continues to grow.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: You know, I think, that…

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: you know, the… coming out of that also is, I was at the National Association of College and University Attorneys meeting, earlier this month, and,

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Spoke on a panel similar to this, on this topic, and asked the general counsels that were in that room how many of their offices are spending more time and having to put more legal resources toward athletics.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: And everyone raised their hand. It's just, it's just becoming, you know, more and more, of a, of something that's needing constant attention. And, our client, the athletic department, is actually having more and more legal issues, so…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Yeah, well, there's a common theme here. So, I was in private practice for 10 years, I was 7 years with a large Utah firm, and then 3 years with Snell & Wilmer, a regional firm out of Arizona.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And, I was a commercial litigator. I had decided to become a plumber.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And I got a call from somebody at the University of Utah saying, maybe plumbing isn't the right thing for you, how about, coming up and working for us? And thank God that happened. It's… I will just say, if you're thinking about it, it's the best legal job

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: of any that I have seen.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And you can have a litigation background, but you can also have a transactional background, and our office is pretty much split maybe 50-50 between the two. I think.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: personally, if somebody who comes out of a litigation background has a richer experience, we just… I describe my practice as being in a room full of balloons, and my job is

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I'm bouncing the balloons up. I'm keeping anyone from hitting the ground as long as I can, and periodically I get to pop one and sort of get it out of the room, but… and it's fun. It's a lot of work. It's… it can be stressful, but it's a lot of fun.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So I… I highly recommend, going there, and I've been… I've now been doing it for 25 years, so…

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Dean Stacy Leeds: I appreciate you all three sharing part of your journey with us. I want to ask one more question, and this is more just for all three of you to chime in, as you want.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: But back to the question that Chris talked about, whether student athletes are appropriately classified at some point as employees. Still a question that's very much alive, but in a slippery slope type argument for all of the other students across all of our campuses, that work in areas that are

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Dean Stacy Leeds: important to the reputation of the school, that involve the hours that student athletes engage in. And from a law dean's perspective, the first two of our student groups and quasi law school

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Dean Stacy Leeds: you know, institutions would be people who work on the law reviews, or are students that compete in moot court competitions, you know, volumes and volumes of work, who also have scholarships attached to it by the virtue of the positions that they're in.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: You know, what are the other areas across your campus that you see potential issues bleeding over from what's happening in college athletics, that have you thinking through?

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Dean Stacy Leeds: The future.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: So, any of the three of you?

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I don't… I don't really see the same risk for… for the… our other students that, you know, clearly they work hard,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I don't see the same risk that we have. I mean.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: we really need some federal legislation to fix this once and for all. I don't think it will impact those other areas, and it's really, you know, the argument in athletics is really the revenue

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: that is being brought in, and the rules that were in place by the NCAA that prohibited students from getting anything other than a scholarship as defined by the NCAA and its very rigid rules.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I don't see those same limitations,

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: The employment of all of the different risks that are out there, the employment

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: issue is the one that has the greatest potential. It could be a huge class action.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Are they exempt employees?

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Have we denied them their benefits, their retirement, their what have you, their salaries? Are they non-exempt, and did we pay them the right overtime? I mean, I just… whew!

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: I don't know.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Absolutely. Either of the other two?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Well, I think a slightly different issue on the employment is, and I agree with Dona in that I really do think we need some clarity under the FLSA.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: On the employment issue, have a very real concern that… that what could work

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: at a, Power 4… institution for football.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: If we run through that same analysis.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: There's a concern that at some point, that economic

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: driver, that starts to fall off, and particularly if we think about, if we take… think about that test of, did the coach require the student athlete to be at practice at 8 AM?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Well, that may make sense at a P4 institution.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: But does it make sense at a junior college?

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: does it make sense at a D1 school that is not in a major conference that is having significant issues

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Merely getting their team

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: to where they're supposed to play that weekend. Not in football, maybe in football, but in other sports. And so, what may be a… seem like a lot, makes a lot of sense for a football and a P4 institution, I think the concern is whether or not that will continue to apply, that same rationale, and… and the unforeseen

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Consequences, or foreseeable consequences, of…

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: Of adopting that rule in this context, for all the other different colleges and universities.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: that are… are truly offering athletics as… as purely a student experience. I think that's where we're kind of needing, that's where we're really going to need help.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: Robert, something that you mentioned, was, you know, very quickly in your conversation, the idea of these, super leagues, building off of what Chris just said. And, you know, last week in the news, there was this conversation about potentially splitting off, some of the NCAA Division I. Got pretty strong rebuke from

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Dean Stacy Leeds: the smaller schools, not wanting to lose their independence, not wanting to be, you know, classified as a farm league, for training up people who would transfer out. Can you talk a little bit about where you see ideas like that going? Are there legs in that suggestion?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Yeah, hard to know. I think… I think that's been…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Discussed for a long time, and it's particularly, you know, at…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: the SEC and the Big Ten.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: You know, whether it made sense, actually, for them to just sort of carve themselves off and become their own, their, their own…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: System for… for competition.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: It's hard for me to know where… I mean.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I think all the Power Five institutions would want to be part of that if it happened. I'm sure that everybody, you know, and obviously that can't happen.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: I don't know that I have a good sense for whether… whether that's going to have legs, and but what I am confident about is that the shifting, at least the shifting around among conferences, and what the conference makeup is and what it looks like is certainly going to change.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Because I think we have… You know, we have now,

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: burdens of what the professional sports have, and none of the benefits, none of the controls that are in place. You know, a professional student athlete doesn't have the whim to just move, you know, where they want in between, and I just think…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: We're going to look much more like a professional, sport experience.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: And that may be driving us toward a Super League model. I don't know if my colleagues have other thoughts on that, but…

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Dean Stacy Leeds: If not, there's kind of a theme in the Q&A. We've got about 4 minutes left, and a lot of the questions seem to get at the calculation of fair market value that the university conducts, trying to make the determination of a student's worth in name, image, and likeness. Could either one of you talk just briefly about how universities are conducting

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Dean Stacy Leeds: those sort of inquiries on their own campuses. We mentioned the partnership with one of the big accounting firms, but what are the typical ways that universities at different levels are going about this?

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: That's an interesting question. I mean, you know, when we're talking about the…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: So, so when we're talking about revenue share, we don't have to do a market analysis. We have…

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: pretty much unfettered discretion. There may be, you know, maybe Title IX has something to say about it, but we have broad discretion on how we can decide to share our revenue. It is supposed to be based on name, image, and likeness value, but I doubt there's going to be much enforcement there.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: On the other hand, third-party NIL is going to be governed by the CSC, and Deloitte and Touche, and they're going to do a market analysis. And how that happens, I don't know. I know, you know.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Fortunately, this is not a legal issue at the institution, so I don't have to be in the room to understand the black box where the athletics department decides how much they're going to give to any particular student athlete. I'm not sure how they do that. I don't know if anybody else has a good sense for that.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: I think it is helpful to kind of understand that there's… there's really two types of payments that are occurring. There's the institutional revenue share, which, you know, that's really the athletic department that's overseeing that. And then there's the

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: you know, sometimes, we refer to it as the true NIL. It's the NIL that's coming from a third party.

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Baylor General Counsel Christopher Holmes: That, that you… that, where they're actually wanting to contract with that student athlete, for their NIL. And, and in those situations, I think the institution's main responsibility is just to make sure that those are being reported, to CSC for… to go through the CSC's process.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: And I'll note, as we have just our final minute to wrap up, there's several questions in the queue around this ongoing conversation about employment. And I'll just mention that our next panel will explore the employee-employer relationships with much great detail. So with that, I just want to thank the three of you for being here with us today, and for all the work you're doing at your home institutions.

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Dean Stacy Leeds: And at this point, I will transition us back to Dean Baynes to pick up the introductions for the next panel. Thank you so much.

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UH General Counsel Dona Cornell: Thank you.

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University of Utah Deputy General Counsel Robert Payne: Thank you.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Can everyone see me and hear me?

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Yes?

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Okay, so I'd like to introduce the next moderator, my colleague, Dean, Buckner Inniss from the University of Colorado School of Law.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: So the second panel is going to be, attorneys going to be looking at these issues from the athletic… athlete's perspective.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Lolita Buckner Inniss is the Dean and Provost Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School. She's a distinguished Academic Leader, Scholar, and public servant. In addition to her other titles, she's an affiliate of the Center for African

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: and African American Studies. As dean, she's overseen one of the largest clinical education gifts received by the institution. She's a widely respected legal scholar with a distinguished national and international reputation.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: And she's an elected member of the American Law Institute, and a prolific author of many articles, essays, and acclaimed legal history book. Let's welcome Dean Buckner Inniss, who will introduce our panel.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Thank you so much, Dean Baynes. It is a tremendous honor to be here, and as Dean Leeds mentioned a few moments ago, our panel is going to pick up, actually, where the previous panel left off, and I am so pleased to be here. I have two distinguished panelists who are going to be participating in our conversation today. The first one is attorney Mike… Brian Michael.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Cooper. He is of counsel with Greenberg Traurig. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center. He has a distinguished career in many sports industry matters. He is the former president of the Houston Roughnecks, the XFL. He's the former president of the RGV

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Vipers, and also former President and COO of American Flag Football League.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Next, we also have Professor Marc Edelman, who is Professor at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, CUNY. Professor Edelman is the Director of Sports Ethics, which I think will, of course, figure prominently here. He's also the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate and,

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Integrity Director. He's an adjunct professor, in addition, at Fordham University School of Law.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: I think, of course, as fascinating as the previous conversation was, we could tell, as if the conversation was tapering off. What's often highlighted and not necessarily spoken of enough, is the role of the athlete when we're talking about these matters. And I know at Colorado Law, we started to do a lot, for example, around NIL.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: So, I want to start with a question for our panelists.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: That sort of, I think, frames the conversation today, and that is…

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: When we're talking about the role of college athletes, and especially the incredibly changing role of athletes.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: What exactly is this conversation about? I mean, is this about rights of the athletes? Is this about antitrust?

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Is this about employment or labor law? And I think that particular latter part is really salient for a lot of the folks, as I look, for example, at some of the comments that have come into the earlier panel. So I wonder, Attorney Cooper and Professor Edelman, by turn, starting with Attorney Cooper, if you could address that question for us.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Yeah, thank you, Dean Inniss, and thank you for having us here today. I think it's all three. You know, I think that it really is a question of rights. You talked about the right to publicity, right to the value of NIL, of the athlete.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: But it also delves into, antitrust as well. I tell my students, you know, that sports is, you know, and antitrust go together like peanut butter and jelly, and they generally do. I became an antitrust lawyer because I was a sports lawyer.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: And so, that's kind of the mechanism in which those rights are kind of outlined and demonstrated to, you know, how you can receive recourse for those.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: And I think ultimately, you know, as our panel before us talked about, the GCs talked about as well, I mean, you now have the specter of labor law and trying to come to a determination on how you manage what I call an economic evolution of college sports, where you have… where revenue has come into play. One of the cases that I love to talk about

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: That I always think, and kind of harking back, and I just kind of do a little bit of a going in the Wayback Machine, but it's a case I always bring up, and I think when we're talking about the context of NIL, is the Board of Regents case from 1984. The Board of Regents

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Board of Regents of the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia versus the NCAA, or vice versa, ultimately, as it got to the Supreme Court. But that case really was the case that kind of set everything in motion. Until then, college sports had been basically singularly managed by the NCAA, and television was one of those components that was.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Board of Regents opened the door for the proliferation of television that ultimately, while it took some time, it led to greater revenues in college sports, and as you saw that economic revolution, that also demonstrated what the college athlete also, as that college athlete is part of that, and part of that economic evolution where revenues are starting to grow.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: you're seeing… you would see sort of that, that continued, that continued, battle. And so I think, you know, as time went on.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: And certainly in the post… in the last 10 years, you know, since, you know, since the

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: the O'Bannon case was decided in the mid-teens, and then you saw the Northwestern case with respect to, respect to the first time you're starting to see the LRB get involved, getting involved in the designation of whether or not that's the case. Ultimately, as that progressed as well, until you got to 2023 with the Jennifer Abruzzo memo, you're starting to see that definition taking shape as to, as to taking shape as to whether or not

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: an athlete is an employee. We've seen some pullback now on some of that discussion now, but certainly as our panel before us talked about, and we'll talk about a little bit further, the Johnson case obviously still remains out there with respect to FSLA standards and whether or not that designation gets there. So I think that there are all three, I think, are a core part of

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: of this, and I think they all, to me at least, the tie to all of those is kind of the economic evolution of sports, of college sports in particular, and so that's…

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: You know, that's how I… I think, again, I think it's… hopefully it's safe to say that all three are part of this right now.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: I see. Thank you so much for that. Professor Edelman, could you share some thoughts with us about this? What is the nature of this conversation when we're talking about college athletes?

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Professor Marc Edelman: Well, typically, if we think back, what it really means to be a lawyer.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Plaintiffs don't usually come to you and say, I'm a victim of an antitrust violation.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Or, my labor rights are being exploited. Plaintiffs typically find something that's unfair.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Now, the job of the lawyer tests the unfair behavior through a lens.

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Professor Marc Edelman: While my classical training is in antitrust law, I began my career at Skadden Arps, I tend to look at things foremost in antitrust. But let's be really clear about this college system that was created.

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Professor Marc Edelman: you had about 1,000 member colleges who got together, who passed a series of rules that reflected behavior, not only at their home institutions, but all of their rivals. And not all the thousand schools are the same.

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Professor Marc Edelman: There's a group of, and we could argue about the exact number, but somewhere between 75 and 100 colleges in America.

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Professor Marc Edelman: In somewhere between 2 to 4 sports.

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Professor Marc Edelman: That for sure, over the past 40 years, with increasing evolution, have chosen to run these college sports programs as cash cows that both maximize revenue for the university and serve as ways of marketing the university.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And I'm just gonna pick one school and one sport to make the point. At Ohio State University, the football program, I'm only talking about the football program at Ohio State University, brings in upwards of $150 million per year.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Now, to compare apples to apples, Ohio State University's in Columbus.

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Professor Marc Edelman: There's also a professional hockey team in Columbus. The Blue Jackets.

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Professor Marc Edelman: The Blue Jackets play an 81-game season. Ohio State plays about a 13-game season.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Ohio State football brings in more revenue in their 13 or so game college football season than the Blue Jackets bring in in 81 games.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And yet, historically, the football players on Ohio State University have been given a cash payment of zero, or if you want to say a cost of attendance. Now, why has that come to be?

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Professor Marc Edelman: relates primarily to antitrust law and other laws as well. The antitrust problem is the thousand or so schools have reached an agreement with one another

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Professor Marc Edelman: Where they say, not only will we not pay our athletes, but nobody else can as well. Which looks like a classic antitrust violation.

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Professor Marc Edelman: We have a labor law question emerging as well, that when these football players come and play at the school, and are providing a service for the school under very…

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Professor Marc Edelman: Legal test of being an employee.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And if we want to be very fair with ourselves, beyond the legal questions arising out of antitrust and labor law, as much as colleges purport to care about

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Professor Marc Edelman: equity and inclusion and racial justice. The system that's put in place for these colleges

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Professor Marc Edelman: is disproportionately affecting low-income, first-generation college student, and disproportionately Black athletes that are serving as a labor force and behind a high-revenue enterprise that's being disguised as something non-commercial, and is being called student-athlete to avoid recognizing that the schools are running

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Professor Marc Edelman: commercial sport. And that's how I look at beginning at the issue, that antitrust and labor and name, image, and likeness right of publicity.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Our tools to try to bring equity under the legal system, and the violations that are underlying these things are the reason why we have systemic inequities in something that's being run by our own universities.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Thank you so much, Professor Edelman. Professor Edelman, something you mentioned brings to mind something else. You uttered the phrase equity and inclusion, and I can't help thinking about, for example, Title IX and the role of women, so I'm going to bring this back around to Attorney Cooper and get back to you, Professor Edelman.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Given the remarks of Professor Edelman and the suggestion that there may certainly be some equity, inclusion, and justice implications to the ways in which college sports have traditionally behaved.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: What is the role of Title IX in all this thinking? Because I think certainly while it's the case that women have seen broader engagement in the athletic sphere, it's nothing like what we're seeing for male athletes. So what is the role of Title IX, and how should we be thinking about these issues

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: If you include, issues around equity, inclusion, and the role of women in college athletics. And so, Attorney Cooper, could you give us some comments on that?

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Yeah, that's a very interesting, you know, it's a very interesting subject. Obviously, look, with respect to the House settlement, one of the things that was

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: that Judge Wilken indicated with that the House settlement would be subject to just… initially would be subject to just the antitrust portion of it, which then opened the door for ultimately looking at, you know, how did Title IX… how was Title IX going to factor in? And look, there are three cases now that are at the appeal stage in the Ninth Circuit where they're looking at that particular issue. And the issue that's really the… at issue right now

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: is how the settlement was built with respect to the revenue share. As the previous panelists talked about, and we'll talk about in further detail, the house settlement was based and built upon, primarily on

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: media revenue sharing of the institutions and the conferences, and that that would be shared with the student athletes. Ultimately, because of that, the lion's share of the revenue was proportionate to the lion's share… the revenue share would be proportionate to the sports in which that revenue is gained. And so right now, obviously, football comes… takes up about 75% of the revenue share

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Men's basketball is at 15%, women's basketball is about 5%, and other sports or Olympic sports are at about 5% as well.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: necessarily because men's basketball and football are men's sports, that's 90%. And that's been the concern as to whether or not, you know, is that an equitable distribution of that revenue?

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: there are, you know, I think it's, it's certainly, it's not an, it's not a closed, it's not an open and shut issue as to that, because even getting back to Professor Edelman's points about,

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: proper compensation of labor and work, and whether or not you're receiving proper revenue. And I think, you know, I want to say that one of the GCs in the previous panel also talked about this as a potential… looking at potential options on how you would value this, and the concerns you'd have, would be one of the following, which is, if football is taking up the lion's share of the revenue.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Do those players get a corresponding revenue allotment associated with football?

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: that necessarily is going to mean that it means that male student athletes are going to get more revenue. And so I think that that's going to be an issue that's going to continue to have to be addressed, and it hasn't been, and that's why we're, you know, we're seeing kind of that component. One of the other components, though, part of that, and in our discussion regarding how this plays into employment law and into labor law and the designation of a student

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: as a student, an athlete, as an employee, also gets into whether or not, how do… where would Title IX factor into that as well? Now, you know, if we start looking at it

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: from a wage standpoint, and, you know, now you're looking at equal wages, does Title IX, which really kind of speaks more to allocation of equal opportunity and equal allocation of educational benefits.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: does that factor in? So, right now, it is… it's a very interesting component. It's one, I think, that, you know, that we all kind of saw when the House settlement was coming through, like, okay, Title IX is there, how is this going to also be factored as well? And I think, you know, as we walk through these things, we're going to see some more of it, but I do think that, it's going to continue to be an issue

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: respect, and we're gonna see those, those appeals. It's gonna be, continue to be an issue going forward. And one that, you know, I think that, that.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: will tie into, you know, more so if we're talking about, you know, right, you know, antitrust or labor, it's going to tie into the labor component as well, and so we'll have to see what, what, what happens in the next, in the next, you know, months or so as these cases are moving forward. But it definitely is, it's still something that's out there, and it's still an impact.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Wow, thank you so much, and I have to say, while it might be an inapt…

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: analogy, I can't help thinking about the allocation of the tip pool in the fancy restaurant, where you've got the servers making a bundle in the back of the house folks who don't have those opportunities, but who work just as hard and keep the place going. But, Professor Edelman, your thoughts on this, on the role of Title IX and this whole discussion, about, athletes,

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: And wages and employment.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Well, if we want to have this conversation about Title IX, I think we need to go back to 1972, and the passing of the statute.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Title IX of the Equal Opportunity Amendments was intend… Equal Educational Opportunity Act was intended to create equal opportunity in education for men and women. Now, we've come a long way…

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Professor Marc Edelman: Maybe not as far as we should in society, but we've come a long way. This goes back to the point in time where certain STEM courses are an equal opportunity to women.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And the statute was geared primarily as a statute based upon education.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Whether it related to athletics or not was a subject of debate when Title IX was first passed. And I want to be incredibly clear about something, and I think the history is important.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Whereas the colleges now are using Title IX as this theoretical shield about why they say they can't pay, or pay equitably to the male athletes, the colleges oppose Title IX work

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Professor Marc Edelman: and its incipients.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And when I say this, if you don't believe me that the colleges fought against Title IX's application to sports, go on to Westlaw and look up the case Califano, C-A-L-I-F-A-N-O, vs. NCAA.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Where the NCAA itself sought a court order not to have to comply with Title IX.

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Professor Marc Edelman: No.

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Professor Marc Edelman: The court…

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Professor Marc Edelman: ultimately found that the NCAA did not have standing to challenge that issue. They said a school would have to challenge it, the University of Georgia briefly thought about doing so, and then all the colleges realized to walk away from this. But it's worth noting that the same institutions that are saying Title IX as being the barrier to compensating revenue-generating athletes, fought against Title IX.

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Professor Marc Edelman: The implications about Title IX in terms of unionization panel, Professor McCann and I, along with Professor John Holden, published a law review article a few years back called The Employee Athlete, and we looked at the standard for college athletes to unionize. Maybe Mike…

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Professor Marc Edelman: Michael talked about, we thought Mike, John, and I all thought we were going to come down a little bit differently. We were in lockstep with one another. That the standard for an employee is one who performs a benefit under control.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And in essence, you're able to parse these issues. Most college athletes are operating under the control of the school. The benefit is a different story.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And there are certain sports programs out there, where the existence of the program is to bring in revenue for the university. Where tickets are being charged to attend games in a way that would not be charged for a usual student event.

510
01:39:18.930 --> 01:39:28.519
Professor Marc Edelman: Where they're being broadcast on television in a way that a regular student event like Acapella would not. And those athletes tend to meet the definition of employee.

511
01:39:28.770 --> 01:39:43.050
Professor Marc Edelman: many other college athletes and the view that Mike McCann and John Holden and I came down with, we do not believe they met the definition. So whereas there's currently a litigation going on right now, Johnson vs. NCAA, with a plaintiff's lawyer

512
01:39:43.090 --> 01:40:00.770
Professor Marc Edelman: are trying to say all college athletes. We don't think it's an all-or-none issue. We think it has to be parsed. Now, that's not a male-female issue, it's a generation of revenues for the school versus not generating revenue for the school. Now, a few complicating factors. One is

513
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Professor Marc Edelman: I do believe that some of the women's sports programs in this country certainly could generate revenue for their schools. And I think that's been shown lately with volleyball. I think at University of Iowa, beginning in the Caitlin Clark era, it's shown that there's a huge demand.

514
01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:28.650
Professor Marc Edelman: Historically, one of the reasons why I think the women's sports programs have generated so little revenue is not that fans are not interested in women's sports, but the colleges themselves have not put the money and effort into

515
01:40:28.880 --> 01:40:44.199
Professor Marc Edelman: marketing the women's programs. Now, that's not on the athletes, and I don't think we should be playing this game of pitting revenue-generating athletes against non-revenue-generating athletes, or male athletes against female athletes. I think the colleges need to acknowledge that

516
01:40:44.340 --> 01:41:01.140
Professor Marc Edelman: The issue in terms of employee status is revenue generation versus non-revenue generation, and it's the obligation of the colleges themselves to market and provide equal opportunity to women than men. They didn't want to do it in 1980, and I still believe they're not doing it today.

517
01:41:01.140 --> 01:41:21.580
Professor Marc Edelman: I find it to be a bit disingenuous when the college is now to try to triangulate the athletes against each other, when some of their leadership is more responsible for the Title IX issue, and it's the colleges that are responsible for complying with Title IX, not the athletes, not the court, and not any theoretical collective bargaining unit itself.

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01:41:22.010 --> 01:41:46.760
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Wow, thank you so much. I want to switch gears here a little bit, though I think in some ways it's still related. I want to talk about name-image likeness, or NIL. Could you share with me, both of you by turns, what's the range of opportunities, effects, challenges that athletes are facing with the change in NIL rules over the past couple of years? And we'll start with you, Attorney Cooper.

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01:41:47.880 --> 01:41:57.780
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think, you know, look, in the last 5 years, thank you, Dean, in the last 5 years, you've seen this potential, this shift, obviously, since the first rules in 2021 were allowed.

520
01:41:57.780 --> 01:42:13.829
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: where you're seeing a greater sophistication of the college space with respect to athletes and their ability to utilize that value. I think what's interesting about it, and I think, you know, what has really kind of transcended from this

521
01:42:13.830 --> 01:42:38.560
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: is the fact that you're seeing… you've expanded the tent for individuals to gain a platform in order to receive additional revenue. Yes, there are individuals coming from disparate backgrounds, but I think in my years of sports, you know, one of the things I've noticed as well is that, both as a team executive and at the pro level, is that players, you know, over time have become much more

522
01:42:38.560 --> 01:42:52.719
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: sophisticated as to learning about what their platform can be, and how they can utilize their brand and image and likeness in order to gain additional value, and then utilize that value for other things that may be beyond sports. And so I think what I see in this space, and what excites me about

523
01:42:52.720 --> 01:43:16.310
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: NIL space and the opportunities there, are that you're seeing that potential diversification and platform building by student athletes who are able to then go and ultimately market themselves, and quite frankly, look at college now, and look at the college space as potentially the platform for which they can ultimately see success, even outside of the athletic realm after college. It's not just.

524
01:43:16.310 --> 01:43:18.460
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: NBA or bust, or NFL or bust.

525
01:43:18.460 --> 01:43:37.579
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: players, they can now… there's… now we're opening the opportunities for those individuals to do things. And I kind of want to… I want to just go back to what Professor Edelman just said a couple minutes ago, a little bit, because I do think it's a point, and I didn't… and I was remiss, quite frankly, as a former pro executive, to not state that. He is correct about the

526
01:43:37.580 --> 01:43:39.199
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: The ability to market

527
01:43:39.200 --> 01:43:46.859
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: sports and the ability to market sports that, quite frankly, have gone underutilized. I think you're going to now see that because of the economic necessities

528
01:43:46.860 --> 01:44:02.100
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: from college programs, they're going to want to do that. They're almost doing it out of necessity, but quite frankly, you're right, they're missing out on an incredibly large component. Now, back to this component, that is… back to what we're talking about with opportunities, because of that.

529
01:44:02.100 --> 01:44:09.139
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: you're going to see, I think, the students also taking a much more proactive stance on saying, hey.

530
01:44:09.180 --> 01:44:29.640
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think I can, you know, I can expand my brand, and I can expand what I do in this space, in my sport, which may not necessarily be a rev-generating sport, because of, you know, the opportunities that are there, and I can go out and find those things as well. The one thing I think that's going to be critical in all of this right now, and I know we'll probably maybe get into this in additional detail.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: is because of, right now, it's… things have happened so quickly over the last 5 years, you know, in the sense that you… one of the things that… I do think that

532
01:44:38.820 --> 01:44:48.860
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: that the student athletes also will benefit from certain guardrails. One thing in particular is representation. Representation of athletes, representation, sorry, of agents.

533
01:44:48.860 --> 01:45:00.209
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: both certification and knowledge base. And so I think those are some things that just still need to be mapped out, but I do, you know, again, I kind of do… I tend to be a glass-half-full individual, and I think that

534
01:45:00.210 --> 01:45:24.199
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: What I've seen in the last 5 years is I've seen a growing knowledge base at a younger level of both students who are entering college and those who are there, who are now looking to themselves, hey, how do I manage this, and how do I manage this in a way where I can just, again, build that platform for not necessarily going to the pro level, but quite frankly, just simply

535
01:45:24.200 --> 01:45:29.240
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Being able to, to exit college, with, with a, a degree.

536
01:45:29.240 --> 01:45:50.019
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: no debt, and quite frankly, some money stored and moved forward. And so, that's what I think is exciting to me, and I think as that tent expands, that's going to be the thing that I'm really going to be looking forward to seeing, and that's what I think NIL has really started to move the needle a bit there, and I hope we're going to see more of that in the future.

537
01:45:50.540 --> 01:46:05.039
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Thank you so much, and I just want to tag on to that question, because something you said struck a sort of a chord with me. At Colorado Law, one of the things I've noticed is that when I go online to order a student-athlete jersey.

538
01:46:05.040 --> 01:46:28.679
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: They're at varying prices, number one. So, even a fourth-string volleyball player probably has a nil opportunity, whereas they didn't before. Number one, number two, and this is why we at Colorado Law have started some student clinical opportunities for law students to help out our athletes. If you're a big name, you're going to probably have that private representation. Students, of course, who are in less popular sports, or less successful.

539
01:46:28.700 --> 01:46:42.440
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: they don't have that, and so something you mentioned about guardrails, does strike me, and also conflicts, but I'm going to turn to Professor Edelman, because maybe we can spend a few more moments, after. Professor Edelman, tell us, tell us your thoughts about this, yeah.

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01:46:42.440 --> 01:47:00.939
Professor Marc Edelman: Okay. Well, this question and what's happened with NIL is surreal to me, and it's been surreal for two reasons. One, Dean Kronk over at University of Utah asked me if I would be on this panel. Dean Kronk and I have known each other from a former life. We both went to Michigan Law School together.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And when I was at 2L at Michigan Law School, I wrote my student note. I had a great professor, Sherman Clark, who taught sports law, and he supervised me in writing it. Didn't necessarily agree with me, but definitely supervised me, which I give him even more credit for doing.

542
01:47:17.960 --> 01:47:22.949
Professor Marc Edelman: And it was called Re-Evaluating Amateurism Standards in Men's College Basketball.

543
01:47:23.190 --> 01:47:36.060
Professor Marc Edelman: And the theme of my article was that when the NCAA member schools got together and reached agreements that prevented the athletes from engaging in third-party endorsement deals, that amounted to a violation of antitrust law.

544
01:47:36.300 --> 01:47:54.270
Professor Marc Edelman: Now, it was based on that article that in 2019, I had the opportunity to work with Nancy Skinner's office and advocate for the Fair Pay to Play Act, which made California into amongst the first states that ensured college athletes had the right to endorse products for money.

545
01:47:54.570 --> 01:48:09.430
Professor Marc Edelman: Just to be clear, and I agree with everything you've said, I agree with everything Brian said, but so many people have a misconception of what NIL is. So I want to make a few corrections for people. First, NIL didn't emerge in 2019.

546
01:48:09.520 --> 01:48:15.449
Professor Marc Edelman: If we wanted to pick a year that NIL was created, it would be 1953.

547
01:48:15.610 --> 01:48:27.710
Professor Marc Edelman: And if you're asking me why I say 1953, it was the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Haelan v. Topps, which said at least under the Second Circuit view.

548
01:48:28.070 --> 01:48:43.750
Professor Marc Edelman: A famous individual has the right to control monetarily their name, image, and likeness, and license it or not license it. And that's classic intro to intellectual property. Now, the reason why, despite Haelan v. Topps and its progeny.

549
01:48:43.750 --> 01:49:02.340
Professor Marc Edelman: Including Zacchini vs. Scripps Broadcasting, which came down from the Supreme Court in 1977. That as recently as 2019 to 2021, you choose the year, college athletes did not have the opportunity to endorse products for money, had nothing to do with any law whatsoever.

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01:49:02.340 --> 01:49:13.199
Professor Marc Edelman: It had to do with the fact that the 1,200 or so NCAA member schools reached an agreement with one another in which they all said, not only will we not allow our athletes to do it.

551
01:49:13.200 --> 01:49:23.650
Professor Marc Edelman: But we won't allow you to do it either. So California's law, and Florida's law, and all of the other laws that went into place, in essence, made it illegal.

552
01:49:23.650 --> 01:49:27.119
Professor Marc Edelman: For any college or athletic association.

553
01:49:27.260 --> 01:49:30.779
Professor Marc Edelman: Public or private, that operate in the state.

554
01:49:30.820 --> 01:49:36.860
Professor Marc Edelman: To disallow their athletes from having the rights that naturally would have existed for them.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And the NCAA member schools, which rarely change their rules volition… on their own volition, in the aftermath of Alston, which I believe Brian spoke about a bit, recognizing that, indeed, this was likely an antitrust violation, and that they couldn't fight with individual state law, dropped that regulation.

556
01:49:56.280 --> 01:50:01.640
Professor Marc Edelman: So that's one thing I wanted to clarify. The second thing I wanted to clarify is…

557
01:50:01.860 --> 01:50:04.959
Professor Marc Edelman: what is this thing that we call NIL?

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01:50:05.130 --> 01:50:08.609
Professor Marc Edelman: And I think Brian was beginning to get at this.

559
01:50:10.270 --> 01:50:18.340
Professor Marc Edelman: NIL technically means name, image, and likeness, so that should be payment for using one's publicity for commercial gain.

560
01:50:18.630 --> 01:50:26.869
Professor Marc Edelman: So, if a college athlete did a commercial with Coca-Cola, that clearly is use of their likeness.

561
01:50:27.030 --> 01:50:33.789
Professor Marc Edelman: If a college athlete is getting paid by their school to appear on a broadcasting or on an ad.

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01:50:34.010 --> 01:50:46.309
Professor Marc Edelman: That almost certainly, as well, is name, image, and likeness. Now, some of the other things that we are seeing that are being called name, image, and likeness are really pay-for-play.

563
01:50:46.500 --> 01:51:02.680
Professor Marc Edelman: Now, the view I've come around to, and this wasn't my view necessarily when I wrote my note in 2002, it was definitely my view by the time I wrote a short treatise on amateurism and Antitrust Law, which I published in Case Western Law Review in 2013,

564
01:51:02.680 --> 01:51:07.989
Professor Marc Edelman: is that it was not just the outer fringes of the NCAA rules that violated antitrust.

565
01:51:08.570 --> 01:51:10.030
Professor Marc Edelman: It was the whole shebang.

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Professor Marc Edelman: And the restraint on endorsing products for money likely violates the rule of reason. So does a restraint on direct pay.

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Professor Marc Edelman: So both these things I'm a proponent of, in terms of being a proponent of free markets. But I think if we want to have an intellectually honest conversation, we need to separate the two.

568
01:51:32.040 --> 01:51:40.559
Professor Marc Edelman: which one is payment for use of name, image, and likeness, which I think there should be a free market for. The other one, which is pay for play, which…

569
01:51:41.220 --> 01:51:45.360
Professor Marc Edelman: I would support a market for…

570
01:51:45.640 --> 01:51:49.060
Professor Marc Edelman: as well, but if you look at the NF…

571
01:51:49.300 --> 01:51:52.610
Professor Marc Edelman: Now, how do you get to a collective bargain relationship?

572
01:51:52.720 --> 01:51:54.770
Professor Marc Edelman: Well, first-

573
01:51:55.200 --> 01:52:01.169
Professor Marc Edelman: You have to have a group of athletes that want to unionize, and then second, you can't fight against it.

574
01:52:01.470 --> 01:52:12.400
Professor Marc Edelman: I saw the last 10 minutes of the panel before, and I had a chance to listen to the University of Utah Athletic Director speak for a few minutes.

575
01:52:12.620 --> 01:52:13.360
Professor Marc Edelman: 

576
01:52:13.630 --> 01:52:30.039
Professor Marc Edelman: I'm not going to turn this into the public equity… private equity panel, but I will say that if public athletic programs spin off their assets into private LLCs, it would certainly facilitate the process

577
01:52:30.240 --> 01:52:40.319
Professor Marc Edelman: of the National Labor Relations Board taking jurisdiction over a multi-employer bargaining unit of college athletes by conference, by sport.

578
01:52:40.320 --> 01:52:52.880
Professor Marc Edelman: And that would certainly facilitate something that looks a lot more like the collective bargaining that I know Brian and others have worked on, when they've represented, what we call professional sports.

579
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Professor Marc Edelman: So I'll stop there, because I don't want to be long-winded, and let you proceed with your next questions, whether they're related or not.

580
01:53:00.670 --> 01:53:13.129
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Yeah, I mean, that question is somewhat related, and it goes back to what you were both saying. I guess a significant concern that some people have expressed on this topic is, is there an inherent conflict when a student

581
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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: There's student as athlete, student as entertainer, but also student as product. Is there a conflict between the student's role on the team and the very real fact that if you play well.

582
01:53:24.940 --> 01:53:34.449
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: If you've got a great personality, you are… you are a potential big-NIL property, for example. Are we opening the door to the creation of, sort of.

583
01:53:34.490 --> 01:53:43.109
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: conflicts between the student athlete and the institution. And this is part of a larger question later. Are colleges and universities disadvantaged by this? Because…

584
01:53:43.110 --> 01:53:59.159
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: you know, for years, people have said, oh, I hate that athlete, he's such a hot dog. Well, now there's money in being a hot dog, right? Is that an inherent conflict? Are the colleges and universities at a disadvantage, or are the power dynamics such that we don't have to worry about that? Attorney Cooper.

585
01:53:59.770 --> 01:54:06.679
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think it's, you know, Dean, I think it's closer to the pro model to that end, right? Because…

586
01:54:06.690 --> 01:54:24.679
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think, you know, one of the things I do, you know, and Professor Edelman brought up a great point about, in fact, an NIL, NIL is, in its truest form, is endorsement deals. It's licensing. It's not, again, to be clear, it's not, it is not pay-for-performance. We've seen that line kind of blurred.

587
01:54:24.680 --> 01:54:32.800
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: More recently, obviously, with the Sorsby case and the Mensah case, where you've got institutions, and there's, you know, these concerns about transfer portal

588
01:54:32.800 --> 01:54:52.399
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: movement and the ability to try to utilize a license in order to essentially also maintain, potentially maintain whether or not, you know, maintain a student athlete to be there. So I think, you know, that line continues to get blurred… gets blurred, and to your question about potential conflicts.

589
01:54:52.400 --> 01:55:03.290
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think that you can look to the pros for something more like that. You know, one of the other things I think is important to note is that, basically, you know, we are talking about, sort of, you know, we're not talking about a…

590
01:55:03.290 --> 01:55:21.490
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: there's opportunities that are growing for a larger number of athletes, but all in all, the average, you know, amount of NIL revenue that a student athlete may receive is still in the four figures, right? So, I mean, well, you have the big cases, right? And so I think that, for the most part, many players who play even Division I

591
01:55:21.500 --> 01:55:32.139
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: college football, some play without receiving any NIL compensation. You know, they don't… that's not something that's negotiated, and that's not something they get. They come and they play, and they play for their scholarship.

592
01:55:32.140 --> 01:55:55.170
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think over time, when you're talking about how, you know, marketing, quote-unquote, maybe your star players, I think that necessarily… that conflict necessarily happens at any level, at the pro level as well, right? When I was team president of a team, you know, you wanted to make sure your athletes were… the student athletes, the athletes or the pro athletes were also brand ambassadors for your team, so you wanted to work hand-in-hand to make sure that they were advancing

593
01:55:55.170 --> 01:56:14.970
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: you know, the goals, you know, our revenue goals, which were obviously to earn… to do advanced ticket sales, to, you know, have meaningful partnerships, and so I think that they both work together. I think sometimes the conflict, the true economic conflict, can come when you do have a student athlete who has a third party… who has a third-party deal with a conflicting

594
01:56:14.970 --> 01:56:38.470
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: partner of an institution. The early days of NIL, right, you had those, you know, state NIL laws, you had your universities had their own, had their own regulations as well, and some of those things were addressed in that, right? Well, you know, you can, you know, the school could still weigh in on a third-party deal, for one manufacturer if we were… if the school was with Adidas and the student-athlete

595
01:56:38.470 --> 01:56:42.650
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: wanted to sign a deal with Nike, that's something that could… that the school could potentially address.

596
01:56:42.650 --> 01:57:07.269
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I think, you know, how that's also been rectified at the pro level is that ultimately those rules were ultimately, you know, came together, and that, you know, there was greater allowance of that with respect to making sure that the economic interests of both parties were being respected. I always harken back from the pro side to the famous picture of Michael Jordan at the 92 Olympics, right? He's a Nike-endorsed

597
01:57:07.270 --> 01:57:30.139
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: athlete. At the time, the U.S. Olympic team was wearing Adidas, Adidas warm-ups, and what does he do? He has the iconic pose of having the flag over his, you know, as a great shot, but it also covered up the Reebok logo. I think that schools are going to be able to start working with their student-athletes to start getting through those things so they can maintain both their economic interest there, and I think that's going to be one of the larger conflicts.

598
01:57:30.370 --> 01:57:36.960
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: One last thing I wanted to talk about, you had mentioned, kind of, like, I think, I think you alluded to, kind of, maybe one of the inter… the inter,

599
01:57:37.060 --> 01:57:59.060
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: personal conflict, quite frankly, also of having those players. That's something that has intrigued me for a while, as to whether or not over time, you know, do players start to wonder about, well, hey, why is he receiving all the accolades? I think that give and take is also true at the professional level, and players have generally worked through that. I think over time.

600
01:57:59.060 --> 01:58:11.720
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: What is different about college right now that is not in the pros, and this is one of the things I think that, again, the big picture, the big issue that we haven't really talked about is how that ties into

601
01:58:12.090 --> 01:58:19.090
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: collective bargaining and minimums and potential compensation minimums and those types of things that you do see at that

602
01:58:19.090 --> 01:58:40.050
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: at that pro level, where the players seem to be, you know, working, obviously, together, collectively, regardless of their stature on a particular team, for example, that, I think, hopefully will, you know, again, we are, you know, I think one of the things I also want to be clear about and be to our group as well, and I know there's tons of, there's tons of, of, of,

603
01:58:40.050 --> 01:58:41.899
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Questions ultimately coming forward.

604
01:58:41.900 --> 01:58:57.379
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: We are at the beginning stages of this, right? And I think that… I think I would be remiss to say that, you know, there are going to be some bumps along the road. We have seen that, you know, in the back and forth between

605
01:58:57.380 --> 01:59:06.009
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: club and league at the pro level, and I think you're gonna start… you're gonna see that here at the college level as well.

606
01:59:06.300 --> 01:59:30.250
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Thank you so much. And I don't know, it looks like we might have temporarily lost Professor Edelman. We'll keep going and assume that he's going to be, back with us. As we are sort of getting towards the end of our time, and I want to turn to the audience shortly, what do you see as the long-term outcome in terms of the change in the relationship between the students

607
01:59:30.250 --> 01:59:38.920
Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: And the university, colleges and universities. Where are we going with this? Meaning, is this a fad? What is this, this moment that we're seeing?

608
01:59:38.920 --> 01:59:49.629
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: I definitely don't think it's a fad. I think, but I think, you know, and I think I, the, the GC from, Christopher from Baylor, brought up the, brought up, you know, the, the.

609
01:59:49.780 --> 02:00:00.179
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: the thing I think that going forward is going to be, that I see going forward, is how are we going to ultimately get to a point where we can rectify,

610
02:00:00.180 --> 02:00:06.929
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: The ability to, you know, the leagues… leagues have to… leagues have had, in sports, leagues have had this… this structural component

611
02:00:06.930 --> 02:00:28.260
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: of making sure they can have regulation in place that allows for competitive balance, and you need to have competitive balance as a sports league. I mean, Justice Stevens said it back in 1984. The NCAA's kind of leapfrogged on that and used it as… used some of that, you know, to justify some of their pro-competitive justifications for it going forward. But look, believe it as it may.

612
02:00:28.460 --> 02:00:51.799
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: a sports league needs to have competitive balance and needs to have certain restrictions and rules in order to survive as a league. There's no question about that. The question in antitrust always becomes whether or not that anti-competitive rule deserves a pro-competitive justification. Is it balanced out? Is there a less restrictive alternative? I think the question now becomes, you know, and even from the legislative standpoint.

613
02:00:51.800 --> 02:00:55.790
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: From all of the things we're looking at now, the question becomes, can…

614
02:00:55.840 --> 02:01:07.630
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: a legislative body, either the NCAA, the College Sports Commission, but, you know, can they, the conferences themselves, can they make a regulation that would survive antitrust scrutiny?

615
02:01:07.630 --> 02:01:25.409
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: And everyone, you know, we've seen legislative remedies associated with that as well, but I think what we're going to see, and I'll see Professor Edelman's back, I will, I will, you know, the thing I would say to wrap up here is that I think going forward, we are going to see some sort of

616
02:01:25.580 --> 02:01:26.920
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: graduated

617
02:01:27.610 --> 02:01:36.339
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: ability, a collective bargaining ability of student-athletes. If you want to, if you genuinely want to, to, to…

618
02:01:36.340 --> 02:02:01.130
Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: to not have an issue regarding antitrust. That's how the pro leagues all got there. They all had to ultimately work their way through, getting to a stage where they could make an argument regarding working conditions, and ultimately, you know, that graduated into not just working conditions, but also, you know, who's sharing the revenue, how they're sharing it, you know, how those things occurred. Most famously, right, the NFL ultimately had a

619
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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: prolonged labor dispute in the late 80s, early 90s, but that ultimately morphed into the

620
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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: to the NFLPA, you know, decertifying, and then ultimately you had the Powell, Nick McNeil, and the White cases that ultimately led to NFL free agency. I think you're going to see something along those lines here, where there's going to be this continued thing, how do we

621
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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Better build, college sports in a way where we can regulate

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: properly, or regulate in a way that's meaningful and makes sense and is not exploitative, but at the same time also, you know, also allow for, you know, the continued rights. And I think that they're going to have to get there. The only thing I, you know, think I can think of is that can we figure out a way where we can… and again, I wanted to kind of… I thought Chris was kind of going there with that in the previous panel.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Is there sort of a hybrid approach where you have a, you know, allow for some level of collective bargaining? And perhaps it's collective bargaining even among the revenue-generating sports to begin with.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: So you don't have, like, this… and I think, you know, I think GC Cornell mentioned this as well, this concern about how you would be… how you'd be classifying employees going forward, but you have something sort of like that there, where you can have that

625
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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: dynamic, and then also allow for some effective rulemaking, so you can have the regulation of agents, you can have, a situation where you're also protecting the interests of both sides going forward. So.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: You know, we are, again, I think, I think if this is a 400-meter race, we are entering maybe the first turn, at best, right now. We might not… I think we're outside, I think we're out of the blocks.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: But we are by no means, close to this finishing, and so that's, you know, I think that it's going to be very interesting to see going forward, but, you know, I'm sure, you know, Professor Edelman, I know you've got some

628
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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Let me get some insight on this, and I… but I think that that's… that's how I see things going forward.

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Yes, and so, Professor Edelman, thank you, you're back. I just want to follow on with this question, that we just discussed. So, the long-term outcome and implications of what we've just talked about, I could be a skeptic and say, it's a fad, this conversation won't be happening in 5 years. Attorney Cooper seems to be saying that's not what's happening, we're at the beginning of this race. What are your thoughts in terms of, sort of, understanding the rights of athletes versus the colleges and universities?

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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: When it comes to athletics.

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Professor Marc Edelman: Well, I first apologize about having instable internet today.

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Professor Marc Edelman: I'll try to be more stable than my internet service in giving you this answer.

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Professor Marc Edelman: The problems could go away very quickly.

634
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Professor Marc Edelman: If colleges come to accept real legal advice.

635
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Professor Marc Edelman: As opposed to pipe dreams.

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Professor Marc Edelman: I've been writing about the issues in the college sports space for upwards of 20 years.

637
02:04:45.860 --> 02:04:55.239
Professor Marc Edelman: And colleges throughout the country typically say things like, Our professor… People should listen to them.

638
02:04:56.450 --> 02:05:09.950
Professor Marc Edelman: Colleges are not listening to me, or Michael McCann, or John Holden, or Jeremi Duru, or any of those have also been writing seriously in the field.

639
02:05:10.240 --> 02:05:18.030
Professor Marc Edelman: For nearly 20 years, I've been given two ways in which colleges could

640
02:05:18.350 --> 02:05:22.579
Professor Marc Edelman: Avoid the problems that first very clearly, were coming for them.

641
02:05:22.780 --> 02:05:25.560
Professor Marc Edelman: And second, resolve them once they came.

642
02:05:25.930 --> 02:05:31.789
Professor Marc Edelman: And there are 2 very… well, 3 really very real options for any college.

643
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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: One.

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02:05:33.080 --> 02:05:37.090
Professor Marc Edelman: Nobody says you have to have big-time commercial college sports.

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Professor Marc Edelman: I happen to love the University of Colorado. I know that's where you're dean. My wife is an alumni of the University of Colorado. It's so great to go hiking in Chautauqua and then go to a game.

646
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Professor Marc Edelman: Yes. University of Colorado has partnerships with Point Spread and Sports Gambling. They have… they sell beer at the games. They've chosen to create a commercial revenue-maximizing environment. So, one of three options, and I don't think any college is going to take it, is

647
02:06:04.390 --> 02:06:05.589
Professor Marc Edelman: Don't do that!

648
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Professor Marc Edelman: Go back to creating something non-commercial. University of Chicago walked away from it. NYU walked away from it. Don't be this.

649
02:06:13.560 --> 02:06:17.329
Professor Marc Edelman: Now, option number 2 is an antitrust solution.

650
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Professor Marc Edelman: I'm looking right now, Dean Inniss, at your backdrop, and I see 12 schools, and these are the Big 12 schools. And it's a shame I didn't go first, because I wish we had the chance to ask this to the General Counsel.

651
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Professor Marc Edelman: As bullish as I am on antitrust litigation.

652
02:06:37.940 --> 02:06:43.880
Professor Marc Edelman: Against the NCAA and their member schools. If the 12 schools whose logos are on here.

653
02:06:43.970 --> 02:07:02.240
Professor Marc Edelman: got together and reached an agreement, whether it was an agreement to limit college athlete pay, or an agreement with respect to eligibility, and it's just those 12 schools and nobody else, I am pretty sure they could. Ivy Leagues at a member conference

654
02:07:02.830 --> 02:07:09.829
Professor Marc Edelman: could probably do this. Now, antitrust challenges against college sports bet they're under the rule of reason.

655
02:07:10.180 --> 02:07:15.190
Professor Marc Edelman: And one of the prongs to violate the rule of reason is you need to have market power.

656
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Professor Marc Edelman: And a reasonable argument can be made that any one of these member conferences don't have power to control the market, because they compete against the other conferences.

657
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Professor Marc Edelman: So, if the 12 of you guys here came to what I think is your senses, and maybe I'm saying that off the cuff, but I've spent 20 years of studying this, and said we're not going to support rules on the national level.

658
02:07:38.510 --> 02:07:41.780
Professor Marc Edelman: We want to make rules amongst the 12 of us.

659
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Professor Marc Edelman: I don't think you have an antitrust problem. So those are two potential outcomes. One, walk away from the commercialization. If it's not commercial, you won't have an antitrust issue, and no one's even going to want to bring a case. Two, have your rules, but have your rules on the conference level, and deal with the fact there'll be inter-conference competition.

660
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Professor Marc Edelman: And three, and Brian began to allude to this, is the professional sports corollary, which is negotiate them through multi-employer collective bargaining.

661
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Professor Marc Edelman: Now, people don't talk about this. Usually, companies don't want their employees to unionize, but in the NFL, after the work stoppage in the early 1990s, the one that Brian alluded to when he just written all those cases.

662
02:08:27.020 --> 02:08:34.259
Professor Marc Edelman: As part of the settlement, the players agreed to reunionize, and it's pretty well acknowledged that the

663
02:08:34.580 --> 02:08:47.369
Professor Marc Edelman: Football teams themselves wanted the players to reunionize so they would be able to collectively bargain over rules related to salary and eligibility, trust liability.

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Professor Marc Edelman: It continues to confound me, Why commercial revenue-generating programs

665
02:08:55.120 --> 02:09:02.289
Professor Marc Edelman: in generating sports continue to fight against the possibility of college athletes unionized.

666
02:09:02.540 --> 02:09:21.059
Professor Marc Edelman: When Northwestern University decided that they were going to fight against efforts by Kain Coulter and their football program to unionize, Northwestern blew it. They might have done what the NCAA wanted them to do, but if they were able… if they were able some way

667
02:09:21.060 --> 02:09:34.209
Professor Marc Edelman: To, instead of fighting against it, kind of encourage a union, but it to be the entire conference, and maybe try to create a body and get into some form of

668
02:09:34.420 --> 02:09:40.639
Professor Marc Edelman: Multi-employer bargaining, perhaps with the conference being the bargaining unit, which is private.

669
02:09:40.720 --> 02:09:55.619
Professor Marc Edelman: they could have avoided all these problems altogether. And when we hear the General Counsel of Utah talking about… and I don't care if you do it with private equity or not, I think you certainly can do it with private equity, but this notion of creating a spin-off entity.

670
02:09:57.110 --> 02:10:07.700
Professor Marc Edelman: Thus, that the public institution is spinning its property into a private entity, which undoubtedly would fall under the jurisdiction of the NLRA.

671
02:10:07.770 --> 02:10:18.760
Professor Marc Edelman: supporting the notion of college athletes unionizing in the revenue-generating sports, again, would get you out from antitrust and would lead to collectively bargained solutions. So…

672
02:10:19.540 --> 02:10:26.300
Professor Marc Edelman: I'll be honest, I know very little In this world, About very few things.

673
02:10:26.750 --> 02:10:30.379
Professor Marc Edelman: But I've spent the past 20 years on this one little dot.

674
02:10:30.790 --> 02:10:34.869
Professor Marc Edelman: And these are my 3 ways to resolve the problem in this one little dot.

675
02:10:34.990 --> 02:10:48.159
Professor Marc Edelman: I think the time has come for colleges not to stop choosing the silent fourth option of running to Donald Trump and Congress and praying someone bails them out from having to follow the same laws as everybody else follows.

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Professor Marc Edelman: I think the time has come for them to take a look at the roadmap of what the real opportunity set is, to accept the fact that sometimes their own professors say things they don't want to hear.

677
02:10:59.250 --> 02:11:06.679
Professor Marc Edelman: But college and university presidents need to understand hearing what you don't want to hear doesn't mean that it's wrong.

678
02:11:06.850 --> 02:11:18.809
Professor Marc Edelman: start accepting the legal environment, and picking one of these three very plausible solutions to move forward to. And the quicker they do that, the quicker we'll have stability in college sports.

679
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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Thank you so much, and Professor Edelman, and Attorney Cooper, I'm going to thank you so much. We are out of time. You have just been incredibly enlightening with your remarks. I'm going to turn this back over to move to the next panel, but I just want to notice, mention a really weird quirk. The Big 12 actually has 16 schools in the league and 11 law schools.

680
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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: So that's one of those trivia questions that you might get on Jeopardy! or something.

681
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Dean Lolita Buckner Inniss: Anyway, thank you so much, gentlemen. Moving back to Dean Baynes. Bye-bye.

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Attorney Brian Michael Cooper: Thank you.

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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Thank you, Dean Buckner Inniss, and the panelists. Now comes up our third panel, who's going to be discussing cutting-edge issues in collegiate sports, dealing with several academics. The moderator of the panel is Elizabeth Kronk-Warner. She's the Jefferson

684
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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: B. And Rita E. Fordham, Presidential Dean, Professor of Law at S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. She's a nationally recognized expert in the intersection of environmental

685
02:12:22.200 --> 02:12:32.960
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: and Indian law, she's taught courses in property, Indian law, environmental and natural resources law, and supervised a tribal judicial support clinic

686
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Dean Leonard M. Baynes: at University of Kansas School of Law, and she's received several Teaching Excellence Awards, co-authored several books on environmental issues and Native Americans, and has over 40 articles and book chapters to her credit. Let us welcome Dean Kronk Warner, who will introduce the panelists for our last panel. Thank you.

687
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Great, thank you so much, Dean Baynes, and I just want to say a big thank you to, the University of Houston for hosting today's event. I have really enjoyed the conversation, and am excited to have the opportunity to participate in this last panel.

688
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: So we have, to kind of sum everything up, it would not be a law dean's conference if we didn't have an academic perspective. So, having now heard from our university representatives, individuals thinking from the player perspective, we're now going to present two different ideas for more of an academic perspective.

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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And I'm very excited to have with me today two amazing, law professors working in this area. So the first to speak is going to be Professor Maureen Weston.

690
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And she is a professor of law at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law, and director of the Entertainment, Media, and Sports Dispute Resolution Project.

691
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: She received her JD from the University of Colorado, and a BA in Economics and Political Science at the University of Denver. Professor Weston teaches courses on arbitration, mediation, negotiation, international dispute resolution, legal ethics, and U.S. and international sports law.

692
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: She serves as faculty advisor to the Sports and Entertainment Law Society and Dispute Resolution Journal, and as coach for ICC Mediation Advocacy and Sports and Entertainment Law negotiation competitions.

693
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: She practiced law with Holme Roberts & Owen and Faegre & Benson before joining the Academy, both in Colorado.

694
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And she has served on many committees, including, for our purposes, the ALS Sports Law Executive Committee.

695
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: She is a member of the Board of Directors at the University of Colorado School of Law Alumni Board, the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette School of Law, the Malibu Little League, and Editorial Board of Law and Sport.

696
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: She is a frequent speaker at conferences, and has co-authored several casebooks on sports law and arbitration.

697
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: and has written numerous articles in the area of Olympic and international sports arbitration, disability law, sports law, and dispute resolution. So I'm really happy to welcome her, and I will give the bio for our second speaker, Professor McMann, before he begins his presentation. We're going to have a little bit of a different format for this panel, in that our speakers are going to speak up to 15 minutes.

698
02:15:29.220 --> 02:15:33.850
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: When my face comes back on the screen, they'll know that they have one minute left.

699
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Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And then we're gonna answer your questions at the end. So, with that, Professor Weston, take it away.

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Professor Maureen Weston: Thank you, Dean. It's an honor to be here and to hear about the impact that the House settlement and the new NIL era is having on the Big 12 and college sports.

701
02:15:56.990 --> 02:16:09.460
Professor Maureen Weston: all across, all across the country. I don't want to repeat a lot of what was said by the General Counsel. We didn't coordinate exactly what we were supposed to be doing, but here's the academic's perspective, right?

702
02:16:09.510 --> 02:16:24.149
Professor Maureen Weston: We're hearing about these athletes making… making loads of money, and… but it's not… not all of them are making money, but there's so much focus. I guess from an academic perspective, and I'll get into my presentation, but from an academic perspective.

703
02:16:24.230 --> 02:16:26.689
Professor Maureen Weston: The hyper-focus on sports.

704
02:16:26.780 --> 02:16:31.129
Professor Maureen Weston: I haven't heard anyone talk about education or the athletes

705
02:16:31.130 --> 02:16:53.299
Professor Maureen Weston: who are… they… when you used to watch these games, they would say, so-and-so's a communication major, so-and-so's doing this. Now the athletes are taking classes online, and they don't even want athletes in the classroom because there are concerns about betting, and is so-and-so going to be asking the athlete questions about what the line, who's injured?

706
02:16:53.299 --> 02:17:07.469
Professor Maureen Weston: and the resources that are being spent. So there's a little bit of that from my perspective. Just, you know, I'm trying to get money for my moot court team to travel to go to these competitions, and meanwhile.

707
02:17:07.500 --> 02:17:26.619
Professor Maureen Weston: our fundraising is focused on sports. So… and… and as the council from university said, yes, when the job of a university president, right, is football for the alumni, parking for the faculty, and parties for the students, or pizza for the students, but that…

708
02:17:26.950 --> 02:17:33.150
Professor Maureen Weston: That hyper-focus on sports, and it's always been that way, but it seems to be

709
02:17:33.150 --> 02:17:49.890
Professor Maureen Weston: quite extraordinary right now. So, the new era in college sports is not, from my perspective, not necessarily the most improved era. Now, do the athletes deserve to be compensated? Yes, all of the restrictions, it's time, but

710
02:17:49.889 --> 02:17:57.639
Professor Maureen Weston: Are the schools supposed to be the ones brokering these deals, acting as their agents, versus the professional sports model where

711
02:17:58.049 --> 02:18:07.710
Professor Maureen Weston: We'll pay you for what you do as… for the team, and then get your own endorsement deals, or form a union, and have collective bargaining,

712
02:18:07.809 --> 02:18:11.639
Professor Maureen Weston: Bargaining negotiations, that seems to work in professional sports.

713
02:18:11.650 --> 02:18:28.400
Professor Maureen Weston: Uniquely, that's not possible, in college sports, because, what, the employment question, public universities aren't… are subject to the National Labor Relations Board. Professor McCann's going to be talking about the employment question as well. So the state of college sport really is

714
02:18:28.400 --> 02:18:46.319
Professor Maureen Weston: How rich is your donor? We've seen Indiana come from nowhere. They said Nebraska and Indiana… Nebraska used to be the football team, and Indiana basketball, so money can skew. Our Texas Tech has a big… Cody Campbell, who is very influential in sports.

715
02:18:46.320 --> 02:19:02.089
Professor Maureen Weston: Is Cody Campbell a coach? Is Cody Campbell administrator? No, he's a… he's a booster, he's a fundraiser. You have Larry Ellison at Michigan, so what I need for my… I need an NIL for my students. Okay, and…

716
02:19:02.090 --> 02:19:17.719
Professor Maureen Weston: the resources and the support, and let's do legal aid for the student athletes, and let's do NIL deals for the student athletes, all that's great, but what about the regular athletes? And then the funds, if student tuition dollars are going to support the gap.

717
02:19:17.910 --> 02:19:21.550
Professor Maureen Weston: in… in paying for athletes, it's a…

718
02:19:21.950 --> 02:19:25.080
Professor Maureen Weston: once again, this is me, right? So…

719
02:19:25.240 --> 02:19:43.289
Professor Maureen Weston: And I did that by AI, which I never used, but I said… I said, you know, give a female professor who's confused, perplexed by… by college sports, and then they gave me something. I said, could you make her look less frumpy? And they said, no, not really. So, here we are. But how did we get here to, quote.

720
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Professor Maureen Weston: David Burns and the Talking Heads, the NCAA…

721
02:19:48.270 --> 02:20:07.809
Professor Maureen Weston: is the association of all the colleges and institutions, non-profit educational institutions, over 1,200, half a million student-athletes, 25 sports, part of the higher educational program. Yes, they've had restrictive… this is what the membership… the NCAA isn't…

722
02:20:07.810 --> 02:20:14.849
Professor Maureen Weston: From down high, it's the members who make these rules. We can't afford to pay our athletes. We don't want to commercialize

723
02:20:14.930 --> 02:20:24.200
Professor Maureen Weston: we don't want exploitation of athletes. We shouldn't have agents. We need… they need to be students and athletes. It's part of the educational experience.

724
02:20:24.380 --> 02:20:25.940
Professor Maureen Weston: So, that's…

725
02:20:26.160 --> 02:20:43.850
Professor Maureen Weston: in the… that used to be in the first part of the NCAA Constitution, but at the same time, right, college sports is taking off a billion dollar revenue from the March Madness, and coaches are making millions of dollars. They're the highest paid public servant in many states.

726
02:20:43.850 --> 02:21:08.110
Professor Maureen Weston: And so you see… you see the money coming in through the NCAA, which makes its money primarily from the basketball tournament, and then the college football playoff, and the NCAA gets… gets wrapped up into the college football playoff, but they do not share their revenues. So those schools, because of this case, 1984, I used to work at University of Oklahoma.

727
02:21:08.110 --> 02:21:21.180
Professor Maureen Weston: And Dean Coats, who brought the Board of Regents case versus NCAA, which was the groundbreaking Supreme Court case saying that the NCAA, at least with respect to its media plan and TV deals

728
02:21:21.180 --> 02:21:32.479
Professor Maureen Weston: was engaged in commercial activities and subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act. Of course, it had the mantra down there that the NCAA latched onto, that athletes might not be paid.

729
02:21:32.480 --> 02:21:52.259
Professor Maureen Weston: But Dean Coats later said, I'm not sure I did the right thing bringing that case. But he brought it, and it's here to stay, and it really provided the foundation for the rest of these cases that we've talked about before. Jeremy Bloom out of Colorado was a professional, world-class skier, and he wanted to play at the University of Colorado football.

730
02:21:52.260 --> 02:22:00.579
Professor Maureen Weston: He didn't ask CU to get a… the only one he wanted was a waiver from the NCAA's no endorsement rule so that he can compete

731
02:22:00.580 --> 02:22:23.049
Professor Maureen Weston: as a world-class skier in Olympic sport. He gets his own endorsement deals. He was… he was… that's where the Court of Appeals of Colorado said, no, the NCAA has this rule, and we're going to enforce it, basically, because they… they have the right to, looking at the dicta in the Board of Regents case.

732
02:22:23.050 --> 02:22:29.859
Professor Maureen Weston: Then, of course, the video game of O'Bannon, but both O'Bannon and Alston were framed as

733
02:22:29.860 --> 02:22:53.430
Professor Maureen Weston: restrictions on education, at least they were… they came out as education-related. So, there was… it was against, violated antitrust laws to put restrictions on the cost of attendance or education-related benefits. At the same time, Jeffrey Kessler was arguing before the Supreme Court, and they asked… and they asked him, is this all you want? Just…

734
02:22:53.550 --> 02:22:59.819
Professor Maureen Weston: for the athletes to be able to get violins and computers and maybe some study abroad. He says, yes, this is all we want.

735
02:23:01.470 --> 02:23:06.109
Professor Maureen Weston: the Jenkins… the Jenkins case, the House case was already in the hopper.

736
02:23:06.790 --> 02:23:30.719
Professor Maureen Weston: the Supreme Court, who can't even order pizza 9-0, decides in a unanimous decision, they bashed the NCAA. And, especially Kavanaugh with his concurrence, the next day, the Fair Pay to Play Act, which were supposed to be effective in 2023, they accelerated those for the day after the Alston case, so now state law is saying you can,

737
02:23:30.720 --> 02:23:36.659
Professor Maureen Weston: there… you can't… schools can't restrict, payments to… NIL payments to… to players.

738
02:23:37.070 --> 02:23:49.449
Professor Maureen Weston: concurrently, the transfer portal. So you have this perfect storm of NIL deals and… and… and athletes being able to transfer, so we have this roster mayhem.

739
02:23:49.450 --> 02:23:58.680
Professor Maureen Weston: the power… the rule is still that the schools can't get involved in NIL deals. That was the NCAA rules. They paused the restriction, but the still… schools aren't supposed to be involved.

740
02:23:58.680 --> 02:24:08.860
Professor Maureen Weston: But collectives are. So collectives are… have the power to really, pay players and… and… and they're influential in… in recruiting, and…

741
02:24:09.140 --> 02:24:13.970
Professor Maureen Weston: So the schools, and even now, schools are looking to boosters to…

742
02:24:14.040 --> 02:24:31.599
Professor Maureen Weston: for recruiting, to provide the money for the NIL deal. My submission is the intent was never for schools to be brokers for the NIL deals. They should be able to have their NIL, and there were… there was a model law on college athlete NIL, where, yes.

743
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Professor Maureen Weston: and we all have publicity rights, and athletes should be able to monetize them, but should the school be involved in spending its resources? And the reason why they want the boosters

744
02:24:45.160 --> 02:24:56.330
Professor Maureen Weston: that the IRS was getting when… was… was looking at these booster payments to NIL, the boosters are used to giving money to the institution so it can be tax deductible.

745
02:24:56.420 --> 02:25:13.990
Professor Maureen Weston: But when you give the money straight to the athlete, that's not considered a charitable purpose or an act. They try to say charity, you know, do an Instagram or… or a charitable purpose, but that's… so they're getting wind to that. So we have this influence of… of… of boosters.

746
02:25:13.990 --> 02:25:28.049
Professor Maureen Weston: and providing this compensation. Is this charitable deduction? Now what we're doing is the boosters are back to giving… after House, giving the money to the school charitable deductions, then the schools pay the player,

747
02:25:28.050 --> 02:25:35.789
Professor Maureen Weston: unless it's on the cap, then they'll… they'll go through that process. But again, the House versus NCAA case

748
02:25:35.930 --> 02:25:49.790
Professor Maureen Weston: was pending during Alston, and once Alston was decided, then House was still in the hopper, and it was filed in 2020. We just… June 6th, it, it was settled, and again, seeking

749
02:25:50.150 --> 02:26:11.730
Professor Maureen Weston: seeking an elimination, full-blown elimination of NIL, and this is where they went straight for the money, so the back pay damages and the allocation that has been discussed before, and this idea of revenue sharing, which is a misnomer. It's licensing of NIL deals because schools don't all have revenue to share, so they're looking to fund that.

750
02:26:11.730 --> 02:26:17.150
Professor Maureen Weston: And then the… No limits on scholarships, but instituting roster caps.

751
02:26:17.150 --> 02:26:25.949
Professor Maureen Weston: And then this, the other provision is creation… creation of the College Sports Commission, and… which is to police the…

752
02:26:25.970 --> 02:26:33.500
Professor Maureen Weston: the… the settlement terms on the revenue sharing, and is there compliance with that? And then second, is the…

753
02:26:33.870 --> 02:26:51.110
Professor Maureen Weston: this idea of NIL Go. Are these associated party endorsement deals for a valid business purpose, and within the fair range of compensation? And you pop it in, the endorsement deals over 600 have to go to NIL Go, and then…

754
02:26:51.470 --> 02:27:04.059
Professor Maureen Weston: who knows how long it takes, but there's a criticism that it's taking a long time to get that… that determination of, is your deal cleared? Is it not cleared? And then if it's not cleared

755
02:27:04.750 --> 02:27:14.810
Professor Maureen Weston: there's a provision for mandatory arbitration, and we… it's been mentioned before that the case to watch right now is Nebraska, which

756
02:27:14.810 --> 02:27:32.419
Professor Maureen Weston: was discussed is… is trying to shift money from… from money… its multimedia partner, money going to it, and then having that go to the… to the players, is that within the standards of a valid business purpose and… and fair market value? And that's… they're taking this to arbitration.

757
02:27:32.420 --> 02:27:53.400
Professor Maureen Weston: Arbitration, we don't… it's a private process. We don't even know who the arbitrators are. This is a brand new process, in terms of how the outcome is going to be, but, typical arbitration, so subject to the Federal Arbitration Act, and it can be vacated under very limited grounds. So this is where we are here.

758
02:27:53.440 --> 02:28:17.980
Professor Maureen Weston: last year, our executive order said this has created an out-of-control, rudderless system in which competing university donors engage in bidding wars for the best players. We have… it's a chaotic race to the bottom. Okay, so how are we going to save college sports? Well, we're waiting on the second executive order that's supposed to sort everything out, but that hasn't happened yet. I do want to talk about and respond to some of the

759
02:28:18.040 --> 02:28:35.129
Professor Maureen Weston: comments on the earlier questions about… about some of the, the challenges, and… and we've talked about the, the lawsuits that are already pending regarding… Charlie Baker said, I didn't think a result of the House settlement would be that people would never want to leave college.

760
02:28:35.200 --> 02:28:37.300
Professor Maureen Weston: Right? So we have…

761
02:28:37.390 --> 02:28:52.280
Professor Maureen Weston: the 4 and 5, the eligibility rule is subject to four… I think there's 50… 55, cases at the federal and state courts attacking the eligibility rule. But what about Title IX? And so we saw the 75

762
02:28:52.280 --> 02:28:59.399
Professor Maureen Weston: 15, 5, and 5 allocation under the House settlement, and… and people are… what I'm learning from this.

763
02:28:59.400 --> 02:29:10.030
Professor Maureen Weston: from today's session is basically that allocation is still happening with revenue sharing and NIL license deals, but what about Title IX? Title IX

764
02:29:10.230 --> 02:29:23.930
Professor Maureen Weston: is this sentence, right? No person shall be, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation or subjected to discrimination under any program receiving federal financial assistance. There was a question

765
02:29:24.440 --> 02:29:34.110
Professor Maureen Weston: Well, Title IX was never… that's Title IX. Was it intended to apply to education? They said explicitly in 1974, yes, it applies to college athletes.

766
02:29:34.240 --> 02:29:46.190
Professor Maureen Weston: In 1974, again, they tried to exempt revenue-producing sports. Rejected. That's the Tower Amendment, where they tried to exempt it. So it says the fact that, you know, is it fair?

767
02:29:46.320 --> 02:30:04.980
Professor Maureen Weston: Probably not. Is it the law? Yes, right? That you… that revenue-producing sports don't get special treatment by institutions receiving federal financial assistance. That's the law. Is it fair? Maybe not. Is it the law? Yes. So we have… one thing I want to look at now is

768
02:30:04.980 --> 02:30:09.470
Professor Maureen Weston: how do schools, how are these institutions reporting their NIL

769
02:30:10.240 --> 02:30:23.109
Professor Maureen Weston: license agreements for purposes of the Equity and Athletics Disclosure Act, for purposes of complying with Title IX. How are they responding to that? Right before Biden was out of office.

770
02:30:23.420 --> 02:30:26.310
Professor Maureen Weston: The administration said

771
02:30:26.860 --> 02:30:30.190
Professor Maureen Weston: Title IX applies to NIL compensation deals.

772
02:30:30.320 --> 02:30:47.690
Professor Maureen Weston: that schools are providing. That was rescinded a month later after… after, Trump… the Trump administration come in… came in. There's pending litigation against the University of Oregon, challenging these NILs and treatments under Title IX. In terms of what comes next.

773
02:30:47.820 --> 02:31:06.499
Professor Maureen Weston: There's 7, I've learned, proposed federal legislation. Obviously, we can't even pay TSA, so who knows? I've… I've concluded over the years, like Marc Edelman, I've been looking at this for over 20 years, that when you say the answer is Congress, you're kind of desperate, but

774
02:31:06.500 --> 02:31:16.050
Professor Maureen Weston: these are desperate times, looking at those types of questions. But now we have private equity. Another question I want to explore is the tax-exempt

775
02:31:17.510 --> 02:31:34.910
Professor Maureen Weston: status of educational institutions when they're partnering with private equity. And so, maybe this is a commercial activity, but in terms of calling us ourselves a non-profit institution, I know it's my time. And other concerns, gambling.

776
02:31:35.130 --> 02:31:44.689
Professor Maureen Weston: Athlete wellness and mental health being an influencer and a student athlete, and this is going down to the high school level as well. That's it. Thank you.

777
02:31:46.270 --> 02:31:54.309
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Great, thank you so much, Professor Weston. I have to say, I loved the AI-generated law professor. I think that was great.

778
02:31:54.400 --> 02:32:08.459
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Really thought-provoking. Again, a reminder, if you have any questions for our panelists today, to please put your questions into the Q&A, and we will answer those, or do our best to answer them, after our next speaker's presentation is done.

779
02:32:08.460 --> 02:32:20.930
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: So, I'm really pleased to have with us Professor Michael McCann. He is the Associate Dean for Intellectual Life and Founding Director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

780
02:32:20.930 --> 02:32:30.680
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: He also teaches at Harvard Law School as a visiting professor of law, and he has also taught sports law analytics as a reading group at Yale Law School.

781
02:32:30.830 --> 02:32:47.609
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: In 2025, Professor McCann won the Association of American Law Schools Law and Sports Section Award, a prestigious award honoring an individual who has made a substantial and significant contribution to scholarship, teaching, and service in the field of sports law.

782
02:32:47.680 --> 02:33:03.930
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: He has been an innovator in legal education, creating the first law school class on name, image, and likeness, producing an IEP and antitrust law course at UFC, and designing first-of-their-kind online programs and building the much-publicized

783
02:33:03.930 --> 02:33:09.309
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Deflategate Gate course. I certainly remember Deflategate.

784
02:33:09.350 --> 02:33:18.909
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: In 2021, he testified before the U.S. Senate in a hearing that included NCAA President Mark Emmert and centered an NIL.

785
02:33:18.980 --> 02:33:36.390
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And he and former NBA player Ed O'Bannon co-authored Court Justice, The Inside Story of My Battle with the NCAA. The Christian Science Monitor named the book the number one sports book in spring of 2018, and it led Amazon sales categories.

786
02:33:36.480 --> 02:33:55.830
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: He is the editor of the Oxford Handbook of American Sports Law, and the book is assigned in many, many sports law classes across the country. So we are so incredibly fortunate to have him. Again, he will speak for about 15 minutes, and then we'll open it up to questions and answers. Thanks so much.

787
02:33:56.080 --> 02:34:15.770
Professor Michael McCann: Dean Warner, thanks so much for the kind introduction. It's an honor to be here. I want a special thanks to Dean Baynes, who… I don't want to make him sound old, but 25 years ago, I was a law student and invited him to speak on a panel. He came and was an all-star, so I greatly appreciated when he invited me now to be part of

788
02:34:15.770 --> 02:34:19.020
Professor Michael McCann: today's event, and it's an honor to be part of this group.

789
02:34:19.060 --> 02:34:37.570
Professor Michael McCann: It's tough to go last, because everyone's been so great, and I don't want to duplicate Professor Weston's outstanding presentation, Marc Edelman and Brian. I mean, there's so many great presentations, so what I cover will, some of the time, duplicate what you've already seen, but hopefully I can put it in a way that's

790
02:34:37.580 --> 02:34:39.720
Professor Michael McCann: a little bit different. And…

791
02:34:39.990 --> 02:34:57.929
Professor Michael McCann: what I'm gonna do is try to focus on what I would describe as 6 misunderstandings about legal issues in contemporary sports. So, I'm gonna pick 6 things. There are plenty of other things that I could talk about, many of which have been discussed, but what I would consider to be

792
02:34:58.150 --> 02:35:05.000
Professor Michael McCann: misunderstandings about the application of labor, employment, antitrust, and IP laws to contemporary college sports.

793
02:35:05.490 --> 02:35:23.710
Professor Michael McCann: And let me see if I can get this to work, there we go. One big one, and this has come up, NIL deals are about NIL. This is often untrue, as odd as that may sound, especially in the context of college athletes who play football or basketball at power conference schools.

794
02:35:23.920 --> 02:35:40.600
Professor Michael McCann: as Marc Edelman eloquently explained, although NIL has become a popular moniker in the 2020s, and it's often framed as a new right, it isn't a new right. At all. It's based on a long-standing IP principle, the right of publicity.

795
02:35:40.660 --> 02:35:46.460
Professor Michael McCann: And NIL… I view NIL as the removal of a restraint.

796
02:35:46.870 --> 02:35:50.260
Professor Michael McCann: On college athletes to use a right they already had.

797
02:35:50.470 --> 02:35:57.339
Professor Michael McCann: they can now use the right of publicity without running afoul of NCAA eligibility rules. So all these years.

798
02:35:57.580 --> 02:36:02.389
Professor Michael McCann: In the 70s and 80s, when some athletes could have made a lot of money

799
02:36:02.580 --> 02:36:21.960
Professor Michael McCann: through endorsement deals and sponsorships, and more recently with the internet influencing deals, they always had this right, but it was restrained by NCAA rules. So the removal of that restraint really is, I think, the right way of looking at NIL,

800
02:36:22.620 --> 02:36:23.610
Professor Michael McCann: And…

801
02:36:24.150 --> 02:36:35.119
Professor Michael McCann: Some colleges, of course, though, and their boosters, through collectives in particular, they're not really using NIL as NIL. They're using it

802
02:36:35.280 --> 02:36:36.960
Professor Michael McCann: As a recruitment.

803
02:36:37.350 --> 02:36:38.710
Professor Michael McCann: Or an inducement.

804
02:36:38.910 --> 02:36:45.200
Professor Michael McCann: So, deals that are called NIL deals, I think in many cases are better understood as pay-for-play.

805
02:36:45.580 --> 02:37:03.570
Professor Michael McCann: Which, of course, the NCAA prohibits. So, although NIL is allowed, paying an athlete to go to a school or stay at a school is not allowed. And, at least some of the times, these deals are functioning that way, and I view them more as signing bonuses, or even employment contracts.

806
02:37:03.750 --> 02:37:12.979
Professor Michael McCann: The House settlement is supposed to address this issue through the creation of the College Sports Commission. Maureen just talked about it, and they are

807
02:37:13.140 --> 02:37:20.640
Professor Michael McCann: we'll see how well they do. They're a small staff, and they're getting, I think, inundated with…

808
02:37:20.830 --> 02:37:22.470
Professor Michael McCann: Contracts to look at.

809
02:37:22.980 --> 02:37:38.479
Professor Michael McCann: And it certainly seems as if, and from everything I hear, it's still going on, where athletes are being paid through NIL in a way that's much more akin to an employment context, rather than an endorsement deal.

810
02:37:38.660 --> 02:37:47.529
Professor Michael McCann: So, of course, some deals are still legit, and I don't want to imply that all NIL is fake NIL. That's not true.

811
02:37:47.610 --> 02:38:01.459
Professor Michael McCann: there are some athletes, including at the schools that we all teach at, have signed NIL deals that are much more in line with what it is supposed to be, but to be clear, there are some that are not, and it doesn't appear as if there are consequences.

812
02:38:01.500 --> 02:38:09.160
Professor Michael McCann: Supreme Court gave college athletes NIL rights. This has appeared in major media articles.

813
02:38:09.190 --> 02:38:22.750
Professor Michael McCann: literally, you know, top places where you wouldn't expect things to be written incorrectly, but it's been written that way. NCAA versus Alston, as Maureen just talked about, it was an antitrust case.

814
02:38:22.820 --> 02:38:26.579
Professor Michael McCann: It was not a write-up publicity or NIL case. It didn't lead to NIL.

815
02:38:26.730 --> 02:38:33.979
Professor Michael McCann: It concerned NCAA rules limiting member schools' ability to reimburse athletes for education-related expenses.

816
02:38:34.280 --> 02:38:42.999
Professor Michael McCann: Name, image, and likeness, NIL, there were 1,300 words between the majority opinion written by Justice Gorsuch.

817
02:38:43.230 --> 02:39:01.819
Professor Michael McCann: And the often quoted concurring opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, NIL doesn't appeal, name, image, and likeness doesn't appear, because the case had nothing to do with those things, so why would it appear? And in ruling against the NCAA, the court made clear that the NCAA is not owed deferential review under antitrust law.

818
02:39:02.300 --> 02:39:20.070
Professor Michael McCann: The ruling made clear that the NCAA is treated ordinarily, in a case that's been referenced several times today, in great detail, so I'm not going to go into it, the NCAA versus Board of Regents, a case involving not even college athletes, but TV rights.

819
02:39:20.100 --> 02:39:30.110
Professor Michael McCann: and NCAA rules restricting how often a school can appear on TV. And of course, in the course of that opinion, Justice Stevens wrote in dicta

820
02:39:30.110 --> 02:39:41.930
Professor Michael McCann: that the NCAA's, I'm paraphrasing, owe deference in how they implement rules regarding college athletes. Well, it turns out that was just dicta, as the Alston case made clear.

821
02:39:42.210 --> 02:39:48.220
Professor Michael McCann: And it also means that NCAA rules regarding athlete compensation are all subject to ordinary scrutiny.

822
02:39:49.480 --> 02:39:56.110
Professor Michael McCann: Another comment that I sometimes see, extending the Sports Broadcasting Act to college sports would be a game changer.

823
02:39:56.360 --> 02:40:13.990
Professor Michael McCann: This is one that a lot of politicians have latched onto, and I think it's worth unpacking it a bit. The Sports Broadcasting Act, which is from 1961, keep in mind, it provides a limited antitrust exemption to pro football, basketball, baseball, and hockey.

824
02:40:14.110 --> 02:40:28.329
Professor Michael McCann: when they and their teams negotiate TV contracts that provide sponsored telecasting, and I put it in green. My slides aren't as fancy as the ones we've seen, but I hope that stands out by putting that in bold and green.

825
02:40:28.340 --> 02:40:46.219
Professor Michael McCann: Some members of Congress want to amend the SBA so that it includes college sports. I think for a good reason, in hopes that it would allow colleges and conferences to more efficiently market media rights, generate more revenue to fund women's sports and Olympic sports. I think their heart is in the right place, but I don't think this is the vehicle.

826
02:40:46.290 --> 02:40:53.800
Professor Michael McCann: As several federal courts have held over the years, the SBA's antitrust immunity only applies to sponsored telecasts.

827
02:40:54.050 --> 02:41:04.170
Professor Michael McCann: What does that mean? It means free, over-the-air telecasts that we could… those of you that are my age or older, you remember before cable.

828
02:41:04.350 --> 02:41:11.389
Professor Michael McCann: Right, how we watch TV. We had an antenna that picked up signals we didn't pay for. You buy a TV, you buy an antenna, maybe you put it on the roof.

829
02:41:11.630 --> 02:41:13.110
Professor Michael McCann: And you pick up signals.

830
02:41:13.380 --> 02:41:18.120
Professor Michael McCann: That was the world we lived in. That was the world contemplated by the SBA.

831
02:41:18.710 --> 02:41:22.190
Professor Michael McCann: not… Streaming. Not cable.

832
02:41:22.320 --> 02:41:34.739
Professor Michael McCann: not paid satellite. In fact, courts over the years have rejected extending the SBA to those means of telecasting, which I think is an important point when you look at, let's just extend the Act.

833
02:41:35.430 --> 02:41:42.490
Professor Michael McCann: it's also significant because fewer than 20% of homes in the U.S. even have antennas.

834
02:41:42.900 --> 02:41:52.899
Professor Michael McCann: I mean, do you have it? Ask yourself, do you even still have an antenna? Many of you are probably gonna say no. Sports viewing nowadays is through streaming.

835
02:41:53.100 --> 02:41:57.219
Professor Michael McCann: through cable TV, through paid satellite.

836
02:41:57.660 --> 02:41:59.579
Professor Michael McCann: Those aren't governed by the SBA.

837
02:41:59.760 --> 02:42:19.190
Professor Michael McCann: So, what's the remedy? Well, the SBA could be amended to extend to modern means of transmission, but it's not that easy, because there's a big case going on. There's an appeal before the Ninth Circuit involving the NFL Sunday Ticket antitrust litigation, where a jury ruled against the NFL, but then

838
02:42:19.520 --> 02:42:34.540
Professor Michael McCann: the district court judge granted a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and sided with the NFL. That case is about the Sunday Ticket, where NFL teams pool their out-of-town… their broadcast for out-of-town fans into one package that people can buy.

839
02:42:34.780 --> 02:42:48.280
Professor Michael McCann: in one deal, the argument is that in a more competitive marketplace, teams would basically compete with each other. So, the Cowboys, where they have fans all across the country, would work out TV arrangements in other cities.

840
02:42:48.280 --> 02:42:58.470
Professor Michael McCann: The league doesn't want to do that, they want to keep territorial rights. The point being, it's not that simple to simply extend the language of the SBA. There would be consequences, and there would be, clearly debate.

841
02:42:58.640 --> 02:43:18.339
Professor Michael McCann: The SCORE Act. The SCORE Act would immunize the NCAA schools from athlete lawsuits. The SCORE Act, as several of the panelists have said, involves schools going to Congress, and by extension, the President, basically asking for help.

842
02:43:19.370 --> 02:43:29.550
Professor Michael McCann: Keep in mind what this Act actually says. The specific language of the act might not be the home run that advocates believe it to be.

843
02:43:29.550 --> 02:43:41.509
Professor Michael McCann: The Act would confer antitrust protection to the NCAA member schools when they establish rules regarding player economics. It would also declare that college athletes aren't employees, and that state laws can't conflict with the Act.

844
02:43:41.880 --> 02:43:45.729
Professor Michael McCann: First of all, Ask yourself, do we need an exemption?

845
02:43:46.010 --> 02:43:49.349
Professor Michael McCann: Marc Edelman has written extensively on this.

846
02:43:49.660 --> 02:43:52.779
Professor Michael McCann: The defendants in antitrust cases almost always win.

847
02:43:53.020 --> 02:44:03.329
Professor Michael McCann: This is something that I… we don't necessarily detect that because of NCAA antitrust litigation, but remove the NCAA and go through antitrust law.

848
02:44:03.330 --> 02:44:13.520
Professor Michael McCann: more ordinary cases, the defendant usually wins. There's data, Maury Stuckey, a law professor, Tennessee, 97% of the time, the defendants win. So think about it.

849
02:44:13.640 --> 02:44:19.660
Professor Michael McCann: It's really tough to win an antitrust case. If you lose an antitrust case, you must be doing something pretty bad.

850
02:44:20.200 --> 02:44:22.909
Professor Michael McCann: Antitrust exemptions are also unpopular.

851
02:44:23.060 --> 02:44:33.200
Professor Michael McCann: As the U.S. Department of Justice bluntly stated in 2021, competition through free enterprise and open markets is an organizing principle for the U.S. economy.

852
02:44:33.940 --> 02:44:37.330
Professor Michael McCann: think about what exemptions actually do. They allow

853
02:44:37.750 --> 02:44:43.150
Professor Michael McCann: Those that are conspiring to conspire in ways that undermine competition.

854
02:44:43.530 --> 02:44:48.350
Professor Michael McCann: Even when exemptions are enacted, the Supreme Court has stressed they must be narrowly construed.

855
02:44:48.650 --> 02:45:05.540
Professor Michael McCann: We know this from President Trump. In January 2021, President Trump signed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act into law. It actually repealed key aspects of the antitrust exemption for the insurance industry, particularly for the business of health insurance. That's gone.

856
02:45:06.140 --> 02:45:09.580
Professor Michael McCann: So, any federal college sports law

857
02:45:10.040 --> 02:45:14.540
Professor Michael McCann: I think has to get over the fact that an antitrust exemption doesn't…

858
02:45:14.810 --> 02:45:26.529
Professor Michael McCann: partner with the trend of antitrust law in the United States, and it also invites the question, why can't you figure out rules, and Brian talked about this, why can't you figure out rules that simply comply with antitrust law?

859
02:45:26.860 --> 02:45:29.430
Professor Michael McCann: Yeah, you could come up with something that's reasonable.

860
02:45:29.700 --> 02:45:38.440
Professor Michael McCann: If you can't, that actually says something. Another problem, any federal college sports law would face a bevy of legal challenges.

861
02:45:38.530 --> 02:45:56.129
Professor Michael McCann: Advocates for states' rights would argue that the law interferes with the rights traditionally understood as belonging to the states, including the topics of public university employment and unionization. Those are resolved by states and state labor boards. The right of publicity.

862
02:45:56.200 --> 02:46:13.099
Professor Michael McCann: Which we've heard about. There's no federal right of publicity. It's based on state law, and some states, like California, have a statute and pretty intricate common law precedent regarding the right of publicity. Not a surprise, because there's Hollywood, right? Well, would a federal law conflict with that?

863
02:46:13.620 --> 02:46:15.850
Professor Michael McCann: Equal protection claims are possible.

864
02:46:16.150 --> 02:46:22.650
Professor Michael McCann: Why are college athletes being denied the same rights and opportunities as their classmates who don't play sports?

865
02:46:23.010 --> 02:46:38.819
Professor Michael McCann: Free speech claims. If the law restrains NIL opportunities and interferes with First Amendment freedom of expression. Then there are non-delegation problems with legislation that delegates regulatory power to associate… private associations like the NCAA or College Sports Commission.

866
02:46:38.980 --> 02:46:44.320
Professor Michael McCann: Another thing we've been hearing in the media, Trump executive order is the solution.

867
02:46:45.090 --> 02:46:58.060
Professor Michael McCann: Probably false. I'm not gonna say it's entirely false, it depends on what the order is, but an executive order attempting to create an antitrust exemption from the Sherman Act would be immediately challenged. Ask any antitrust attorney.

868
02:46:58.410 --> 02:47:04.470
Professor Michael McCann: A president cannot unilaterally rewrite a statute to have preferred policies.

869
02:47:04.900 --> 02:47:12.060
Professor Michael McCann: Also, the statute is written by Congress, not by the President. Amending a statute also has to go through Congress.

870
02:47:12.410 --> 02:47:18.340
Professor Michael McCann: As the U.S. Supreme Court recently held in rejecting the President's attempts to impose tariffs

871
02:47:18.530 --> 02:47:24.980
Professor Michael McCann: through, an International Emergency Act, the President must be authorized by the statute's actual text.

872
02:47:26.410 --> 02:47:34.989
Professor Michael McCann: Any executive order declaring that college athletes can't be employees or unionized, that would invite challenges under the NLRA and FLSA, both of which govern employment.

873
02:47:35.100 --> 02:47:40.709
Professor Michael McCann: Statutorily govern employment, which is a key point. Again, you can't go around the language of a statute.

874
02:47:40.860 --> 02:47:52.809
Professor Michael McCann: And even if an order that college athletes aren't employees survived judicial review, it wouldn't prevent some athletes from being classified as employees under state law. We heard Marc talk about this in the last panel.

875
02:47:53.190 --> 02:47:59.040
Professor Michael McCann: All 50 states have their own labor and employment statutes, which vary widely.

876
02:47:59.160 --> 02:48:02.400
Professor Michael McCann: and governed employment at public universities. You can imagine…

877
02:48:03.060 --> 02:48:06.879
Professor Michael McCann: Public university employment and unionization laws differ.

878
02:48:06.990 --> 02:48:13.030
Professor Michael McCann: from, say, people in South Carolina, or those in Minnesota, or California.

879
02:48:13.220 --> 02:48:14.309
Professor Michael McCann: Or New Hampshire.

880
02:48:14.640 --> 02:48:23.069
Professor Michael McCann: So executive orders might… pursue policies that the NCAA and conferences want.

881
02:48:23.890 --> 02:48:29.630
Professor Michael McCann: But they're gonna be challenged. I mean, the idea that it creates predictability, I think, is, to me at least, a myth.

882
02:48:29.900 --> 02:48:39.980
Professor Michael McCann: College athletes are our employees. Marc talked about this, so I don't want to go in… I don't want to capture the eloquent points he made, but clearly this is under attack.

883
02:48:40.030 --> 02:48:50.379
Professor Michael McCann: Johnson v. NCAA, male and female athletes from Division I programs argue that student athletes are employees within the meaning of the FLSA and state minimum wage laws.

884
02:48:50.680 --> 02:48:56.819
Professor Michael McCann: What do the athletes want? They want to be paid unpaid minimum wage going far back as 2016.

885
02:48:57.350 --> 02:49:10.679
Professor Michael McCann: And here they argue that Division I colleges and the NCAA are joint employers, meaning they together control and share responsibility for athletes' scheduling, supervision, and other workplace-like conditions.

886
02:49:10.830 --> 02:49:23.649
Professor Michael McCann: As stressed in the complaint, NCAA rules apply to all athletes on an equal basis. And those rules govern recruitment, eligibility, hours of participation, discipline, and other items that are commonly understood as employment.

887
02:49:24.660 --> 02:49:27.639
Professor Michael McCann: The plaintiffs maintain that

888
02:49:27.810 --> 02:49:35.950
Professor Michael McCann: College athletes are student employees, and that's a key point. They're not saying they're going to unionize. They're not saying they should get an employment contract.

889
02:49:36.130 --> 02:49:39.730
Professor Michael McCann: They're not saying they should be like professors or staff.

890
02:49:40.100 --> 02:49:47.950
Professor Michael McCann: were the deans. They're saying they're student employees. In the same vein as work-study students who are paid to perform tasks.

891
02:49:48.230 --> 02:49:51.589
Professor Michael McCann: In campus offices, dining halls, libraries, bookstores.

892
02:49:51.760 --> 02:49:56.129
Professor Michael McCann: Student employment is also legally distinguishable from professional employment.

893
02:49:56.450 --> 02:49:58.810
Professor Michael McCann: It's exempt from FICA taxes, for example.

894
02:49:59.000 --> 02:50:04.390
Professor Michael McCann: As the athletes point out, some work-study students have jobs in athletics, like student ticket

895
02:50:04.590 --> 02:50:08.220
Professor Michael McCann: Takers, and seating attendants, and food concession workers.

896
02:50:08.560 --> 02:50:14.460
Professor Michael McCann: Think about it, so athletes are playing in games, and then their classmates, fellow students.

897
02:50:14.570 --> 02:50:17.280
Professor Michael McCann: Some of whom are working at those games.

898
02:50:17.670 --> 02:50:19.460
Professor Michael McCann: Handing out Cokes.

899
02:50:19.750 --> 02:50:28.330
Professor Michael McCann: Collecting tickets. I mean, it's striking to think about it, right? The athletes are playing and not paid, not employees, but their classmates

900
02:50:28.720 --> 02:50:42.440
Professor Michael McCann: are. It's certainly a point that the plaintiffs have raised, and there's a four-part economic realities test that weighs whether college athletes perform services for another, necessarily and primarily for the college's benefit.

901
02:50:43.600 --> 02:50:49.730
Professor Michael McCann: Interscholastics aren't part of any academic curriculum or course, and they're not conducted for academic credit.

902
02:50:49.950 --> 02:50:58.500
Professor Michael McCann: The plaintiffs say, look, the life and career skills obtained through college sports are often depicted as the kind found in work environments. We know that.

903
02:50:58.640 --> 02:51:04.780
Professor Michael McCann: Student… being a student athlete, Provides all sorts of life training. That's super valuable.

904
02:51:04.910 --> 02:51:09.060
Professor Michael McCann: That, helps people when they get into the professional world.

905
02:51:09.910 --> 02:51:14.360
Professor Michael McCann: The plaintiffs say that actually cuts against the idea that they're not employees.

906
02:51:14.590 --> 02:51:20.160
Professor Michael McCann: The athletes also insisted they perform services for the benefit of colleges while under the control of their colleges.

907
02:51:20.760 --> 02:51:26.530
Professor Michael McCann: The athletes underscore that colleges provide the tools and means, like training, equipment, preventative care.

908
02:51:26.980 --> 02:51:31.450
Professor Michael McCann: In-kind compensation, similar to pro teams.

909
02:51:31.890 --> 02:51:47.820
Professor Michael McCann: The athletes also say they're not independent contractors or volunteers who would have to cover their expenses out of pocket, right? If you've been an independent contractor, you typically pay for things out of pockets. They also can't switch schools for a new gig, like an independent contractor could do in certain industries.

910
02:51:48.460 --> 02:52:03.329
Professor Michael McCann: And some might argue colleges might be better off if some athletes were employees and unionized, and then collectively bargained rules. I won't duplicate what's been said, but those rules would then be exempt from antitrust scrutiny.

911
02:52:03.500 --> 02:52:05.109
Professor Michael McCann: Which is the heart of the problem.

912
02:52:05.650 --> 02:52:15.759
Professor Michael McCann: Even when colleges signed multi-year NIL contracts, some of those players have left, which I think is really striking. In January, Duke University sued quarterback Darian Mensah

913
02:52:15.900 --> 02:52:18.880
Professor Michael McCann: who signed an NIL deal through 2026,

914
02:52:19.040 --> 02:52:23.039
Professor Michael McCann: for breach of contract after he entered the transfer portal to transfer to Miami.

915
02:52:23.530 --> 02:52:30.870
Professor Michael McCann: So, Duke was correct, he clearly signed a contract, and it said he wouldn't transfer, but think about the world we're in.

916
02:52:31.060 --> 02:52:38.019
Professor Michael McCann: Duke University is suing a student, they're still students, over transferring schools.

917
02:52:38.490 --> 02:52:58.100
Professor Michael McCann: That's a pretty profound change. I think it kind of signals the world that we're in, that colleges are suing students over transfers. I can't… I don't think that's ever happened, as far as I know, outside of sports. It's not just Duke. University of Cincinnati, they're suing their old quarterback, who went to Texas Tech.

918
02:52:59.320 --> 02:53:01.730
Professor Michael McCann: And don't forget about Dartmouth basketball.

919
02:53:01.920 --> 02:53:11.649
Professor Michael McCann: So, I am in New Hampshire, so I'm familiar with Dartmouth basketball, and 2024, that picture that I just showed, I actually took that one.

920
02:53:11.760 --> 02:53:17.850
Professor Michael McCann: Because I was at the game where they're… the first game where they were unionized employees. I drove up.

921
02:53:17.940 --> 02:53:36.730
Professor Michael McCann: And, I bought a ticket and watched the game. In December 31, 2024, the players withdrew their petition to the NLRB. So the reason why you don't hear about Dartmouth anymore, I mean, Dartmouth basketball, you hear about Dartmouth a lot, it's a fantastic school, they withdrew their petition.

922
02:53:36.800 --> 02:53:43.400
Professor Michael McCann: But, worth remembering, That same year, in February, NLRB Regional Director Laura Sacks…

923
02:53:43.570 --> 02:53:48.519
Professor Michael McCann: held that Dartmouth players, the basketball players, were employees within the meeting of the NLRA,

924
02:53:48.680 --> 02:53:55.879
Professor Michael McCann: Because the players perform work in exchange for compensation. And compensation, the players argued, it's not just payment.

925
02:53:56.120 --> 02:54:00.770
Professor Michael McCann: It's also preferred admissions into an elite university. It's per diem.

926
02:54:01.000 --> 02:54:08.320
Professor Michael McCann: It's clothing, it's sneakers, it's access to training and healthcare that aren't available to other students.

927
02:54:08.840 --> 02:54:11.160
Professor Michael McCann: And the school has the right to control that work.

928
02:54:11.340 --> 02:54:14.429
Professor Michael McCann: That decision remains citable, persuasive authority.

929
02:54:14.590 --> 02:54:17.350
Professor Michael McCann: Obviously, it's… it's…

930
02:54:17.770 --> 02:54:28.390
Professor Michael McCann: the players withdrew, and Dartmouth argued… I think Dartmouth believed it would win at the NLRB. Maybe they would have, I don't know. But I'll tell you what, it's not the last of it.

931
02:54:28.620 --> 02:54:40.999
Professor Michael McCann: And we're gonna keep seeing challenges. We're gonna keep seeing efforts for employment recognition. Nothing that's done will stop that. I mean, an executive order, even a federal bill.

932
02:54:41.720 --> 02:54:43.990
Professor Michael McCann: There are a lot of lawyers out there

933
02:54:44.110 --> 02:54:52.819
Professor Michael McCann: And several of us know them, that are working really hard to see college athletes recognized as employees in unionizing.

934
02:54:53.500 --> 02:55:09.400
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Great. Well, thank you so much, Professor McMann, and I want to enjoy… invite Professor Weston back. We've got 5 minutes, and we have questions to respond to.

935
02:55:09.400 --> 02:55:28.929
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: And if you do have any questions that you would like to ask our panelists, feel free to jump in with a question, and I'll be happy to answer it. But first, if you could both address, if you could make one change to the existing legal landscape, what change would you make? And Professor Weston, we can start with you.

936
02:55:29.760 --> 02:55:35.180
Professor Maureen Weston: One change to the existing legal landscape, Oh, jeez.

937
02:55:38.450 --> 02:55:46.110
Professor Maureen Weston: because it's… it's such a mess right now, but I think addressing the employee question would… providing some certainty on that.

938
02:55:46.930 --> 02:55:57.549
Professor Maureen Weston: Would… would help a lot of things fall into place, and decide on whether we can go to a collective bargaining type model that works in professional sports.

939
02:55:57.860 --> 02:56:01.679
Professor Maureen Weston: that might… Because now you have so many…

940
02:56:01.880 --> 02:56:18.540
Professor Maureen Weston: athletic departments are negotiating with agents from everywhere. They're not certified, they're negotiating with high schoolers, with student athletes. There's no uniformity. So having some uniformity to this process, I think, would be an improvement.

941
02:56:19.700 --> 02:56:20.790
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Professor McCann?

942
02:56:20.790 --> 02:56:28.180
Professor Michael McCann: I think, Maureen is 100% right. I mean, the core of this, the instability that we've seen.

943
02:56:28.370 --> 02:56:36.499
Professor Michael McCann: is a function of this peculiar arrangement between college athletes and their schools and conferences in the NCAA.

944
02:56:36.810 --> 02:56:43.460
Professor Michael McCann: And the chaos isn't gonna go away. There will be more antitrust lawsuits, more employment lawsuits.

945
02:56:43.630 --> 02:56:49.739
Professor Michael McCann: Until there is some… Organized relationship between athletes and their schools.

946
02:56:49.940 --> 02:56:54.750
Professor Michael McCann: That's some form of employment. Now, you know, it could be not all college athletes are employees.

947
02:56:55.100 --> 02:57:01.749
Professor Michael McCann: Could be some are. It could be, maybe, those at power conferences. I don't know, I mean, there's different ways of looking at this.

948
02:57:02.060 --> 02:57:08.340
Professor Michael McCann: But… but the world we're in now is not gonna…

949
02:57:08.500 --> 02:57:14.420
Professor Michael McCann: get stabilized by… by Congress or by the President, I don't think.

950
02:57:14.520 --> 02:57:22.290
Professor Michael McCann: And I think several of the panelists would say the same thing. I think, at the end of the day, you know, Marc talked about this, the NFL…

951
02:57:22.460 --> 02:57:26.499
Professor Michael McCann: Has made a fortune because there is a collective bargaining relationship with the players.

952
02:57:26.780 --> 02:57:36.529
Professor Michael McCann: I mean, look at these leagues. Without constant litigation, they're able to negotiate contracts, right? Broadcasting deals that are reliable.

953
02:57:37.040 --> 02:57:48.919
Professor Michael McCann: I mean, the O'Bannon case is a great example, you know, let's have video games, but don't call them the players' names, but we'll put them in, and then we'll remove the name. I mean, like, that's not a good way to do it in business.

954
02:57:49.110 --> 02:58:05.360
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Yeah, so kind of given these changes that you're talking about, Professor McCann, somebody asks if whether, there's a necessity now more than ever for an NCAA commissioner with authoritative power similar to what we see in the professional leagues, like the NFL, as you were just talking about.

955
02:58:05.360 --> 02:58:16.820
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Our… our participant says, I know Nick Saban raised this idea on how to handle NIL, transfer portal issues, parity, employment issues, and Professor Weston, I think this would go to your point.

956
02:58:16.820 --> 02:58:21.589
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: about maybe trying to get some standardization. What do you think about that?

957
02:58:22.410 --> 02:58:25.739
Professor Michael McCann: I don't think it's the person running the NCAA, I think…

958
02:58:26.050 --> 02:58:28.810
Professor Michael McCann: Charlie Baker is trying, and I think

959
02:58:28.930 --> 02:58:34.310
Professor Michael McCann: he's… he's trying to be… and I'm from Massachusetts, so I remember when he was governor.

960
02:58:34.470 --> 02:58:37.199
Professor Michael McCann: He… he is somebody that tries to be pragmatic.

961
02:58:37.360 --> 02:58:40.060
Professor Michael McCann: I don't think… He's the reason.

962
02:58:40.200 --> 02:58:46.030
Professor Michael McCann: that there… I mean, this is my personal view. I don't think you have to replace Charlie Baker, or have some…

963
02:58:46.440 --> 02:58:47.849
Professor Michael McCann: Person above him

964
02:58:48.130 --> 02:58:57.049
Professor Michael McCann: that somehow is, like, a super boss to Charlie Baker. I don't think it's that. I think it's more foundational

965
02:58:57.300 --> 02:59:03.260
Professor Michael McCann: And, I mean, to Baker's credit, he was the one who said, some athletes have to be treated differently.

966
02:59:04.030 --> 02:59:11.290
Professor Michael McCann: And that was a big change from what we heard from previous NCAA presidents. So,

967
02:59:11.650 --> 02:59:17.520
Professor Michael McCann: I don't know, maybe it's not popular to say he's doing a good job. I think he's trying, and I think he's pragmatic, I think…

968
02:59:17.670 --> 02:59:23.240
Professor Michael McCann: For the reasons we've talked about in this panel, it's much more of a structural issue than putting somebody in place.

969
02:59:23.820 --> 02:59:26.420
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Great. And final word, Professor Weston.

970
02:59:26.550 --> 02:59:27.190
Professor Maureen Weston: Sure.

971
02:59:27.400 --> 02:59:30.250
Professor Maureen Weston: I would agree with that. The NCAA has said

972
02:59:30.360 --> 02:59:35.879
Professor Maureen Weston: to kill us, you're gonna have to invent us, and that's kind of what they're doing with the CSC. Some…

973
02:59:36.060 --> 02:59:37.580
Professor Maureen Weston: Body has to be…

974
02:59:37.590 --> 02:59:57.459
Professor Maureen Weston: in charge of governing, you know, setting what the rules are, having enforcement, and does that make them a cabal, a conspiracy? It just depends. So maybe one market suggested, let's have this all go at the conference level, so you don't have the market power, concerned with antitrust, but

975
02:59:57.460 --> 02:59:59.560
Professor Maureen Weston: I'm not sure a Roger Goodell

976
02:59:59.610 --> 03:00:12.080
Professor Maureen Weston: would really be an improvement over… over what's happening now, and I… I agree, Professor… President Baker at the NCAA has brought a fresh perspective to it, and he's… he's trying to work with this process.

977
03:00:12.080 --> 03:00:13.970
Professor Michael McCann: I mean, just to that point, would…

978
03:00:14.170 --> 03:00:22.890
Professor Michael McCann: would Roger Goodell be any better in this situation? I mean, Goodell can negotiate huge TV contracts because there's a labor relationship.

979
03:00:23.140 --> 03:00:26.700
Professor Michael McCann: Like, put anyone in that job, and it seems like a no-win.

980
03:00:27.850 --> 03:00:34.080
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Great, well… do we need Roger Goodell in college athletics? It's a good…

981
03:00:34.480 --> 03:00:40.439
Professor Michael McCann: Being a New Englander with… you mentioned Deflate gate. I don't know how well that would go over, up here, but…

982
03:00:40.440 --> 03:00:42.780
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Yeah, I'm not a huge…

983
03:00:43.110 --> 03:01:00.310
Dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner: Well, I'm the opposite, I'm not a huge fan of Brady. But anyways, thank you so much. This was a wonderful conversation, very thought-provoking, and I'm going to turn it back over, to our host, Dean Len Baynes, at the University of Houston. Thanks so much.

984
03:01:00.310 --> 03:01:00.990
Professor Michael McCann: Thank you.

985
03:01:01.270 --> 03:01:01.970
Professor Michael McCann: Thanks.

986
03:01:04.680 --> 03:01:17.400
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Thank you! Thank you so much for everyone all in attendance. We had several hundred people on the call. I hope you have learned a lot about a lot of these issues. Many thanks to my

987
03:01:17.500 --> 03:01:31.640
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: Big 12, actually 11, law school dean colleagues who supported this effort to have the CLE on this important topic during March Madness. And many thanks to all our panelists.

988
03:01:31.640 --> 03:01:41.850
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: The general counsel, the law professors, all the folks who are just knowledgeable about all these things, and many thanks to my three

989
03:01:41.850 --> 03:01:55.570
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: dear decanal colleagues who moderated the panel, Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Lolita Buckner Inniss, and Stacy Leeds. So that, concludes our

990
03:01:55.570 --> 03:02:04.320
Dean Leonard M. Baynes: CLE for today.