Sports Law Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

What are the unique legal challenges in the area of sports law litigation?

More In This Category

View Transcript

Well, I think that one of the biggest challenges in this area is the lack of law in this area. As we’ve discussed, several of these topics are relatively new in the last five years. How collective bargaining agreements apply in various sports and different agreements apply to retired players and do they apply to personal injury, do they apply to publicity rights, in what form and fashion do they apply? Resolving those issues is very important.

Players are getting older. Professional sports became really big in the last several decades and all those players are getting older and have different needs and different issues popping up. Notions of what’s right and wrong have changed. You know, we’ve got the Internet now, they’re using the identities in a lot broader and more profitable context now, both for amateur athletes, NCAA athletes and professional athletes, and all of those ask new questions that don’t necessarily have a stock answer written into the law already, whether statutory or common law.

We’re sort of cobbling together in some situations different aspects of a law, from First Amendment to copyright to trademark to preemption to all these different notions to try to answer questions that are sort of arising on the fly.

Minneapolis sports litigation attorney Brian Gudmundson discusses why the sports industry is a difficult area to litigate in.

More Videos From This Lawyer