College Football and the Law

• Semester: Spring 2024
• Course ID: 296W
• Credit Hours: 2
• Unique: 28699

Description

Over the past thirty years college football has become arguably one of the most popular sports in America. Quite simply there is nothing like college football. It is steeped in rivalry, tradition, pageantry, and insane fandom. Games are literally played on almost every night of the week, and on Saturdays millions of people pile into stadiums that hold upwards of 105,000 people. College coaches make just as much as pro coaches, athletic directors are paid like NFL general managers, and the biggest college football programs generate in excess of $240M per year. And most recently, the student-athletes themselves are now getting a piece of the economic pie. However, there is also a dark side to college football: exploitation, academic misconduct, injuries, and scandal, which have been a constant thread in the sport since its founding in the late 1800s. This class looks at the legislation and court cases that have shaped the sport into what it is today. Cases looked at will explore the following:

• The creation of the NCAA as the sport’s governing body
• The invention of the term “student-athlete,” so that universities would not have to pay workman’s compensation claims when athletes got injured
• The legal arguments around the term “amateur”
• Proposition 48 and academic eligibility requirements
• Compensation limits and restricted earnings for coaches
• Trademark disputes involving Ohio State, USC, and Alabama
• Anti-trust laws and student-athlete compensation
• Unionization
• Concussions and medical settlements
• NCAA Sanctions
• Name, Image, and Likeness
• Sexual abuse cases at Ohio State and Penn State
• Grants of Rights and TV contracts
• Power Five conference realignment
• Revenue sharing legislation