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Little Sports Court, brought to you by our good friends
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Each week we're breaking down the real life legal drama,
intersecting with your favorite athletes, teams, and leagues, from contract
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Garrett and Preston Handy on the line. Gentlemen, how are
you guys doing today?
Speaker 5: Hey?
Speaker 1: Ben?
Speaker 5: Doing well?
Speaker 1: How you doing doing good? Ben?
Speaker 5: Hey?
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can provide some knowledge here in this sports Court segment
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Let's start off with this news and notes. How about
this Michael Jordan, best basketball player, the Goat. He's obviously
gotten into NASCAR and he's settled an anti trust lawsuit.
Speaker 4: Writer.
Speaker 3: NASCAR has rather settled at anti trust lawsuit with MJ's
team in midst of the trial. MJ and NASCAR chairman
testified earlier this week, I believe give us an update.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this has been going over a couple of years,
and on our sports court we've learned quite a bit
about NASCAR and the way it operate. And you know,
the background is NASCAR is a family owned group that
is private and it provides charters to teams that want
to race a NASCAR and our guy, Michael Jordan, he's
a part owner and a couple of teams and as
we know, he's an ultra ultra competitive Well, a couple
of years back, he filed a lawsuit against NASCAR and
he challenged them, probably something that teams in the past
had wanted to do, but here you've got a billionaire
who said, hey, I'm going to challenge this, and what
his claim was is the way they were running things
violated antitrust. They were operating as a monopoly because they
had non compete agreements, they had charters that they controlled,
they had multi year contracts, they required their teams to
sign releases of claims, kind of meaning that they could
not sue them. Well, Michael Jordan sued him, and NASCAR
they kind of came back and said, well, wait a minute,
we provide financial stability, we provide benefits to our charters.
And throughout this litigation, Michael Jordan's teams they lost a
lot of it. They were making claims and file motions
and the judge didn't agree with Michael Jordan's teams. But
it goes along. They try to settle it. But guess what,
it makes it to trial. And a lot of cases
are settled well before trial, but this thing actually made
it to trial and it's about a week and a
half into trial. As part of the trial, Michael Jordan's
actually he actually testified and some of the things he said,
he goes, I really had no choice. I had to
do this for everyone, he said. I wasn't afraid to
take on NASCAR. He said someone had to step forward
and challenge the entity. I sat in those meetings with
the longtaime owners and was browbeaten for so many years
that we needed to make a change, and I wasn't
afraid I could challenge NASCAR with my resources. Well, the
chairman of NASCAR also testified at trial, and he was
very bullish, kind of saying, this is our system. You know,
I haven't changed my opinion on the charters. This is
how we've operated for years and years. This is an
eighty one year old guy. Hard to teach an old
dog a new trick. He wasn't you know, surprisingly hadn't
been challenged for years, but he was really stuck on
his position. Well, here a week and having to trial,
and incidentally, the judge came out and said, you know,
I don't see an end of this trial. This thing
is frustrated. It's going to go on forever and never Well.
Breaking news today it comes out that the parties have
reached an agreement and settled it. We don't know the
terms of the settlement, but it basically came out and
said that the statements were that let's see that this
allows the parties to move forward with a unified focus
on advancing stock car racing and delivering an exceptional competition
for our fans. Now, they really didn't want to look
at a potential loss that Nascara said. This was about progress. Teams,
drivers and partners will have stability and opportunity they deserve.
Now this outcome gives all parties the flexibility and confidence
to continue delivering unforgetting racing moments for our fans. Well,
that comes as a shock, you know. And I think
this is a real victory for Michael Jordan's teams, but
also for all the teams. You know that it's going
to give them a little say and some flexibility. I
think that the NASCAR chairman, he probably caught win. We've
talked about. I think NASCAR had a lot to lose,
but I think he caught win. That MJ's undefeated in
the finals, and that might have worried him a little bit.
But we've got a settlement. It's you know, a lot
of cases don't make the trial and a lot of
them don't settle at the time of trial. But apparently
something swung that NASCAR wanted to settle the deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what swung?
Speaker 3: Do you think if you were, I know, you're not
as lawyers, you're not supposed to have any sort of
conjecture here in radio world, We're like, well, what if this?
Speaker 4: What if that? What do you make of it?
Speaker 5: Well? I think it was before trial. I think the
writing was on the wall that you know, anti trust
rules and monopoly rules. This kind of fit squarely into
that that it didn't allow fair competition, you know, going
to get sponsorships and all that kind of thing. The
teams all had to kind of operate under this NASCAR umbrella,
and they were, you know, they didn't want to lose
their charters, so they basically agreed to these you know,
kind of tight terms and you know, and Jordan had
Jeffrey Kessler, who's the king of anti trust in sports law.
And I think even though Jordan lost a lot of
these motions along the way, the writing was on the
wall that potentially there could be And I think NASCAR
sage is a big risk, you know, because if Jordan loses,
guess what, he's just back to square one, right, Oh,
we're just going to operate in this system. And okay,
and you know, but there could have been appeals. For sure,
there would have been appeals by either side. So reaching
an agreement between the parties is good because they'll incan deal.
We don't know any of the details of that, and
we might even hear word that, oh they're frustrated now
because they can't come to terms on that, and they
might have to go back to the judge on these things.
But I think NASCAR saw the writing on the wall.
Speaker 4: Interesting moves. Let's move on over to college football.
Speaker 3: Michigan's head coach Sean Moore was arrested for a sold
after being fired for cause. He's going to be arranged tomorrow.
This is a chaotic one. This is a crazy one.
Give us the latest.
Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, it is a crazy one. And this is
all happening within the last twenty four hours. But what
we've learned is that Sean Moore a was fired from his.
Speaker 5: Job for cause. I can talk about that a little
bit more.
Speaker 1: But fired from his job for cause and then also
arrested on suspicion of a sexual assault and in jail.
So tomorrow he has an arraignment where he will appear
and face these charges. Kind of a preliminary thing that
happens in a criminal case, and so we don't know
a ton yet. All we know is that this involved
an inappropriate relationship with a staff and so from University
of Michigan standpoint, you know that constituted, you know, a
fireboll of sense that they could fire him for cause,
and what that means is they get out of his
contract for paying him anything. Some some nine to one
one calls were just recently released because it's been hard
to find anything on the underlying allegations with this staffer
and what happened. But one of the nine to one
one calls indicated that he'd been stocking her for months,
I think is what the caller said, and then he
had a knife something about that. And then the other
call was really involved came from it looks like his wife,
who indicated that he was suicidal over losing his job.
And so we've also learned that he's been placed on
a mental health watch of some sort of suicide watch. So, uh,
sad story. Things are really raveling for Sean Moore after
a nine to three season at Michigan where things were
looking on, you know, on the rise there. But like
I said, tomorrow with with the arraignment, where we're going
to know probably a lot more after.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow, man, sad sad dealings. Right, you can go from
top to bottom real quick. You got to keep the
trauma limited. The uh you know, there's some rules in
life that you need to abide by to stay out
of the uh, the negative the negative limelight, if you will.
So hopefully everything turns out okay. But I feel for
his family and his children.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And so let's uh, I don't know what's going to
happen tomorrow. Then, I mean, they're going to be a
rain tomorrow. So what what's the next proceedings in this
uh uh this more case?
Speaker 1: Would you say, Well, those charges are going to be
read to him. He's going to have a chance to
plead guilty or not guilty. I assume he's gonna plead
not guilty. I think we'll see that. So I'm sure
he's should be consulting with counsel at this point to
talk about that. But again, these are just the preliminary
stages in the criminal case against him. Not to say
there couldn't even be on the other side of civil
case with the University of Michigan. But you know, they
were pretty quick to pull the trigger on this and
and just fire him and not wait for any kind
of outcome. I mean, there was some indication that this
investigation had been going on for some months or weeks, right,
that they'd known about this relationship or didn't know. And
I mean those are kind of some of the things
that will happen on the you know, sort of the
personnel side of this with the University of Michigan, But
the criminal side, it's a totally different animal.
Speaker 3: Let's get over to well, staying on the gridiron, Georgia
seeks to sue to recover four hundred thousand dollars for
nil deal reach from an edge rusher who transferred Tomsy.
We wondered kind of like how they if there would
be any sort of accountability on the Nile front when
these agreements, these deals go awry give us the latest
on this one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know these are these nil contracts
or contracts, right, and in contracts, both parties have responsibilities.
You know, the player wants to get paid. If he
wasn't get paid, we'd sure hear about it, wouldn't we
If he wasn't getting his checks, we'd absolutely hear about.
But this is an interesting one. It involves a player,
Damon Wilson, who in twenty twenty four played for Georgia.
Was a pretty good player, and at the end of
twenty twenty four he an nil bill with Georgia with
what's called Classic City Collective, which was at that time
Georgia's you know, collective group, for five hundred thousand dollars
to be paid in fourteen payments of roughly thirty four
thirty to forty thousand dollars payment. After the first of
the year, he all of a sudden bounces to Missouri
to go play and he played from this whole last
season and actually he played pretty good. He had a
really good nine sacks, nine and a half tackles for loss.
And what Georgia decided to do they decided to sue
him and your first thought is, well, they're suing him
because he got five hundred grand and didn't play for him.
Well that's not the case. He only got one payment,
so essentially thirty grand. And then he left, and I'm
sure he took a deal with Missouri, which probably was
as good or better than that. And now Georgia is
suing him, and the basis for it isn't their actual damage.
They're suon him based on a clause in the contract
for liquidated damages. And this is this is really interesting.
And then I caught l contract. But in many contracts
there is a liquid damage clause that says, if either
of you breach this and we can't really ascertain the damages,
you have to pay x amount. We're just setting it here,
and everyone agrees to it, realizing we're coming into this
in good faith. We're all gonna work hard to keep
the contract going. But if one of us doesn't do it,
you know, then I have to pay this amount in
addition to the reach I got to pay this amount. Well,
that was in his contract in Georgia. Surprisingly, it's not
a really great look. Is going after him for four
hundred thousand dollars And I don't know how this, Well,
I do think I know what it turns out. I'll
bet Georgia drops this lawsuit. But maybe they're trying to
make a statement. Maybe they're mad that he had a
bunch of sacks against Georgia this year and really put
him to the task. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you wonder.
Speaker 3: I mean there's definitely a little enmity that is created
when you know these deals go awry, and you know
you want to see there's got to be some sort accountability, right.
I don't know what the legality of it is, but
they're gonna try it and then set a precedent. Has
there been any precedent set for these bleached nil deals yet?
Speaker 5: Well, we've seen one before and it didn't go well
for the university. This is kind of the person we're seeing,
and I'm the prize Georgia is doing it in this case. Now,
if they'd had made him a big payment, like let's
say that the deal had been structured at we're going
to pay you a two hundred and fifty grand now
and then spread the rest of them out over fourteen months,
but they didn't. He only got thirty thousand dollars. So
really their real damage is thirty thousand dollars in losing
a good player. Some of the president is when coaches
leave they have two years left on the contract or whatever.
Universities don't come after them and say, hey, wait a minute,
there was you know this mouth And apparently I think
the lawyers are the agents looking at this, they probably
should have said, hey, we can't agree to a liquidated
damage clause, because what happens today in world, in the
world of college football, players are unpredictable, They're fickle. They
jump as quick as they can when another deal comes,
and you can't keep track of it, you know, especially
when there were so many transfer portal windows last year.
I think it's now just one window. But yeah, the
agent agreeing to that is it's kind of a problem,
you know. I mean, from a contract standpoint, Georgia may
have a legitimate argument, you know, but from a damage standpoint,
they don't. So we'll see.
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll see how that plays out. Let's move on
to Congress. They cancel vote on the Score Act for
now courts have control. What is the Score Act and
why does this matter?
Speaker 4: Jens?
Speaker 1: Well, the Score Act stands for the Student Compensation and
Opportunity Through Rights and Endorsements Act. This is Congress's effort
to try to rein in all of the chaos in
college sports right and try to put in place some
legislation so that we can have some stability, some predictability
in college sports, especially in these areas of nil transferportal,
this sort of thing. But one of the big things
that the law would have done is it would have
given antitrust protection to the NCAA and anti trust protection,
something that we've seen in other major league sports where
you have collective bargaining and that sort of thing, and
you know, these are employees. College is different. They're not employees.
That the law, this SCORE Act, would also say that
they're not employees. College athletes are not employees. And so
it looked like for a little while that there was
some bipartisan support for this bill, that maybe it was
gonna you know, we're going to get it was going
to get some traction. But it's been tabled. Now they're
going to kick the can down the road. Maybe that's
not a surprise to people to hear that, but I
thought this was an interesting stat then that since twenty twenty,
more than forty bills have been introduced into Congress to
try to reform college sports. None of them have passed
into law, and so it's a real uphill battle. Even
if it is bipartisan, and even if everybody's frustrated and
wants to see some stability in college sports, this may
not be the way to do it. We may need to,
you know, we may need to have the n CUBA,
the schools, the conferences need to get together and put
together their own, you know, their own laws to live
by that aren't going to run a foul of antitrust
laws because because that seems to be where all the
trouble comes up and all the you know, constant lawsuits
that we see against against the cub A crazy times.
Speaker 3: One of the craziest things that happened in college athletics
will occurred here in the state of Utah.
Speaker 4: This week.
Speaker 3: Utah made a deal with the devil I'm kidding, Private
Equity and OTRO Capital there.
Speaker 4: You know, this is crazy.
Speaker 3: Give me a brief background of what you guys know
about this deal and then we'll get into some of
the legality of it all.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know a lot about
the deal, only what I've read and that is that,
you know, breaking news. UNI rec of Utah Athletic Department
entered into it. They created a for profit company called
Utah Brands and Entertainment, and they would control ticketing, sponsorships, events,
And they entered into a deal with Outro Capital, a
private equity firm in New York, a firm that has
experience in the sports world in investing in teams and
leagues and that type of thing. And you know, the
firms are there. They're going to get five hundred million
in capital. And you know, obviously the thing motivating this
is to try competitive in this. I hate that we
even talk about this in this college football world that
you know that that's what it comes has come down to.
I'm a grumpy old man who liked the old system,
you know. But I think the NCAA did. I think
the NCAA didn't handle it correctly. They should have got
ahead of it and players received compensation in some form
or another. But you know, so we don't know a
lot about this. The terms are basically that there'll be
a I think one of the big things that saw
me I said, well, who has control of this and
I'll talk about it is the board is gonna be
seven members. It's going to be the ad of the U,
three Foundation members, two Ultra Capital members, and then a
h an investor member or something, you know, And I
think the U maintains control of this, That's what it's
kind of looking at.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: And so, uh, it's going to change some of the
booster issues. You know, Apparently there's a chance to if
you are qualified investor, you can invest in the uh,
you know, the entered sport Utah brands and entertainment. You know,
like any other investment, it's a big wait and see.
Speaker 3: You know on this.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of legalities that will go
into setting this up, obviously the transaction of that. But
you know, just it was just kind of it's probably
much to do it about nothing but thinking about some legalities.
And the reason this came up is because a legislator
don't even know who it was, injected humor herself into
the conversation by saying, well, wait, wait a minute, did
the you really just do this without going through the
normal processes? Did we just sell off a part of
our state agency to private equity? And I think what
they're staying there from the legal standpoint is there are
processes when state agencies enter into contracts. You know, for example,
if it's U DOT and there's a big project, they
send it out to a bunch of contracting groups that
want to do the work, and you know, and there's
probably a bidding process that they have to do by law,
and so did they comply with that? I don't know.
Maybe it hasn't been a done deal yet. And you know,
if there's a lot of Utah fans on the legislature,
they'll be in favor of it. But you know, then
what happens if private equity comes in and says, hey,
we need to pay these people less, we need to
skinny down these staffs. People get fired and lose their
jobs of state agencies. Does that create legal issues? I
don't know. I'm just thinking like a lawyer and throwing
these potential legal issues out there. But it's probably the
way of the future. I don't think the University of
Utah is the Uh. They're the first, but not the
last school to to jump into this realm, you know,
and uh, I think you know, some schools have a
bunch of billionaires that are gonna stay invested in it,
like Texas Tech guy. I think he's just committed to it,
and so maybe they don't need to go down that road.
But it's really an interesting deal.
Speaker 4: Well it's uh, it's very much intriguing to me.
Speaker 3: And like the you know, the Title nine component to
this is intriguing to me as well, because if you
separate football from everybody else, you know, for it's a
for profit entity. I don't know how that how that
works with scholarships and and things of that nature.
Speaker 4: So very much intrigued by guys.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, you hire you hire Jane as a placekicker,
and then that'll take care of it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 5: Issues. Private equity certainly isn't thinking about Title nine. And
that's something that public universities who receive federal funding, you know,
could come into play totally. Because this is what I think,
this is really all about football. Right, What if private
probably equity comes in and says, hey, you know what
that national championships ski team of yours that's been making
national championships for years and years, we need to cut that.
You know, that's not bringing any money. You know again,
anybody coming in on this, I'm just hypothesizing speculating someone
might go out there, Oh my gosh, the you's cutting
their ski program. They're not everybody, They're not.
Speaker 4: Love it, guys.
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Speaker 4: Guys, big thanks to Garrett and President Handy for joining
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Speaker 3: Much love, much appreciation to you, guys, thanks so much
for joining us once again for a sports Scort segment.
Speaker 1: Jents, Thanks Ben, Thanks Ben Diego.
Speaker 3: That's Garrett and Press and Handyhandylawutah dot Com eight oh
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