Posted: March 12th, 2023

Week 8 SPMT 301

Congratulations!  You have reach the summit of the course.  You have one more hurdle to jump, and you will have achieved one more course toward completion of your degree.  To make sure you are ready for real-world legal issues and solutions, you will be tasked to develop preventive plans to help steer organizations toward competitive advantages in their respective sports.

Here is your Course Achievement Project prompt:

Elon Musk just received a golden parachute of $500 million following the SEC’s removal of Musk from Tesla, Inc. (because of his incessant stock-influencing tweeting, of course).  Without skipping a beat, Musk tweeted his desire to invest his new-found wealth into a sport consulting group.  After graduating from Regent University, you applied, and Musk personally selected you to run his first four sport-consulting projects.  As you may have guessed, each of these projects fit perfectly in each of the Sharp text’s four primary units (Unit 2 – Chapters 4 through 10, Unit 3 – Chapters 11 through 14, Unit 4 – Chapters 15 through 18, and Unit 5 – Chapters 19 and 20).  However, you have not been provided much guidance beyond “create the best preventive plans to help these four teams accomplish their goals:”

1. (Unit 2) The Bradenton Brawlers, located in Bradenton, Florida, are a newly formed (and fictionalized) Triple-A baseball team looking for guidance on what they need to do to grow their team and renovate their baseball stadium.  Owned by business professionals, they understand that risk arises with every venture.  Accordingly, they need a preventive legal plan that helps them understand the ins-and-outs of hiring minor league ball players.  Specifically, what are some contractual concerns that may arise when signing individuals to the team?  What if the major league affiliate wants to “call-up” a ball player?  What legal ramifications may this have?

Additionally, what concerns might arise by hiring various staff and ball players that could league to other employment concerns?  Are there different rules for athletes than typical grounds crew?  Speaking of which, the business partners overheard both the minor league players and ball team staff members whisper about unionizing.  What concerns exist for both types of participants and the organization? 

2. (Unit 3) The Montreal Impact–a Major League Soccer (MLS) team based out of Montreal, Quebec, Canada–contacted Musk about their corporate governance issues.  As a team with a low power ranking in the MLS, they are concerned their business may collapse because of (fictionalized) issues hurting their organizational governance.  First, the MLS Commissioner and the team’s owner were recently divorced, and the Impact believe the Commissioner has (and will) unduly, and negatively, hurting the team through his league authority.  What authority does he have, and what can the team do to minimize any fallout from the bad-blood between the Commissioner and the team’s owner?  Second, what might the team’s owner do with their ownership?  If the owner is concerned about an unhealthy future with the Commissioner, what might they do with their ownership interest?  Second, what can you tell the team about their leagues structure?  Are there any beneficial legal changes that you recommend? 

In addition, what other advice might you have for the governance of the organization?  What implications may arise if some of the players are selected to compete at the global level in the World Cup or Olympics?  And, what are the legal implications arising from scouting high school and collegiate athletes?  What issues may arise?  Are high school students even allowed to play with MLS?  Finally, what about non-American, non-Canadian, international players playing in Canada in the MLS?  How might the rules change or stay the same for these outside players?

3. (Unit 4) The Green Bay Packers play in City Stadium, renamed Lambeau Field, located in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Lambeau Field is the longest-running, continually operating field in the National Football League (NFL) stadium.  The Packers have expanded Lambeau Field multiple times to accommodate a large number of people (far more than likely conceived when the field first went into use).  The Packers have hired Musk to bring their tort preventive plan up to date, but since you will be working thoroughly on a stadium assessment, they have asked for participant risk assessments and ways to limit their liability from players, fans, staff members, vendors, independent contractors, volunteers, and more.  Therefore, you must give a thorough breakdown of torts liability that may arise with owning an old stadium and running events at the stadium.

First, make sure to take a deep dive into the issues that may arise with the old stadium, as well as an assessment of running different events from the stadium.  Then, consider what issues may arise for each type of participant–from talking about the contact injuries arising from players to exculpation of liability from the acts of outside food vendors while operating on Packer property.

4. (Unit 5) Finally, after the Green Bay Packers again refused to play in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium located in North London, the United Kingdom wants to create their own National Football League (NFL) team to challenge the Packers both at home and in Lambeau Field.  However, although London possesses a grand stadium and has developed their own preventive plans related to hosting games, they now need to hire Musk’s organization to help with branding, marketing, and intellectual property issues.  Without know anything apart from the fact London wants to develop a competitive NFL team, create a generalized preventive law plan that addresses various marketing and intellectual property concerns that London, and the UK, may encounter.

Your paper must be no less than 15-pages long (not including the cover page or references page), and no more than 20-pages long.  No unit or section should take up less than 3 pages in length, and no section need go more than 5 pages (or 6 pages if writing more than 15 pages).  Your paper must use your textbook, and incorporate five (5) additional resources (not including constitutional provisions, statutes, or cases, or other laws, rules, or regulations).

Draw from what you learned through completion of your Third Quarter Learning Activity (but much more in-depth).  Although this paper is a mere fraction of what you might observe when consulting for an organization, place yourself into the role of sport manager over the new projects.  Imagine you are walking through each step and observing various aspects of the project that make up the sporting event.  What do you see?  What concerns may arise?  Make this task as real as you hope it will be one day.  Also, do not forget you are focusing on the law that impacts these projects rather than various situational issues.  Think about situations, and then figure out what laws arise and influence the outcome of each matter.

This assignment accounts for nineteen (19) percent of your final grade.