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Firm gets Iowa sports rights to 2026
Legal Career News |
2011/09/02 18:02
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The University of Iowa athletics department has quietly given the company managing its sports marketing efforts a contract extension through 2026 and the right to sell the name of its basketball court in exchange for guaranteed payments totaling $114 million, contract documents show.
Missouri-based Learfield Communications Inc. beat out several other firms in a competitive bidding process in 2006 for a 10-year contract to exclusively broadcast Iowa athletic events on the radio, negotiate corporate sponsorship agreements and generate other advertising and marketing income. Iowa was guaranteed $55.1 million under that deal.
But in a move that escaped public scrutiny, Iowa agreed in November 2009 to extend the contract by 10 years while giving Learfield the ability to sell the naming rights to the court of Carver-Hawkeye Arena and the Outdoor Club at Kinnick Stadium, according to records released to The Associated Press. Mediacom, the cable television and Internet provider, earlier this year secured the naming rights to both spaces for terms that have not been released.
Long-term agreements and contract extensions are common in college sports marketing, but the length of Iowa’s deal seems unusual even by those standards. Indiana, for instance, and Learfield announced this year they reached a 10-year extension through 2021. Wisconsin won approval in 2007 from its governing board for a deal with Learfield through 2019.
Sports marketing has also come under fresh scrutiny in Iowa.
Iowa and Iowa State were heavily criticized over the new Cy-Hawk football rivalry trophy that depicted a farm family gathered around a basket of corn. It was designed under a sponsorship agreement with the Iowa Corn Growers Association, and then scrapped after a backlash from fans.
Iowa last week renewed a partnership with the Iowa Lottery for a football-themed promotion involving a $2 scratch ticket despite criticism from some faculty members and NCAA guidelines discouraging gambling ads. And the Iowa Farm Bureau last month reached a wide-ranging, five-year marketing and licensing agreement with Iowa to promote the “America Needs Farmers” brand at a time when its president also leads Iowa’s governing board.
Iowa has refused to release the terms of those agreements as well as the naming rights deal with Mediacom, arguing they are not subject to public records law because they are between sponsors and Learfield even though the school sets the guidelines for sponsorships. |
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SD Supreme Court upholds school funding system
Legal Career News |
2011/09/01 16:25
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The South Dakota Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of the state's system for funding school districts, rejecting the schools' arguments that the current arrangement does not provide enough money to assure students of an adequate education.
In a unanimous ruling, the high court said a lawsuit supported by about two-thirds of the state's school districts raises serious questions about the funding system and shows that some districts struggle to provide adequate facilities and qualified teachers.
"Even so, reasonable doubt exists that the statutory funding mechanisms or level of funding are unconstitutional," Justice Judith Meierhenry wrote for the court.
The 41-page main decision upholds a ruling by Circuit Judge Lori Wilbur of Pierre, who ruled in 2009 that the school funding system is constitutional because it provides students with an adequate education that prepares them for life after high school. Wilbur has since been appointed to the Supreme Court, but did not take part in Thursday's ruling. |
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Wyoming Supreme Court rules for bar owners
Legal Career News |
2011/08/30 11:08
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The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled that state law protects bar owners from lawsuits arising from the actions of their intoxicated patrons.
In a split decision Friday, the court upheld a lower court ruling against relatives of a Ten Sleep couple who died in a head-on crash in 2008. The couple's relatives had sued the owners of two Big Horn County saloons claiming they continued to serve the driver who plowed into the couple after he was drunk.
The court majority ruled state law from the 1980s holds bar owners can't be held liable for their patrons' actions.
Chief Justice Marilyn S. Kite and Justice William Hill filed a dissenting opinion saying they would allow lawsuits against bar owners if they violated local ordinances against serving alcohol to intoxicated persons. |
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Court: No 1st Amendment right to stream live games
Legal Career News |
2011/08/25 15:53
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The association that oversees Wisconsin high school sports can limit who streams its games live on the Internet even though most of its member schools are funded by taxpayers, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The decision could have First Amendment implications for media outlets nationwide. The Chicago appeals court said the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has the right to enter into exclusive contracts for live streaming of its sporting events, and that the First Amendment doesn't entitle other media outlets to claim the same broadcasting rights without paying for them. The case began in 2008, when the sports association sued The Post-Crescent, an Appleton newspaper, for streaming live coverage of its high school football playoff games. Fans in many states rely on community newspapers for news about high school teams, and the newspapers say they need easy, unencumbered access to sporting events to provide that coverage. But the Wisconsin association said it couldn't survive without being able to raise money by signing exclusive contracts with a single video-production company for streaming its tournaments. After a U.S. District judge sided with the association last year, an appeal was filed by the newspaper's owner, Gannett Co., and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association. The appeals court ruled that an exclusive contract allowing one entity to broadcast an event doesn't amount to a gag order on other media outlets. It noted that the sports association still allowed other reporters to cover the games, interview players and coaches, and air up to two minutes of live video coverage of any game. Media outlets were only restricted from broadcasting entire games live. |
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Prosecutors: Blagojevich convictions should stand
Legal Career News |
2011/08/23 17:11
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Rod Blagojevich received a fair retrial and his convictions for corruption including trying to sell President Barack Obama's Senate seat should stand, prosecutors said Tuesday in their retort to the ousted Illinois governor's request for another new trial.
The government's 133-page filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago nearly matched a 158-page defense motion last month that alleged a litany of errors at Blagojevich's retrial earlier this year.
"In reality, there was no bias, manipulation, or unfairness on the part of the prosecution, judge or jury," prosecutors said in their response. "The defendant was fairly convicted by a jury of his peers based on overwhelming evidence."
The filing comes just weeks before Blagojevich's sentencing hearing, scheduled to begin Oct. 6. Many legal experts say U.S. District Judge James Zagel is likely to give the 54-year-old Democrat around ten years in prison.
Blagojevich's retrial ended in June with jurors convicting him on 17 of 20 corruption counts, including that he tried to sell or trade the appointment to Obama's vacated Senate seat for a top job or campaign cash.
At the former governor's first trial last year, jurors were deadlocked on all but one count, convicting the twice-elected Blagojevich of making a false statement to the FBI about the extent of his participation in political fundraising.
Among other alleged judicial errors, defense attorneys pointed in their motion to one of the most memorable moments at the retrial — when lead prosecutor Reid Schar opened a blistering cross-examination of Blagojevich. |
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Drug company lawyer taped trying to foil lawsuit
Legal Career News |
2011/08/19 10:28
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International business can be an ethical jungle, but it's rare to get details of bare-knuckle tactics on tape.
A lawyer in Mexico for a leading U.S. drug manufacturer offered to pay an opposing expert in a lawsuit if he would leave the country on a key court date to undermine the case.
The company, Baxter International Inc., promotes itself as a champion of global anticorruption efforts. Baxter said the lawyer was not authorized to make any offers, and it has severed all ties with him.
The recording and its disclosure offer an unusual glimpse of fishy maneuvers in the global marketplace and come as the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission crack down on misconduct by U.S. companies abroad, part of a multinational effort to clean up commerce.
Based near Chicago, Baxter is a major manufacturer of intravenous drugs and medical devices. Its medications are used to treat people with hemophilia, kidney disease, immune system problems, infectious diseases, serious burns and other conditions.
The lawyer was talking to accountant Rafael Aspuru Alvarez, an expert witness for Translog, a trucking company embroiled in a $25 million legal dispute with Baxter's subsidiary in Mexico. |
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