If you run a sports business or you’re an athlete, you can face unique legal challenges, from compliance issues to dealing with the aftermath of injuries and more. At The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC, our team of entertainment law and sports attorneys offer experience and dedication to help you or your company through challenges.
Whether you are a professional athlete at the international level or college athletes trying to navigate and benefit from your hard work on the field, you need legal representation when issues arise. Learn more about sports and entertainment law and how our firm can help.
One of the areas our team at The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC has experience with is collegiate sports and the various legal issues they involve.
Having experience working directly on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) local governing body our attorneys can help in representing clients for alleged violations of the NCAA rules.
We can assist you through all stages of an NCAA investigation while also guiding institutions through compliance issues. To achieve this, we conduct internal reviews and investigations. We also represent institutions, coaches, and athletic administrators before the NCAA Committee on Infractions and the Infractions Appeals Committee.
To ensure institutions and student-athletes are fully aware of new regulations, our lawyers can provide information on significant NCAA changes and compliance matters. We can also help protect your institution and athletes by conducting assessments on the overall health of the athletics department and ascertaining NCAA compliance.
Our group also counsels student-athletes and institutions on eligibility issues and can help file reinstatement requests and waivers.
A growing concern in student sports is name, image, and likeness (NIL). NIL allows student-athletes to earn money from their personal brand, but these laws vary by state, and the regulations are complicated.
Student-athletes can engage in NIL activities in Missouri if they follow state laws regarding NIL. What’s crucial, however, is that schools verify that the athletes are following the law. Because of the complexities of NCAA NIL regulations, having a sports law attorney helping the institution is vital.
Money laundering cases often require the government to unravel hundreds or even thousands of financial transactions to prove what happened. The complexity of money laundering cases can work in the defendant’s favor.
We can conduct institutional NIL assessments to identify and minimize risks. Our team can assist with third-party involvement as well.
Our team at The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC can help your institution achieve Title IX compliance. Title IX helps protect people from discrimination based on sex in education or activities that receive federal financial help. Discrimination can involve all kinds of sex-based harassment, including:
If your institution faces a Title IX complaint or allegation, we can help by providing robust defenses, one of which is demonstrating substantial proportionality.
This defense involves proving that your institution is Title IX compliant because the gender breakdown of participation in athletic activities is substantially proportionate to full-time undergraduate enrollment.
We can also help show that your institution has a history of expanding opportunities for the underrepresented sex. That, too, can help demonstrate compliance.
Our team will guide you through every stage of the compliance process, including gender equity reviews, audits, and government investigations.
At The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC, we represent athletes at all stages of their careers. We work to protect athletes’ rights, including helping those who’ve suffered sports injuries.
We can help with disciplinary cases involving on-field incidents, as well as alleged breaches of disciplinary and sports regulations. Because these regulations are in constant flux, having a Kansas City lawyer representing you is vital.
Sports-related disputes, including missing wages, are another area in which we can help. Sports organizations usually have a team of lawyers, which an athlete should never take on without representation. We can fight for your rights in these cases.
Whenever an athlete is ready to sign a sponsorship deal, they need a lawyer. We will examine the contract and negotiate the right terms. We can help draft these agreements or conclude them. Because these contracts often also deal with intellectual property, you can’t agree to them without legal help.
If you’ve been denied a spot on a team, you may have to file a team selection dispute, either with the American Arbitration Association or within your sport’s governing body. That’s not a simple thing to do, and it can be even more difficult to win these claims without representation.
Governing bodies that select the teams do so on subjective criteria and have the right to discretion, but you also have the right to ensure you’re being treated fairly. Our team can work to prepare your case and defend your rights.
We can also help with anti-doping violations. Being accused of these violations can end a career, so quickly hiring a lawyer is crucial. There are many reasons why a test could have come back positive, and we can help prove that.
An athlete dealing with sports injuries also needs to have representation. We’ll help prove you suffered injuries for which you deserve compensation. By gathering evidence like medical records and negotiating with other parties on your behalf, you can claim damages for what you’ve suffered.
Let’s say your sports commission is planning on hosting a sporting event at Kauffman Stadium — are you sure you have the media and broadcasting rights that should belong to that commission? Any sports organization that arranges events is entitled to the rights connected with the event.
Before drafting legal frameworks for the sports event, you need to have a sports lawyer look over the contract. This will help ensure that your organization’s rights are respected.
Our team can also assist sports commissions from the start by drafting regulatory frameworks that its members will have to follow. These can include statutes, disciplinary regulations, and transfer regulations.
Sports and entertainment law is complex. Everything from contract disputes to the misappropriation of an athlete’s name or image requires extensive knowledge of a variety of laws, including intellectual property law.
We know what evidence can make a difference in proving Title IX compliance and NCAA compliance, as well as what can help an athlete win a contract dispute.
Because our team at The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC has experience in personal injury claims, we can also represent athletes who’ve suffered injuries and deserve compensation.
Lawyers with litigation experience won’t shy away from representing you or your institution in court or in front of regulatory committees. You never want to go into court or the NCAA committees without representation.
Whether you need to ensure your college or university is compliant with all of the constantly expanding regulations attached to student-athletes or you’re an athlete yourself searching for representation against allegations or to solidify a contract, we can help.
At The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC, we offer help to institutions, commissions, and athletes at all stages of their careers.
We have years of experience in many types of law, and we take on a variety of cases. We’ll put all that experience to work on your behalf.
Contact us at The Bates and Merryman Law Firm LLC to speak with one of our Kansas City, MO, sports lawyers about representation.
If you have been arrested or believe you may be the target of a criminal investigation, contact the criminal defense attorneys at The Bates & Merryman Law Firm today.
© Copyright 2024 THE BATES & MERRYMAN LAW FIRM LLC. All rights reserved.
