From the Director: Events and new opportunities mark spring semester
Dear alumni and friends:
I hope you and your families are doing well and staying safe. The spring semester brought a number of new opportunities for our students and the Tulane Sports Law community, and we were thrilled to resume in-person events on campus.
In collaboration with the Tulane Center for Sport, we hosted the 5th Annual Tulane Entertainment & Sports Law Conference on campus in April. The conference showcases Tulane’s growing strength in entertainment law alongside our national reputation in sports law. This year’s event welcomed attendees from across the country and featured an incredible array of speakers (including a virtual interview with Matthew McConaughey), from nationally-recognized entertainment lawyers, major figures in college and pro sports, award-winning film producers and television executives—many of whom are Tulane alumni. Thanks to Mike Tannenbaum (L'95), David Meltzer, Tyrone Thomas (L'01), and Jenn Lewis for participating in our terrific sports law panel. We were also happy to bring a taste of New Orleans to our attendees with breaks for beignets, sno-balls, and crawfish!
Dean Meyer and I are excited see the conference grow so quickly into a destination event, thanks to the support of so many of our students, faculty, alumni and, in particular, Tulane Law alumni Kevin Yorn, Jeff Frost, and Tim Francis, who have been integral from the beginning. The conference has been a team effort and a true synergy of the best of our Tulane community. We’d love to see you all there next year!
This spring also marked the return of our sports law competitions. Each year, our law students organize the premier sports law competitions in the country, with hundreds of teams from law schools across the country meeting to hone their advocacy and negotiation skills across professional baseball, basketball, football, and— new for this year— international soccer. We were able to hold our basketball competition in person this year at Tulane Law School, which brought together more than 70 student competitors with 36 judges from every area of the NBA, including representatives from 11 NBA teams.
We’re thankful to the dozens of high-profile sports lawyers and executives who volunteer their time to these competitions, giving our students and the competing schools an incredible opportunity to network with and receive feedback from experts in the industry. These competitions grow every year and continue to get rave reviews from competitors and judges alike.
In addition, Our pioneering student leaders also hosted the 5th Annual Women in Sports Law Symposium, which you can read more about within this newsletter. February also saw our students virtually host the Tulane Sports Law Mardi Gras Moot Court Competition, the only annual moot court appellate competition focused on contemporary sports industry issues. To no surprise, this year’s competition problem was patterned on the Supreme Court’s significant Alston decision of last summer. And, with the NCAA Men’s Final Four hosted in New Orleans in April, we collaborated with the Tulane Center for Sport to host an incredible panel featuring some of the most influential leaders in college sports.
We also take pride in our partnerships that help provide sports law education to young members of the local and national communities. Through the Tulane Center for Sport, we helped design and serve as the primary educational partner for The Starting Block, a new youth education initiative jointly created by the Arnie D. Fielkow Family and the Edgar “Dooky” Jr. & Leah Chase Family Foundation, and designed to build impactful relationships between multicultural and multifaith communities in Greater New Orleans. We also continued our partnership with Major League Baseball’s Youth Academy program, presenting a sports law course for their students across the country in fall 2021 and continuing this great program in June 2022.
Thank you all for your continued support of Tulane Sports Law and for helping us to a great start in 2022. Be safe and be well.
Best,
Gabe Feldman
Sher Garner Professor of Sports Law and Paul and Abram B. Barron Professor of Law
Director, Sports Law Program
Co-Director, Tulane Center for Sport
Associate Provost for NCAA Compliance
