8/11/2019 Wilmer NFL First and Ten
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FEBRUARY 2006
ILLUSTRATIONSBY
MIKE
KASUN
N A MONDAY NIGHT LAST
September, David Donovan foundhimself sharing a skybox with
Washington Redskins owner DanSnyder. Snyder had just hired
theformer Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale
and Dorr partner as the teams generalcounsel, and the two were
in high
spirits. As the Skins edged out the DallasCowboys, Snyder
grabbed Donovans
jacket and crowed, Beats asbestos lawsuits,doesnt it?
Richard Cass, the former head ofWilmerHales corporate practice,
had asimilar transformation. After engineering abuyout for
Baltimore Ravens owner SteveBisciotti in 2004, Cassaccepted
Bisciottis in-
vitation to becometeam president. Nowhe sits at a desk
clut-tered with contracts,but with a view di-rectly onto the
Ravenspractice field.
Part of the fascination isthat people love sports and wantto be
involved in something theylove, says Cass of his move in-house. Its
just more exciting.
Donovan and Cass are not the onlyones savoring the inside
status: WilmerHalehas placed one lawyer after another
with sports teams in recent years. Lastyear WilmerHale corporate
lawyer AlecScheiner became general counsel of theDallas Cowboys,
and Sashi Brown becameassistant general counsel of the
JacksonvilleJaguars. Jay Bauman, who left WilmerHalein 1999, is now
a finance counsel for theNFL . Former WilmerHale lawyer Alan
Ostfield is the COO of Palace Sports &Entertainmentwhich
owns the TampaBay Lightning, the Detroit Pistons, andthe Detroit
Shockand WilmerHalealum Craig Masback is CEO of USA Track&
Field.
WilmerHale comanaging partnerWilliam Perlstein says the firm
feeds toin-house and has placed GCs elsewhere,such as Citigroup
Inc., ABC, Inc., and The
Walt Disney Company.Success is a matter of getting your foot
in
the door. The three biggest sports firms,Proskauer Rose; Weil,
Gotshal & Manges;and Covington & Burling,
establishedthemselves in the 1970s negotiating laborand antitrust
matters. Today Proskauer isthe go-to firm for basketball and
hockey.
Weil works with players unions in allsports, and Covington reps
the NationalFootball League.
WilmerHale used a different strate-gy. Instead of establishing
clientrelationships through labor andantitrust disputes, the firm
gainedentre through corporate work. Oneof Casss first clients was
Texasoilman Jerry Jones, who tapped
WilmerHale to help buy the Dal lasCowboys in 1989. After that,
a
generation of WilmerHale sports lawyerscut their teeth on
Cowboys business. Over15 years, the firms client list grew
toinclude the Redskins, he CharlotteHornets, and the Indianapolis
Colts.
Twenty years ago, general counsel,billionaire owners, and luxury
skyboxes
were not major features of professionalsports. But now sports
teams have evolvedinto highly competitive entertainmentfranchises,
and multibillion-dollar transac-
tions have transformedsports law from aniche practice into
alucrative industry ofits own.
Whats changed
about the businessof football is thecomplexity, saysCass. In the
1970sand 1980s, teamsplayed football and soldtickets. Now most
manage their ownstadiums, concessions, broadcast dealsand
sponsorships. The early 1990s saw astadium-building boom that
continues withspeculative price tags exceeding $1 billion. Inthe
past ten years, the asking price for anNFL team went from about
$250 million to$700 million$1 billion. The NFLs televisioncontract
for the next five years is valued at$24 billion.
Suddenly theres a fairly significantbusiness where there wasnt
one, saysJim Quinn, global head of li tigation at WeilGotshal, and
so you have a lot of lawyersbuzzing around.
Some of the attraction just lies in beinga fan. In June 2004,
Ostfield recalls, he
jetted between playoffs to root for Palace shockey and
basketball teams. Within afew weeks, he boasts, I got to hold
theLarry OBrien trophy and the Stanley Cup.Even the biggest
asbestos win would havetrouble measuring up. DENALI K. DASGUPTA
F I R S T A N D T E NFor sports teams and their in-house
lawyers, the stakes
just keep getting higher and higher.
O
T A L KBAR
Reprinted with permission from the February 2006edition of THE
AMERICAN LAWYER. 2006 ALM
Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplicationwithout
permission is prohibited. For information, con-tact ALM Reprint
Department at 800-888-8300 x6111
or visit www.almreprints.com. #001-02-06-0005
www.wilmerhale.com
