Litigation & Regulation

Cases, regulatory developments, investigations, and legal disputes reshaping the sports and entertainment industries.

Business & Deals

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AI Is Turning “Consent” Into the Most Valuable Word in Talent Contracts

Sep 19, 2026

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10 min read

AI Is Turning “Consent” Into the Most Valuable Word in Talent Contracts

Digital replicas can turn one recording session, scan, or appearance into an effectively unlimited supply of future performances. That changes the central bargain in talent agreements: the most valuable asset may no longer be the footage, recording, or likeness itself, but the continuing permission to make the person perform when the person is not there.

Gambling

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If Prediction Markets Win, Sportsbooks Will Have to Become Something Else

Sep 19, 2026

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9 min read

If Prediction Markets Win, Sportsbooks Will Have to Become Something Else

DraftKings and FanDuel are no longer choosing between defending the state-regulated sportsbook model and competing with prediction markets. They are building for both. If federally regulated sports event contracts survive, the biggest disruption may not be to the companies that run sportsbooks—but to the legal and economic architecture that made a sportsbook license so valuable in the first place.

Gambling

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Prediction Markets Are Testing the Architecture of American Sports Betting

Sep 19, 2026

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9 min read

Prediction Markets Are Testing the Architecture of American Sports Betting

Prediction markets are forcing courts to answer a question much bigger than whether Kalshi looks like a sportsbook: when the same sports outcome can be packaged as either a wager or a federally regulated contract, which legal system gets to define the transaction first? The answer could determine whether American sports betting remains fundamentally state-by-state—or whether a national derivatives market can exist alongside it.

Business & Deals

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The NCAA’s Biggest Antitrust Problem May Now Be Its Own Record

Sep 19, 2026

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9 min read

The NCAA’s Biggest Antitrust Problem May Now Be Its Own Record

For decades, the NCAA defended major restraints as necessary to preserve college sports. Then many of those restraints disappeared—and college sports kept going. That history does not make the NCAA’s remaining rules unlawful, but it is making “necessity” harder to prove.

Professional Sports

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Matt Kalil Lost His Privacy Case Because the Court Said Haley Was Telling Her Own Story

Sep 18, 2026

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10 min read

Matt Kalil Lost His Privacy Case Because the Court Said Haley Was Telling Her Own Story

A federal judge agreed that the former NFL tackle plausibly alleged a highly offensive disclosure of private facts. He still dismissed the case—with prejudice—because the intimate details were part of Haley Kalil’s own account of her marriage, health and divorce.

Business & Deals

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College Football Finally Has Player Contracts. Ole Miss Is Trying to Enforce One.

Sep 18, 2026

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10 min read

College Football Finally Has Player Contracts. Ole Miss Is Trying to Enforce One.

Ole Miss says Princewill Umanmielen owes $550,000 for transferring to LSU just weeks after signing a revenue-sharing agreement. No court has ruled that he owes a dollar—but the case may help determine whether college sports’ new player contracts function like real contracts when an athlete wants out.

Business & Deals

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Lucki’s Former Manager Says He Bankrolled the Career. The Hard Part May Be Proving the Deal.

Sep 18, 2026

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11 min read

Lucki’s Former Manager Says He Bankrolled the Career. The Hard Part May Be Proving the Deal.

Mark Buol says an oral management deal entitled him to 15% of Lucki’s entertainment income—and that he ultimately became the rapper’s lender, tour financier and unpaid creditor. The lawsuit shows why the most dangerous entertainment contract can be the one everyone thinks they understand without writing down.

High School Sports

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Another Athlete Went to Court for Eligibility. This Time, the Judge Said No.

Sep 18, 2026

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5 min read

Another Athlete Went to Court for Eligibility. This Time, the Judge Said No.

Orange Lutheran star Austin Attalah could not get emergency relief from CIF’s transfer ruling before Friday night’s game. The decision is a useful reminder that a missed season may be irreparable—but irreparable harm does not, by itself, entitle an athlete to an injunction.

College Sports & NIL

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You Can’t Give Friday Night Back Later

Sep 18, 2026

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4 min read

You Can’t Give Friday Night Back Later

An Alabama judge blocked the AHSAA from keeping Robertsdale’s football coach off the sideline hours before kickoff. The bigger issue is where athletic-association authority ends and judicial intervention begins.

Professional Sports

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Brian Flores Found a New Piece of NFL Hiring Evidence. The Fight Now Is Over Whether the Public Gets to See It.

Sep 18, 2026

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5 min read

Brian Flores Found a New Piece of NFL Hiring Evidence. The Fight Now Is Over Whether the Public Gets to See It.

A one-page document created by Korn Ferry during a Raiders coaching search has become part of Brian Flores’s discrimination litigation. Nobody outside the case knows what it says. That is precisely why the fight over whether it stays sealed matters.

College Sports & NIL

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Every NCAA Eligibility Rule Needs a Line. The Lawsuits Keep Coming From the Other Side of It.

Sep 18, 2026

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11 min read

Every NCAA Eligibility Rule Needs a Line. The Lawsuits Keep Coming From the Other Side of It.

Presbyterian linebacker Malek Horlback is asking a South Carolina court for a fifth season under the NCAA’s new age-based eligibility model. His lawsuit attacks not the new rule itself, but the line the NCAA drew while transitioning to it.

Professional Sports

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The NFL Can Punish Josh Jacobs. Getting the Evidence Is Another Matter.

Sep 18, 2026

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6 min read

The NFL Can Punish Josh Jacobs. Getting the Evidence Is Another Matter.

The criminal case is largely resolved. The NFL investigation is not—and a fight over sealed surveillance footage is exposing the difference between a league’s power to discipline a player and its power to obtain evidence.

College Sports & NIL

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The NCAA Eligibility Fight Is Becoming a Contract Fight

Sep 16, 2026

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5 min read

The NCAA Eligibility Fight Is Becoming a Contract Fight

Two Utah Tech volleyball players want a fifth season. The important part is not another eligibility lawsuit—it is the growing effort to turn the NCAA’s own rulebook into an enforceable promise.

College Sports & NIL

+1

Five-for-Five Is Becoming an Every-Sport Problem

Sep 16, 2026

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5 min read

Five-for-Five Is Becoming an Every-Sport Problem

Two Missouri women’s golfers are the latest athletes challenging the NCAA’s transition rule. Their lawsuit matters because the eligibility fight is no longer just a football-and-basketball problem—it is becoming a roster-management problem across college sports.

College Sports & NIL

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Being Hurt by an NCAA Rule Is Not the Same as Proving an Antitrust Violation

Sep 15, 2026

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9 min read

Being Hurt by an NCAA Rule Is Not the Same as Proving an Antitrust Violation

A Rhode Island judge denied Jake Picard another season at Villanova because antitrust law asks a different question from fairness: not whether an NCAA decision hurt one athlete, but whether the challenged restraint harmed competition in a market.

College Sports & NIL

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The NCAA Stopped a Nationwide Fifth-Year Injunction. A Texas Judge Just Rebuilt It for One Baylor Player.

Sep 15, 2026

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5 min read

The NCAA Stopped a Nationwide Fifth-Year Injunction. A Texas Judge Just Rebuilt It for One Baylor Player.

Traevon Mitchell can keep playing for Baylor after winning a temporary injunction in Texas. His case shows why defeating one nationwide injunction may not restore anything close to a nationwide eligibility rule.

Business & Deals

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College Sports Built a Payroll. Now UCLA and Berkeley Are Fighting to Keep It Private.

Sep 15, 2026

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10 min read

College Sports Built a Payroll. Now UCLA and Berkeley Are Fighting to Keep It Private.

CalMatters is now suing two of California’s flagship public universities over the same post-House question: when a government university pays athletes millions of dollars, how much of that payroll belongs to the public—and how much remains protected as a student record?

Business & Deals

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USC Promised Chad Baker-Mazara Millions. His Lawsuit Asks What That Promise Was Really Worth.

Sep 15, 2026

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10 min read

USC Promised Chad Baker-Mazara Millions. His Lawsuit Asks What That Promise Was Really Worth.

Chad Baker-Mazara says USC stopped paying once its season stopped mattering, kicked him off the team and invoked a “morals clause” to erase the balance. No court has decided whether that happened. But the lawsuit exposes the contractual problem college sports can no longer avoid: when NIL money helps recruit an athlete to play basketball, what happens to the money when the basketball relationship ends?

College Sports & NIL

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The NCAA Said No Twice. A Washington Judge Just Said Andrew Cook Can Play.

Sep 15, 2026

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4 min read

The NCAA Said No Twice. A Washington Judge Just Said Andrew Cook Can Play.

Eastern Washington guard Andrew Cook lost the extra season the NCAA had given him when a catastrophic ankle injury ended his year before it began. After the NCAA denied his request for another season and rejected his appeal, a state court has temporarily put him back on the floor.

College Sports & NIL

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Congress Wants to Cap International Athletes at 20% of Every College Team

Sep 15, 2026

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5 min read

Congress Wants to Cap International Athletes at 20% of Every College Team

The TEAM USA Act would use federal student-aid eligibility to impose a team-by-team roster cap—and some of the sports most dependent on international recruiting would feel it first.

College Sports & NIL

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Tamin Lipsey Went Pro. Now He Wants to Go Back to Iowa State.

Sep 15, 2026

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5 min read

Tamin Lipsey Went Pro. Now He Wants to Go Back to Iowa State.

An Indiana eligibility case just expanded by 89 athletes—and it is exposing how quickly the line between college and professional sports is disappearing.

Business & Deals

+3

Threaten an Athlete, Lose Your Right to Bet: Major Leagues Push for Lifetime Sportsbook Bans

Sep 15, 2026

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5 min read

Threaten an Athlete, Lose Your Right to Bet: Major Leagues Push for Lifetime Sportsbook Bans

The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS—and their players unions—want betting-related harassment to carry a new consequence: permanent exclusion from regulated sportsbooks.

College Sports & NIL

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Louisiana’s Fifth-Year Injunction Survives the SEC’s First Appellate Challenge

Sep 15, 2026

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5 min read

Louisiana’s Fifth-Year Injunction Survives the SEC’s First Appellate Challenge

The SEC failed to persuade a Louisiana appeals court to stop the order protecting dozens of athletes, including former NFL signees. It is not a final ruling on eligibility—but college sports’ state-by-state rules problem just became harder to dismiss.

College Sports & NIL

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High-School Transfer Rules Assume a Student Has a Stable Home. McKinney-Vento Does Not.

Sep 14, 2026

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9 min read

High-School Transfer Rules Assume a Student Has a Stable Home. McKinney-Vento Does Not.

An Alabama federal judge temporarily blocked the AHSAA from using a student’s unstable residency—the same circumstances that qualified him as an “unaccompanied youth” under federal law—to deny varsity football eligibility. The athlete dismissed the case the next day, leaving behind an important legal theory but no final judgment.

College Sports & NIL

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LSU Backed Down. The Fight Over Who Controls College Eligibility Did Not.

Sep 14, 2026

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5 min read

LSU Backed Down. The Fight Over Who Controls College Eligibility Did Not.

The SEC dropped its threatened expulsion vote after LSU left two former NFL players off its roster. That ended the immediate crisis—and left the most important question unanswered: who has the last word when a court, a conference, and a school collide over eligibility?

The Game Behind The Game

Sports & Entertainment Law + Business Analysis

© 2026 The Game Behind The Game

The Game Behind The Game provides commentary and analysis for informational purposes only. Nothing published here constitutes legal advice, creates an attorney-client relationship, or should be relied upon as a substitute for advice from qualified counsel regarding a particular matter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s law firm, its attorneys, or its clients.

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