The Coming War: Sports Labor Relations
With looming lockouts in both the NBA and NFL, panelists will discuss the legal implications of reaching a deal. With the changing economics of the game, these CBAs will have to be more creative from a legal sense than ever before. How can both sides reach an agreement to avoid missing an entire season?
Russ Granik, former Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer of the National Basketball Association, joined Galatioto Sports Partners, one of the leading firms in the sports finance and advisory business, as Vice Chairman in October 2006. He was a guiding force in helping to establish the National Basketball Association as the most popular sports league in the world. Mr. Granik represented the league in a wide range of successful projects, such as collective bargaining agreements, television contracts and the NBA’s involvement in international competition, including the last five Olympics, as a member of USA Basketball.
Mr. Granik joined the NBA in 1976 as a staff attorney. He became Assistant General Counsel in 1978 and General Counsel in 1980. When David J. Stern was elected NBA Commissioner in 1984, he named Mr. Granik to succeed him as Executive Vice President. In 1990, Mr. Granik was elected Deputy Commissioner by the NBA Board of Governors.
During his tenure, Mr. Granik participated in every major business negotiation on behalf of the NBA and was also the chief negotiator for the league in collective bargaining that resulted in agreements with the National Basketball Players Association in 1988, 1995, 1999 and 2005.
From 1996-2000, he served as the President of USA Basketball, the United States’ national governing body for international basketball competition. From 1989-96, he was a Vice President of USA Basketball and, in that role, was instrumental in working out the details of the participation of NBA players beginning with the 1992 Olympics. In November 2005, Mr. Granik received USA Basketball’s Edward S. Steitz Award, which recognizes individuals for their outstanding contributions to international basketball.
Mr. Granik served two terms (2003-2007) as Chairman of the Board of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, where he has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee since 1984, and he is also a member of the Board of Athletes for Hope.
Effective November 1, 2010, Mr. Granik was retained by ESPN as its Labor Analyst, providing on-air commentary on current collective bargaining issues in professional sports.
Mr. Granik graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1969 from Dartmouth College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1973. He was associated with the law firm of Breed, Abbott & Morgan in New York before joining the NBA.
Jackie MacMullan is an ESPN analyst who spent nearly 20 years as a beat writer and columnist for the Boston Globe. She worked on Sports Illustrated’s staff from 1995-2000 and has written three books, including “When the Game Was Ours”, which chronicled the rivalry of Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson. MacMullan was recently named the first female recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award, given by the Naismith Basketball Hallof Fame for “outstanding career achievement in writing basketball.”
MacMullan is a cum laude graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she played four years of basketball, leading the team in scoring as a sophomore, and serving as a team captain in her senior year. She was chosen as a recipient of both the Robert Perry Student-Athlete Award and the Dean Williamson Award, given to the student who “excels in scholarship, athletics and loyalty to the University.”
Michael McCann is an Associate Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, where he teaches sports law, business law, and administrative law courses. He is also a Legal Analyst for Sports Illustrated and the “Sports and the Law” Columnist on SI.com.
Professor McCann is also co-founder of the Harvard Law School Project on Law and Mind Sciences and the Distinguished Visiting Hall of Fame Professor of Law at Mississippi College School of Law, where he was an Assistant Professor of Law between 2005 and 2008 and where he now teaches a sports law class every summer. During his three-year tenure at Mississippi, Professor McCann was twice honored with the Professor of the Year Award and he received the Professor of the Year for First-Year Courses Award in all three years. He was also honored by his colleagues with the Shirley Norwood Jones Faculty Award in 2008.
In the fall 2008 semester, Professor McCann was a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. He also served as Chair of the Association of American Law School’s Section on Sports and the Law in 2008.
Prior to becoming a law professor in 2005, Professor McCann served as counsel to college football star Maurice Clarett in his lawsuit against the National Football League and its age eligibility rule. He also served as a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School and Legal Counsel to U.S. Congressman Marty Meehan.
A Massachusetts native, Professor McCann received his LL.M. from Harvard Law School (2005), his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law (2002), and his B.A. from Georgetown University (1998). Professor McCann has been interviewed on HBO’s “Bob Costas Now”; CNN’s “The Glenn Beck Show”, “American Morning”, and “Headline News”; CNBC’s “Morning Call” and “Power Lunch”; and the Jim Rome Show. He has also been interviewed on NPR, BBC, the Dan Patrick Show, and by the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Republic, and Business Week.
Tom Penn is an NBA Analyst on ESPN where he is regularly featured as a basketball operations expert focussing on advanced analytics, salary capology, NBA Draft, player trades and collective bargaining issues. During the free agency frenzy of 2010, Penn operated ESPN’s cutting edge “cap machine” on SportsCenter where he manipulated a one-of-a-kind touchscreen to illustrate potential destinations for LeBron James and other marquee free agents.
Prior to joining ESPN, Penn spent four seasons in Portland as Vice President of Basketball Operations and Assistant General Manager of the Trail Blazers. Penn is widely known as a top expert on the NBA salary cap and Collective Bargaining Agreement. Penn worked with general manager Kevin Pritchard on negotiating player contracts, structuring player trades, evaluating talent and managing day-to-day basketball operations.
Penn came to Portland from the Memphis Grizzlies, where he served as assistant general manager/legal counsel from 2000-07. For more than five NBA seasons in Memphis, Penn worked closely with legendary NBA executive Jerry West in player and team related matters, as West built the Grizzlies into a perennial playoff team.
In 1999, Penn began his work with the Grizzlies when he joined owner Michael Heisley’s NBA acquisition team. Penn helped advise and guide Heisley through the complicated acquisition process until Heisley ultimately purchased the Vancouver Grizzlies in May 2000.
After graduating from the University of Illinois law school in 1993, Penn worked as a criminal defense attorney. Six weeks after being admitted to the Illinois bar, Penn defended back-to-back jury trials of felony armed robbery and felony drug possession cases. Within two days both juries returned not guilty verdicts, and Penn’s courtroom legal career was underway. Over the next five years, Penn successfully litigated over 20 other criminal jury trials.
From 1994-1999 Penn simultaneously developed his expertise in professional basketball. Penn began representing basketball players as a player agent in 1994, and in 1995 he founded a company that organized and performed professional basketball tours of Europe designed to help American players showcase their skills for European teams. The Upper Deck trading card company sponsored two European tours in 1997 and 1998. Fox Sports television filmed and broadcast a documentary of the 1998 tour.
Penn graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1990. He and his wife, Melissa, are the proud parents of their daughter, Grace, and son, TJ.
George Postolos, President & CEO of The Postolos Group LP, has a distinguished history in the sports business. His firm has advised numerous bidders for NBA, MLB and NFL teams and other sports properties. As the President and CEO of the Houston Rockets, Postolos spearheaded development of Toyota Center, conceived and negotiated the television partnership with the Houston Astros and sublicense to Fox Sports Net, and led the growth in the Rockets business that more than tripled the value of the franchise.
As Special Assistant to NBA Commissioner David Stern, Postolos assisted with matters pertaining to administration and management of the league including collective bargaining, efficient operation of league offices, national television, international expansion, and retail brand extensions.
Postolos is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and a former associate of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Robert A. Woods professor of economics - Smith College
The premier sports business and sports industry event each year is the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is held in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
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