Cozzillio, Levinstein, Dimino, & Feldman. (2007). Sports Law, Cases and Materials (2nd ed.). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

ISBN-10: 1-59460-291-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-59460-291-7

Supplemental Resources

Cotten, D. & Wolohan, J. (2007). Law for Recreation and Sport Managers (4th ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt Publishing.
Weistart J.C. & Lowell, C.M. (1979). The Law of Sports. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Wong, G.M. (2002). Essentials of Sports Law (3rd ed.). Westport, CT: Praeger.
These sport journals are available in the USSA Library:
Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport
Marquette Sports Law Journal
Sports and the Courts
The Sports Lawyers Journal.
This free legal website is an excellent reference tool: http://www.findlaw.com.
Sport has traditionally focused on competition and entertainment, but increasingly sport is evolving into a business, and, as a business, sport is subject to the influences of economic and legal considerations. Many of these considerations involve regulation.

One of the most significant developments in professional sports is the division of various professional sports into leagues. The concept of leagues is that structure is necessary to properly control and nourish the sport, and one of the consequences of that structure is that a mechanism is necessary to maintain the structure and control the operation of the league. That mechanism, in most professional sports, is the commissioner, who operates like a president or chief executive officer of a corporation. But structure results in exclusion of some who would like to participate, and control requires enforcement of rules, and being responsible for the operation of a league means being answerable to the people the league is established to benefit. Any time there is exclusion and enforcement of rules and responsibility to others there is the opportunity for the law to operate. There will be questions about whether those who are excluded from participation have had constitutional rights violated. When rules are enforced, there will be questions about whether the rules are fair and whether the enforcement is consistent. When a commissioner is responsible to others, there will be questions about whether that responsibility has been properly carried out and whether the commissioner has exceeded his or her authority.

Are professional sport leagues structured as traditional or single entity business models? Why? Do the commissioners of professional sports leagues in the United States have too much power? Why or why not? Is the exercise of that kind of power good for the sport involved?