Sports Law
Preparing you for the rapidly changing sports industry.
Through the Sports Law concentration at the Creighton School of Law, you will receive a solid foundation in a wide variety of legal fields that comprise the field of study that is Sports Law.
Your Experience
In the core Sports Law course, you will have an opportunity to study a variety of topics in the field ranging from amateur sports and NCAA compliance, to collective bargaining, antitrust, and intellectual property issues. In this course, understanding the substantive knowledge is followed by mastery of the material through negotiation exercises in and out of the classroom. Past classes have engaged in baseball salary arbitrations, NBA free agency negotiations, NFL and NBA collective bargaining, coach buyouts, and endorsement deals among others. In these exercises, you will be asked to know and apply not just the underlying legal rules, but to understand the nuance and context involved in each of these negotiation settings. The required Negotiation course will provide you a setting to practice one of the most essential skills of any sports attorney – the art of negotiating a deal. The third required course will focus on intellectual property rights involving broadcasting, internet and electronic transmissions, name, image, likeness rights, etc., that have become of paramount importance in the sports law field. The elective courses have been chosen to allow you to deepen your understanding of many of the most common legal issues related to sports. You may also participate in an NCAA Compliance externship with the Athletic Department at a Division I university. Creighton students have also participated in external sports law negotiation competitions dealing with NFL contracts, amateur sports dispute resolutions, public financing and Title IX, and baseball salary arbitration issues, and these competitions count toward the Sports Law concentration credit hour requirement.
Your Courses
You must earn 18 credit hours from the courses listed below and complete a substantial writing project. Sports Law and Negotiation are required courses as is one of either Trademarks and Unfair Competition or Copyrights. You may choose from among the listed electives to complete the remaining credit hours. Currently, the substantial writing project is satisfied by the final paper in the Sports Law course, and could also be satisfied by substantial writing projects in the other courses listed below if approved by the concentration advisor.
- LAW 425 Sports Law (3)
- LAW 410 Negotiation (3)
- LAW 440 Trademarks & Unfair Competition (2-3) or Copyrights Law 339 (3) (This may be substituted for a combined Trademarks and Copyrights Survey Course if such course becomes available at a future date.)
Listed alphabetically
- LAW 307 Administrative Law (3)
- LAW 324 Antitrust (3)
- LAW 315 Arbitration (3)
- LAW 328 Client Interviewing and Legal Counseling (3)
- LAW 434 Commercial Contract Drafting (3)
- LAW 339 Copyrights (3) (if not used as one of the required courses)
- LAW 398 Employment Law (3)
- LAW 500 Externship with Creighton University Athletic Compliance Department – or University of Nebraska-Omaha Athletic Compliance Department (4 or 7)
- LAW 363 Federal Income Tax (3)
- LAW 381 Labor Law (3)
- LAW 397 Legal Issues in Electronic Commerce (2)
- LAW 485 Sports Law Negotiation Competition (1-2)
- LAW 440 Trademarks & Unfair Competition (2-3) (if not used as one of the required courses)
- Various faculty-approved external competition teams engaged in a competition with significant sports law content upon prior approval of the Concentration Advisor.
