Sports, Media & Entertainment

The business side of talent rather than the agent's side of it. We act for athletes, performers, and creators when an endorsement becomes equity, a catalog is sold, or a venture is formed; for the management companies and brands across the table; and for the owners and investors buying into teams, leagues, and media platforms. Where a certified agent holds the playing contract, we work alongside on everything that follows. Most matters arrive by referral from an agent, a family office, or a sponsor.

As a license of a property right, with the terms a license needs: category and territory, exclusivity and its price, and the usage window after the term ends. Approval rights over creative and a morals clause running in both directions complete it. Two rules reach every deal. The FTC's Endorsement Guides require that a paid relationship be disclosed where the endorsement appears, and the endorser can be liable as well as the brand. For college athletes, any third-party deal of $600 or more is reported to the clearinghouse the 2025 settlement created, and a deal found to be pay-for-play rather than fair-value endorsement can be blocked.

A deal in which the talent takes equity, royalties, or a share of revenue in place of a fee, and it matters because the talent becomes an investor and sometimes a promoter of securities. Promoting a company's shares, or a token the SEC treats as a security, without disclosing what you were paid violates Section 17(b) of the Securities Act, and the SEC has brought those cases against celebrities since 2018. On the company side, equity issued for services needs its own exemption, usually Rule 701, and the services agreement should state the value placed on the work, since that figure becomes the tax basis. We paper the services, the grant, and the shareholder rights as three documents that agree.

Yes. The league's constitution governs before any statute does. An ownership transfer typically needs a supermajority of existing owners, 24 of 32 in the NFL, and the leagues cap how much a fund may hold: the NFL first admitted private-equity funds in August 2024 at up to 10 percent of a club, while the NBA, MLB, and NHL allow larger institutional positions under their own limits. Debt against the franchise is capped too. We draft the investment to fit those rules, run the league approval alongside the diligence, and structure the holding entity for the eventual sale. Where a regulator is involved, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC, the CFTC, and the IRS.

Yes, and the tax follows the performance. The United Kingdom taxes a non-resident athlete on income from a UK appearance, including a share of worldwide endorsement income apportioned to the days spent there, a rule the House of Lords confirmed in 2006. A US performer paid by a foreign promoter is taxed at home on worldwide income and credits the foreign tax only up to the US rate on that income. Image-rights companies, loan-out entities, and residence planning are drawn with those rules in front of us, and we work with locally admitted counsel, including through our London and Dubai partner firms, where a filing is local.

Entirely, and not as a courtesy. Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.6 treats information relating to a representation, including the fact of it, as confidential unless the client consents, so no client is named on this site and no deal is described. Where a counterparty wants publicity, the announcement is a negotiated term, with the client's approval of the text written into the agreement. Most of this work arrives by referral, which is how it stays quiet.