More Sports Law Links

As a follow-up to Mike's recent post with a number of sports law links, I wanted to provide a few more, as there have been a number of interesting developments in our field.

1. 60 Minutes ran a story on legendary Vegas-based sports gambler Billy Walters last month. The video clips provide a fascinating look into the world of high stakes "white collar" sports gambling.

2. Did Jose Canseco's admitted steroid use rub off on other MLB players? Eric Gould and Todd Kaplan analyze Canseco's "peer effects" in a forthcoming issue of Labour Economics.

3. Patrick Hruby of ESPN.com explains why lawyers "always get [the] last laugh in sports, as in life."

4. Ben McGrath of The New Yorker asks - "Does football have a future?" McGrath's article looks at the "concussion crisis" in the NFL. In the latter part of the article, he mentions the possibility of imminent class action lawsuits.

5. The conventional wisdom in sports gambling is that sports books try to set their poinspreads (sides) and totals (over/unders) as a conservative/guaranteed way to profit. Steve Levitt (co-author of Freakonomics) cast doubt on such strategy in an oft-cited 2004 paper published in The Economic Journal. Rodney Paul and Andy Weinbach provide empirical support for the "Levitt hypothesis" in a new article in Applied Economics Letters.

6. Was Congress complicit in connection with baseball's antitrust exemption? Neil Longley examines Senate voting patters in a forthcoming Applied Economics Letters piece.