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Penn State Institute for Sports Law, Policy, and Research

Directed by Professor Stephen Ross, one of the nation’s leading sports law scholars, the Penn State Institute for Sports Law, Policy, and Research is designed to:

  • promote dialogue between students of sport and major industry participants
  • aid scholars in policy-oriented research and facilitate the dissemination of this research to policy makers and industry participants, and
  • serve as resource for journalists, lawyers and others connected about sports and public policy

The Institute is aided by an advisory board comprised of prominent industry leaders, sports scholars from around the world, and Penn State faculty and alumni, all dedicated to advancing the study of sports. The Institute works closely with a faculty and staff from other disciplines on the Penn State campus, including the John Curley Center for Sports and Journalism, the Center for Sports Business Research in the Smeal College of Business, and the Departments of Kinesiology and Statistics. In addition, the Institute facilitates inter-disciplinary work with a variety of sports-interested faculty on the Penn State campus, sponsoring faculty colloquia and faculty/student reading groups. The Institute intends to feature programs that are of utmost importance to the field, including a speaker series featuring prominent industry leaders, private conferences to explore consensus approaches to difficult sports policy issues, and ongoing lectures to faculty and students.

Contact Information:
E-mail: sfr10@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 865-8995

Related Links:
John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State
Sports Lawyers Association
The Sports Economist
The Wages of Wins

Latest News:

On Friday, November 20, Penn State Law will host a moot court event on American Needle v. NFL, an antitrust case currently briefed before the United States Supreme Court. Two veteran sports law professors will take opposite sides before a panel of federal appellate judges. 

The Institute hosted a conference on taxation of college athletics featuring Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, Penn State Athletics Director Tim Curley, and Professor John D. Colombo on Sept. 18. 

Professor Ross was interviewed on Toronto sports radio show “The Director’s Chair with Doug Farraway” on June 10. The focus of his interview was the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes and application of U.S. bankruptcy and antitrust law in the dispute over plans to move the franchise to Ontario.

Professor Ross recently participated in “The Business of Sport” seminar series hosted by the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre at Birkbeck College, University of London. Professor Ross presented a talk titled "A Trans-Atlantic Conversation: What Americans can Learn from European Sport, and Some Outsider Observations About European ‘Football.’” An audio of the presentation is available as well as the accompanying PowerPoint presentation.

Institute launches first of series of "backgrounder" policy papers for general public, tailored specifically for sports media.
The first topic, written by Stephen Ross with expert commentary by three leading sports law professors, concerns the Minnesota court case barring the NFL from disciplining five players who tested positive for a banned substance, because the NFL knowingly failed to advise the players that a specific over-the-counter supplement contained the substance.