Entertainment & Sports Law

Recent legal battles over the rights of college athletes to profit on their own name, image, and likenesses illustrate the dynamic, high-stakes, and intersecting fields of sports and entertainment law. Boston—home to dozens of colleges and universities, several professional sports teams, and world-class performing arts venues—provides a rich environment in which to pursue either practice area.  

At BU Law, courses on entertainment and sports law cover subjects ranging from publicity rights and defamation to invasion of privacy, copyright infringement, antitrust principles, and labor law. Two of the foundational courses are Contract Drafting, which teaches students the basic principles behind drafting and analyzing commercial and transaction agreements; and Intellectual Property, which covers trade secret, patent, copyright, and trademark law.

Other courses allow students to pursue specific topics such as the law of art and artifacts, information privacy, and intellectual property taxation. After studying doctrinal and constitutional questions, students also have the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge in more hands-on settings, including through the Transaction Simulation: IP Counsel for New Music Streaming Service course, which puts class members in the role of advising a company on the launch of its music streaming platform. 

LLM students can choose from the JD offerings in this area; the LLM in Intellectual Property Law provides a deeper dive into a field with a high degree of relevance in sports and entertainment.