Features
A Talent for Entertainment
By Kara Carnley Murrhee
What do Bill Cosby, Tiger Woods, Bobby Knight, Stan Lynch and a host of other celebrities, athletes, coaches and entertainers have in common?
They are just a few of the high-profile clients of some of the most talented sports, music and entertainment lawyers to graduate from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. UF Law alumni have built successful careers navigating the maze of media issues that athletes, musicians or celebrity clients confront on a daily basis. Because of the close relationships they’ve forged with their clients, these attorneys often provide advice and counsel that extend beyond legalities into the realm of private and personal. Their expertise encompasses broad areas of the law, ranging from negotiating legal contracts, managing personality brands, structuring business partnerships, or handling any privacy, trademark or copyright disputes.
Entertainment law has been profoundly impacted by the Digital Age where computers and mobile devices provide instant and constant connection to the Internet. The resulting digitalization of content has transformed the way performers reach their audiences and compels them to be proactive in managing their online “brands.” By combining legal know-how with online marketing and social networking skills, UF sports, music and entertainment law practitioners are plotting their own courses through emerging terrain.
Pioneering the new relationship between the music industry and social networking is MySpace Music, an online platform that allows artists and record labels to distribute, promote and sell their content online. As executive vice president and general counsel for MySpace, a social networking site owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Lin Cherry (JD 91) played a critical role in negotiating the joint venture agreements between MySpace and the four major record labels — Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI — plus agreements with numerous indie labels, that led to the creation of the platform.
Cherry manages a team of more than 15 lawyers headquartered in the company’s Beverly Hills, Calif. office, and in several international satellite offices. Although she and her team generally handle all legal issues relating to the operation of the social networking giant — one of the world’s largest, with more than 100 million users worldwide — Cherry broke new ground with the September 2008 launch of MySpace Music.
“We are providing a scalable and innovative platform to allow artists and labels to monetize their content,” Cherry said. “That’s hugely powerful, especially now when the music industry is looking for alternative business models.”
With features such as free streaming of audio and video content from a wide range of artists, playlisting, artist profile pages, analytics dashboards, charts and a new music homepage, MySpace Music provides robust social tools for the searching, sharing and sales of music and other content online. Not surprisingly, Cherry believes MySpace is uniquely positioned to influence the way people consume content across the Web.
“MySpace is a one-of-a-kind social platform offering users free access to one of the most comprehensive catalogues of audio and video for unlimited streaming and playlisting,” Cherry said.
With the decline of music sales in traditional retail outlets and the surge in the number of songs sold online, record labels were more open to jumping on-board at the time MySpace Music was established. MySpace Music has been a tremendous success — within its first year, MySpace Music experienced a whopping 1,017 percent increase in year-to-year traffic, further cementing the site’s status as an “entertainment destination.”
“The agreements for MySpace Music were pioneering deals in many ways,” Cherry said. “We were in uncharted territory and trying to do something really powerful — we didn’t necessarily know how or whether it would work going into it, but we knew that we, MySpace and the music companies, needed each other.”
The process of getting clearance for the enormous volume of music rights before the platform could go live contributed to the complexity of the deal negotiations because of the number of individuals and variables involved, Cherry said.
“The music industry is very challenging from a variety of perspectives, including from a rights perspective, and there are certainly benefits in having the labels on-board,” Cherry said. “One of our advantages in setting up the joint venture was that we had a history of being a good copyright actor. This is something that was dictated at the highest levels of News Corp and helped us to earn the trust of the labels.”
Trust is key to the relationships that Paul J. Healy (JD 88) builds with his clients. As a seasoned sports agent and solo practitioner at Pro First Sports Management in Jacksonville, Florida, Healy negotiates contracts between athletes and NFL teams. But sports-agent contracts are only a sliver of the work an agent handles for a client. Healy credits his legal education at UF with giving him the solid foundation and resources to tackle the myriad of legal issues sports athletes encounter.
“Contracts are really the tip of the iceberg, but 90 percent of the iceberg is below the water,” Healy said. “With a player, there are so many matters that need to be handled off the field, year round, including negotiating sponsorships, financial planning, managing public relations and dealing with all business and personal legal matters.”
Besides being a sports agent, Healy enjoys sharing his knowledge of the sports business with aspiring agents through speaking at conferences such as the 2010 UF Sports Law Symposium, one of only a few sports law symposia hosted across the nation, and by teaching at Florida Coastal School of Law.
Healy got his start by teaming up with former partner, established agent Gene Burrough, in the mid-1990s. Although the two represented more than a dozen NFL athletes at one point, he now works only with an exclusive handful of players — the most prominent of which is Oakland Raiders’ star placekicker Sebastian Janikowski. Healy’s persistence and industry knowledge in getting the best deals for his clients resulted in an unprecedented four-year, $16-million contract being signed between Janikowski and the Raiders in February 2010, guaranteeing the star placekicker $9 million in the first two years. The deal made Janikowski the highest-paid kicker in National Football League history.
With the addition of a new business partner and an impressive list of clients, Healy said his company, Pro First Sports, is poised for growth. He plans to recruit new athletes to take his company to new heights. With more than 1,000 certified NFL agents pursing the 250 drafted players each year, however, the odds of establishing a successful agency are tough. So how does one launch a career in athlete representation?
“The best thing to do is to get work with an NFL team or with someone who is already in the business so you can learn the ropes,” Healy said. “You do the math. To start on your own, you would have to be very fortunate or get lucky.”
Recent UF Law graduate Darren Heitner (JD 10) perhaps knows this all too well, but he has given himself the best possible start. He founded his own full-service sports agency, Dynasty Athlete Representation even before attending law school. The agency boasts a roster of nearly 50 clients in both the sports and entertainment worlds. To capitalize on an otherwise spirited sports-agent business, Heitner uses his knowledge of online technologies to build a competitive edge.
“I provide my clients with the gambit of online promotion tools and networking opportunities,” Heitner said. “It’s necessary to compete, or the player will find another agency who offers him more for less.”
Heitner’s role as sports agent, combined with his legal skill, has helped him recognize the areas of the law, such as licensing, that are being impacted by new media.
“In many ways, licensing is the same as it’s always been,” Heitner said. “The company wants a spokesman for a product, to gain trust from the general audience and hopefully to increase the number of consumers. But licensing is also changing in that people don’t only want to use an athlete’s name and likeness for TV commercials but also for social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.”
Consequently, Heitner envisions greater emphasis being placed on the use of social networking and other outlets for fostering an interaction between athletes and their fans.
“You might see an athlete blogging on a particular platform or posting certain things about a sponsor on their Facebook page. Even though it’s not as measurable as TV, I think we’re going to see more of that because companies may view it as having a large image impact on their target demographics,” Heitner said.
But greater use of the celebrities’ image to promote the company’s brand also underscores the importance of a morals clause in licensing contracts, Heitner said. The number of celebrity mishaps caught in the limelight, such as the recent incidents involving Tiger Woods and Gilbert Arenas, make it imperative that a company using a celebrity’s name and likeness include provisions regarding the prohibition of certain behavior in a person’s private life.
“I think now you’ll find even more so that the player is tied to their brand,” Heitner said. “Companies have a lot to gain by associating with athletes, but they also have a lot to lose. That’s why a morals clause is really non-negotiable.”
On the other hand, cases involving the improper use of the celebrities’ names and likenesses also emphasize the importance of including a quality control clause in the licensing contract to protect the athlete.
“As an advocate for the athlete, I want the quality control clause to be as broad as possible,” Heitner said. “It ensures that the company doesn’t have free reign to do anything that they want with the athlete’s likeness. It’s all about quality control measures in considering the longevity of the brand.”
No one perhaps knows the importance of brand-building like Nick Nanton (JD 04). As the co-founder of the Celebrity Branding Agency, he helps his clients gain credibility and recognition in the industry by using his knowledge of law and entertainment as it applies it to the business world.
“I teach my clients how to become the best-known expert in their industry by using the principles that entertainers use to lock out their competition and be in demand,” he said.
Reality televisions series such as “The Apprentice” and “American Idol,” through which private individuals can become very public in a short time, highlight the importance of having a clear and concise message to gain approval and recognition from the crowd. While not all of Nanton’s clients have appeared on a reality TV show or own their own Inc. 500 company — like clients Bill Rancic, winner of the “The Apprentice” season one or founder and CEO of Ali International, Ali Brown — Nanton assists them in the development of their brands by helping his clients create their own TV shows, magazines and Web sites to setting up their Twitter accounts or helping them get on Facebook and engage with fans.
After graduating from law school, Nanton formed a partnership with his longtime mentor, J.W. Dicks, to create the Celebrity Branding Agency. Nanton and two other partners now operate out of the agency’s Winter Park, Florida, office.
“My job is to create enough buzz about my clients through the creation and distribution of content, that the media comes to us,” Nanton said.
One of the first things Nanton does for his clients is help them determine their key message to solidify their position in the marketplace. For financial expert Mitch Levin, this included carving out an unoccupied niche in the financial management market. As the “Financial Physician,” Levin takes take draws on knowledge from his former career as an eye surgeon to help other physicians manage their money for maximum return on investment.
“In this new economy, I tell my clients they’ve got to be in the media business — you’ve got to be creating your own media so that you can control the message,” Nanton said. “So that’s what we do by helping them create their own content, much like Oprah or Dr. Phil, and then pushing that content through various outlets both online and offline.”
No amount of preparation, however, can prevent crises from occurring, especially when the notorious lifestyles of some athletes, entertainers or musicians are involved. When all else fails, the pros call Mark NeJame (JD 84), leading defense and trial attorney and senior partner in the Orlando-based firm, NeJame, LaFay, Jancha, Ahmed, Barker & Joshi, PA. For 25 years, NeJame has defended and represented celebrities and regular Joe’s against prosecutions and accusations as well as bringing claims against alleged wrongdoers. Though the majority of his clients are private figures, NeJame’s knowledge of the media and reputation as a winning attorney makes him a clear choice for high-stakes cases and high-profile clients seeking legal counsel. Those who have retained him include many politicians and superstar athletes such as Tiger Woods, Shaquille O’Neal, and the grandparents of Caylee Anthony, whose mother, Casey, is facing trial for her murder. Not afraid to take on celebrities or the powerful either, he has brought claims against Charles Barkley and others for their bad behavior.
NeJame grapples with any number of issues on behalf of his clients — including criminal investigations and prosecutions, civil suits and litigation-related matters, media relations, and business and investment advice.
“My role is often one of a consigliore, being available to advise, assist and provide counsel on a plethora of matters,” NeJame said. “Having a criminal division, a civil/commercial litigation division, an immigration division and a personal injury division certainly helps when matters and issues need to be evaluated.”
The attention given to the sometimes salacious details associated with criminal charges can have a huge impact on the public’s perception and the outcome of the case. Thus, knowing how to manage the media and respond to their questions has become an essential element of NeJame’s professional services.
“We are a media-driven culture and public opinion is often gauged by the public’s response to media reports,” NeJame said. “If people see you or read about you in the media then you have the ability to impact them and to help your client against the onslaught of criticism, speculation and attention that typically attaches to them.”
The public’s appetite for sensational gossip — exemplified by the amount of media attention the Casey Anthony trial has drawn — can be difficult when attempting to communicate a specific message about a client’s case or trial. NeJame said this is why it is especially critical that an attorney in a high-profile case know when, and when not, to speak.“I find too many lawyers are intimidated and fearful of the media or they are simply ignorant as to what is involved and blow it on behalf of their clients when dealing with the media,” NeJame said. “Not knowing when to go off the record or how to go off the record; not understanding the dynamics of a newsroom; not having or cultivating media contacts; and not knowing how to respond in short but effective statements on behalf of your client are but a very few of the dangers and pitfalls that the attorney for a celebrity client or high profile case can encounter when dealing with the media.”
NeJame said understanding media and learning how to manage it is just one weapon a top lawyer should have in his arsenal. In an industry influenced so heavily by the media’s message, it is important that a good lawyer be increasingly creative and flexible in approaching the client’s cause, NeJame said.
“Be proactive and anticipatory, not simply reactive and complacent. Ascertain what the client’s needs are and set out a strategy,” NeJame said. “Like a master chess player, a strong attorney must be several moves ahead of his or her opponent so that if a scenario or crisis erupts it has already been anticipated and a plan of action is in place.”
