When we last left off, I was in Philadelphia for winter break. January saw a quick transition from Philadelphia, back to Charlottesville for less than a week of classes, then out again, this time to New Orleans. Some may recall that during my 1L year, I competed in a sports law negotiation competition at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. This competition is responsible for not only my involvement in the sports law community at UVA (though I would have found a way into that regardless), but also my now 2 1/2 year relationship with Scott. The 1L participation was a bit of divine intervention, since I was not selected to compete originally, but a participant dropped out at the last minute and I was the only one available to replace him.
Since I was president of the sports law society this year, there was no doubt that I would attend the event. The trip was also a bit less life changing this time around. Unfortunately, I have never been a true New Orleans visitor. First, the food tends to be less than gluten free. Second, I have either been too young or too busy to partake in the, uh, other New Orleans events. Yet I do enjoy visiting the city, because I still benefit from the weather, looking at the architecture/culture of the city, and the people watching. Our trip was right before both the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras so tourists were already pouring in from all over. It felt like a holiday eve with the buzz of the upcoming excitement almost audible in the streets. I got in late the first night, but we walked around a bit on the second night we were there, in between competition days. We stopped at cafe du monde for my teammates to get some beignets. Then, counter intuitively, we ate dinner (in case of emergency, eat dessert first?). We found this great place called Stanley's, which I would highly recommend. We walked off our dinner on the pedestrian mall a bit and looked at the setup for Super Bowl stuff, then headed back to the hotel to work.
For the competition, we were given three case studies of actual players who were arbitration eligible that year and told for which side we would argue. Baseball has a very specific collective bargaining agreement made between the players association and the teams that determines when a player may be eligible and how the arbitration system works. If a player and a team cannot agree on a salary figure, they take their case to a team of arbitrators. The key figure in an arbitration is the midpoint between the player's desired salary and the team's proposed salary: if the panel decides the player is worth even a penny more than that midpoint, the player receives his entire salary, and vice-versa. Parties support their number by comparing the player in question to similar players, preferably at the same or a similar position. Teams will find players that received less than the midpoint in recent years and point out the similar statistics with the current player. Players, on the other hand, will argue that those figures are not the most relevant, and find a player that received above the midpoint to compare. It is a fascinating system, and I enjoy analyzing the similarities and differences, even if I do not always fully understand the numbers.
This year, we went to the semi-final round and only lost by a few points. We were particularly proud of our performance in the semi-finals because for that round, we were required to switch sides and argue the team's side, when before we were the player's advocates. Most of our preparation for this presentation occurred in under an hour between finding out our standings and arguing our position. We had made some mistakes in our briefs (written over winter break, also in a short amount of time), so had started the competition with a lower half standing. It was a nice feeling to know that we could be capable of doing this or similar work if the opportunity presented itself in the future.
Pictures, of course:
