Sports Law: Inside Sports Contracts

• Apply contract and tort law to sporting-event scenarios

• Evaluate NCAA eligibility, recruiting, and transfer-portal fact patterns

• Analyze NIL pay-for-play agreements and Title IX requirements

• Practice negotiation, mediation, and arbitration in a sports-agent exercise

• Brief a case and compare antitrust, endorsement, licensing, copyright, and trademark issues

• Spot ethical questions involving gambling, doping, safety, and technology

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Analyze how contracts, torts, labor rules, antitrust law, and intellectual property affect sports organizations

• Evaluate NIL, NCAA recruiting, Title IX, and agent scenarios using relevant legal standards

• Compare negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and collective bargaining as methods for resolving sports disputes

Students will leave with a completed case brief, legal scenario analyses, sports-agent negotiation experience, and greater clarity about studying sports law or a related field.

Sports law asks students to read closely, identify competing interests, and explain how a rule applies to a specific set of facts. Contract review builds attention to obligations and risk. Case briefs require students to separate relevant evidence from background information and support a conclusion with clear reasoning.

Those habits matter when people negotiate, resolve disputes, evaluate policies, or make decisions that affect several stakeholders. Students also practice seeing an issue from the perspectives of athletes, teams, leagues, schools, agents, and sponsors. That combination of precise reading, evidence-based argument, and practical judgment supports stronger work in law, business, sports management, public policy, and everyday decision-making.

This course is for high school students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and want to understand the rules behind athletes, teams, leagues, colleges, agents, and brands. It fits students interested in law, sports management, business, communications, public policy, college athletics, or the business of professional sports.

Participants should be ready to read fact patterns, take notes, discuss evolving legal questions, collaborate in small groups, practice negotiations, and prepare for a final exam. Students who enjoy weighing competing interests and supporting a position with evidence will find several ways to contribute. The course can fit avid sports followers as well as students primarily curious about how law shapes a major industry.

Summer Discovery’s program on Georgetown University’s campus gives high-school students the opportunity to explore an academic interest while experiencing campus life in Washington, D.C. Its historic campus and surrounding neighborhood sit near embassies, institutions, and organizations that shape national and international conversations, giving the summer a distinctive sense of place.

Summer Discovery students learn alongside peers with similar interests, navigate a new environment, and gain independence through everyday choices and responsibilities. Time outside class helps students experience the broader rhythm of university life while considering what subjects, communities, and possible directions feel right for them. For families, Summer Discovery offers a combination of substantive academic exploration, personal growth, and clearer insight into what a student may want to study or pursue next.

Based on students surveyed in 2026 about Summer Discovery High School programs at Georgetown University campus.