Sports & Entertainment attorney Mike McCann talks Patriots

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Well, joining us right now who can maybe shed some light on a bunch of different things going on legal wise, but this one I'm fascinated by is Michael McCann, who listen to this resume, legal expert at Sporico, associate dean, professor of law and director at UNH law, and a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law. Also an author as well. He is um obviously a lot smarter than my dumbass qualified.

[00:00:22]>> Yeah. So, he's fairly qualified. Michael McCann, thanks for joining us, my friend.

[00:00:25]>> Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:00:27]>> All right. So, so Michael, I don't know how much you followed that Stefon Diggs trial, uh, but I did you hear any of the, uh, the witness and the person we just played the audio of who was accusing Stefon Diggs and how illprepared she was?

[00:00:41]>> Yeah, I saw it afterwards. I mean, I've never seen like you guys were saying a few seconds ago, I'm in the same boat.

[00:00:47]I've never seen anything like that. And the thing is that these were not questions that were unpredictable either, right? There there was there was certainly an opportunity to prepare for the testimony that I don't know if it didn't happen or or what the reasoning is, but uh certainly a break for digs.

[00:01:03]>> Yeah. So So tell me about what the lawyer did wrong there to to to not prepare her properly.

[00:01:10]>> He you know he may have I mean we [laughter] don't know, right? I mean you never know. Oh, I mean it's not I mean I mean not to take the side of the lawyer, but we this was not that sort of an it wasn't as if the line of questioning was way out there, right? It was it was kind of a predictable set of questions. I am sure the lawyer made efforts to prepare her. Uh it would be bizarre if he didn't. So it just turned out that the preparation, you know, clearly didn't work. Um and I I think he conceded that.

[00:01:40]When a court case involves someone famous like an athlete, how much tougher is that for the uh legal counsel?

[00:01:47]>> It's tougher because the media is there.

[00:01:48]I mean, that's the real tough part. It changes the the feel of a courtroom. Uh I've seen that in person. It certainly it has the lawyers sometimes kind of speaking at times maybe to the media in the way in which they're constructing questions and witnesses are aware of it too, which doesn't typically happen in a trial. But I don't think that's a factor here. To me, this was about a witness that wasn't that that just didn't answer the questions.

[00:02:14]>> Yeah. And by the way, Michael, you've covered a lot of the NFL's discipline on players through the years. Do you think this is over and done with, or will the league still take a look at Diggs? Uh, just from a an onfield point of view here, >> I think they'll I think they'll take a look. I I don't see anything yet to suggest that he's going to face discipline, but the league was clear after the verdict that he's still under investigation. So they'll they'll take their time, but there's nothing as far as I can tell that would suggest that that he'll likely face any sort of punishment, but again, there's there's always a possibility of that other stuff surfaces.

[00:02:45]>> Well, sticking with the Patriots and legal stuff, I I was curious to get your take on this. So the variable things going on with Diana Rousini, obviously, there was one report that the Patriots tried to stop the New York Post from initially publishing those first wave of varel Rini picks. Is there any leor legal recourse that crafts have to spike any of this stuff? Is there any danger for TMZ and the New York Post to just keep every day putting something new up?

[00:03:10]>> They're all pretty well protected by the First Amendment. This is clearly newsworthy. Whether we like it or not, whether it's like real news, we can debate that, but there's interest in it.

[00:03:19]So, it would be very difficult with the First Amendment to suppress any of these photos. I think there are, and I don't think we're going to see it play out, but there are invasion of privacy possibility uh claims with the hotel, for example. I mean, how how were these photos taken? It was supposed to be a private resort. I mean, there there are some possibilities there, but I don't think we'll see any come to fruition because the people involved don't want this don't want to continue the story, right? They want this to be over. So, I I don't see any way of suppressing photos. There's a pretty robust first amendment protection.

[00:03:52]>> It's interesting, Michael, just kind of maybe the relationship that Robert Craft has with Rupert Murdoch and and him owning the post. Uh but also Rupert Murdoch's kind of tie in with with uh you know the NFL and its kind of media rights uh stuff going on. You had Rupert Murdoch recently kind of lobbying, you know, Donald Trump to put pressure on the league. How do you think that's all going to turn out? The just the TV, right, the media deals with the NFL and all these new streaming uh uh you know, platforms. How do you think this is all going to play out here eventually? Yeah, Ted. I mean, I I think the real worry if I'm the NFL is the Sunday ticket antitrust litigation that's out before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. They could issue a decision any day. The NFL lost the jury trial there, but then the judge issued an order saying the jury got it wrong.

[00:04:41]Essentially, he felt that the jury was confused. That's a a 14 billion dollar case. That's a real case, real threat to the NFL. It's now before the Ninth Circuit. And that case is about whether or not teams should be able to pull their out of town broadcast through one one package, the Sunday ticket. The argument is that why not distribute games so that fans don't have to buy access to all games. They could buy cheaper packages. It's an interesting case. If I were the NFL, that's the that's the case that worries me more than what we're seeing the Justice Department doing. I'm not sure what there is to look into for the NFL.

[00:05:13]There's a there's an antitrust exemption that the NFL and the other major pro leagues have in baseball, basketball, and hockey, but it's really limited nowadays. It's the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. It covers telecast sponsored telecasting. So, basically, the way we we used to get broadcast before cable TV, people putting an antenna up. It's really not how broadcasts are distributed today. It's not as valuable as it once was. I I think there's a lot of drama here. I'm I'm less convinced that we'll see anything materialize, but I do think that case is the one to watch. And and I'm sorry uh Michael to backtrack a little bit, but you know this this thing that Ken just briefly mentioned the potential this is a yarder story that came out and there's a couple other people who are actually Mike Florio I believe from Pro Football Talk was one of the first people to report on this that according to some reports. They're suggesting that a settlement with an attached non-disclosure agreement could be on the table from the Patriots to keep Rini from publicly shaming uh Mike Vrabel and the organization even more.

[00:06:14]How ironclad is that? And how does something like that work? And does it even work even if they go through with it?

[00:06:21]>> Yeah, Rich, I mean that that would be a non-disclosure agreement. So it it can be enforceable. She's an adult, right?

[00:06:26]she's if she signs some sort of agreement saying that I will not disclose other materials about whatever they did, that's a contract. It's it's basically a contract at that point. It's a contract that that's enforcable. Um it gets tricky in in in the space of any sort of harassment type, but that's not that would presumably wouldn't be it, right? So then there are enforcability questions. This would just be about I'm not going to tell you what happened. And if that's true, who knows if this is true, but if that is true, it would be essentially paying somebody not to talk.

[00:07:01]And that's not uncommon in law. Those agreements do exist. Obviously, this one's a little bit different, particularly with a journalist, right?

[00:07:06]If a journalist, uh, you know, their instinct is usually not to to go along with something like that, but this is this is clearly an unusual situation.

[00:07:13]>> How much do you think that's worth?

[00:07:17]>> Who knows, right? Why? And why are the patriots paying for it? Why wouldn't it be, right? I mean, this is the, you know, who he's the one that's at issue.

[00:07:25]Um, I I don't know. I mean, millions, I guess.

[00:07:28]>> Yeah. I mean, because it it would have to be the amount that she gave up for not being able to work anymore. Wouldn't you think you would almost like add up the years that you would have been doing your job and times it by the amount of money you made and said, "You want me to sign an NDA? Here's what it's going to cost you."

[00:07:49]>> Yeah. And it's that that makes sense.

[00:07:51]And what happens if two years from now Mike Varel's fired? What happens to the NDA? I assume it's still enforceable, but there there are a lot of like weird attributes to that that um I I would be surprised if it turns out that that's the case. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I I don't know if it's also a good idea. I mean, in a way, some of these disclosures aren't from them.

[00:08:13]How about that photo from six years ago in a bar? Like, where is that from? You can't you can't buy silence of the world, right? Yeah. So, there's other people that have stuff that wouldn't be governed by that agreement.

[00:08:24]>> Back to the antitrust exemption real quick, Michael. And I know you said this probably won't happen that it won't go away, but if it did, would that be good for fans? I mean, things are getting so fractured, but it does not seem to be a positive for the consumer. You have to buy more stuff basically.

[00:08:37]>> Yeah. I mean, it's it's annoying. I think we all feel it. I mean, just watching the play NBA playoffs, like where are the games? Uh I I I have a 90-year-old dad trying to tell him where to where to turn. It's hard. It's it's it's becoming so fragmented uh these broadcasts. On the other hand, the NFL has implied if the Sunday ticket is illegal, then it would the league would have to rethink how it distributes local broadcasts because right now we don't have to pay generally to watch a Patriots game, right? We can we can just sit home on Sunday and watch it. That's not true of the other teams, right?

[00:09:10]where you have to you have to get a regional sports network or some other service. The NFL could rethink the economics of this. If they're not going to make as much money for out of town broadcast, they might try to get more for local. So, there are some risks for consumers that are not, you know, I get that it's annoying the world we're in with with so many different channels and streaming apps. It gets confusing. It gets overwhelming. But you rejiggle that and there there could be all sorts of consequences that we don't see. Do you give uh Wick Gross and Adicha Mittal any chance of winning the Seahawks bid? And do you think that impacts at all his Celtics ownership if he does win it? I >> I it seems like it's a plaus it's a plausible group, right? There are going to be a ton of groups that try to buy the Seahawks. Who knows what they're going to be valued at. I think Sporico had them at 6.6 billion, but recently somebody bought a minority stake of the Dolphins and it was valued at 12.5 billion. It's not what they paid, but that was the the value of the share that they bought. So, it's going to be a it's going to be a free-for-all because it's so hard to get an NFL team. I Grossback is probably an appealing person for [clears throat] the NFL, right? He was a very successful owner. I mean, people may not love him, but he did a I mean, it's hard to say he didn't do a very good job as Celtics owner. They won under him. Uh the team sold tickets.

[00:10:27]They they he he's very conversational.

[00:10:30]He he presents well. He's somebody I imagine the that would be a pretty good candidate to buy an NFL team. Now whether they have the money to do it, I guess we'll find out.

[00:10:39]>> Well, if his dad will let him do it.

[00:10:42]>> Got to ask permission.

[00:10:43]>> I think we all learned that's where the money was from. Wasn't it like Wick only responsible for like 0.2 or something like that?

[00:10:49]>> 1% or something like that. Yeah. So, we'll see if he's able to get that cash.

[00:10:53]But, uh, Mike McCann, great stuff. We really appreciate you coming on with us and it's going to be interesting watching a lot of these stories unfold.

[00:11:00]The varable thing is interesting with all this new NDA stuff, but uh we appreciate you coming on. We'll have you on again soon.

[00:11:06]>> Awesome. Thanks, guys.