Section One: Administration
The Tulane Professional Football Negotiation Competition (“TPFNC”) is organized by the Tulane University Law School Sports Law Society. These rules reference the Tulane Professional Football Negotiation Competition Committee (“Committee”), which is a component organization of the Sports Law Society. The Committee directly administers the competition by coordinating the joint efforts of student participants, judges, and the competition’s staff.
Section Two: Overview of the Competition
The goal of the TPFNC is to simulate a contract negotiation similar to what takes place in the National Football League between teams and agents representing players. Like most law school moot court competitions, the TPFNC’s main goal is to provide participants with the opportunity to sharpen their oral and written advocacy skills. The competition, however, is unique in that it allows law students to sharpen these skills within the specialized context of the negotiation of an NFL contract.
Section Three: Recommended Reading
Below are recommended readings that will help participants prepare for the focus of the competition. They are not required, but highly recommended to participants who are not as familiar with the terms and structure of an NFL contract as needed to participate.
● The Articles of the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement that pertain to contract structure and the salary cap.
● Definitions and FAQ provided by the TPFNC committee.
Section Four: Teams
1. Each team entering the competition must submit a registration form and the applicable entry fee (a team will not be registered until the Committee receives both).
2. Entry Fee
a. The entry fee is non-refundable.
b. The entry fee for teams with two members is $300.
c. The entry fee for teams with three members is $350.
3. A school may indicate its desire to send two teams to the competition. Schools will be notified on November 1, 2015 whether there is space to accommodate a second team.
4. Each team will consist of two or three law students attending either the same American Bar Association (ABA) approved law school or different ABA approved law schools. Only individuals pursuing a Juris Doctor or L.L.M. degree during the competition’s semester are eligible to participate.
5. Schools that have a qualifying internal competition may register a team without specifying the team members’ names in the registration form. In that case, the registration form must include the contact information of the person in charge of the school’s internal qualifying competition. In addition, the school must submit the applicable entry fee for a team with two members. If the winning team of the internal qualifying competition has three members, the team must render the remaining balance by November 1, 2015.
6. After the brief-filing deadline, team members may not be substituted, except for good cause such as serious illness or other uncontrollable circumstance.
Section Five: Venue Rules
By participating in the competition, team members agree to refrain from moving any furniture or disturbing any equipment in any of the negotiation rooms.
Section Six: Competition Mechanics
1. The Committee will create different contract negotiations for an upcoming NFL free agent. Each team will negotiate from either the player agent side or the team side for all free agents. The side each team will represent will be randomly assigned, but no team will represent the same side every time.
a. Actual NFL players will be used, thus teams must ignore anything that happens to the subject players after the cases are released.
b. For the oral argument, each team will be given a set of “objectives” they will aim to have included in the final contract agreed to by the two sides. Points will be awarded for each “objective” that is met. The opposing sides will not know of the other side’s goals. For full oral argument rules see Section Eight.
2. For one of the free agent negotiations, a team will write a brief summarizing the contract they would hope to achieve with reasoning and explanations. Teams should address all aspects of the contract they would include in the contract. Teams should compare other players and their contracts with the player assigned in order to justify the contract value. Player contract info will be provided by the Committee in the “Player Contract Pool” described in Section Ten.
3. Teams will be seeded based on the grade they receive for their brief.
a. If there are 16 teams, there will be four “groups” of 4 teams that will compete in a round robin format. Teams earning the 1, 8, 9, and 16 overall seeds will be placed in group A. Teams earning the 2, 7, 10, and 15 overall seeds will be placed in group B. Teams earning the 3, 6, 11, and 14 overall seeds will be placed in group C. Teams earning the 4, 5, 12, and 13 overall seeds will be placed in group D.
b. The top team from each group will compete in a semi-final match with the winner from each advancing to the championship. The winning team of Group A will match up against the winner of Group D in the semifinals, while the winner of Group B will match up against the winner of Group C.
c. If a tie breaker is needed to determine which team will advance, the score differential for the three group rounds will be used first. If the teams are indistinguishable by score differential, then the total points scored will be used. If neither of those can break the tie, then a team will be drawn from a hat to determine who will advance.
Section Seven: Briefs
1. Sources of Information
a. Any player’s performance statistics must be obtained from a reliable source of information, including, but not limited to; NFL.com, a team’s official website, Pro Football Focus, and Pro Football Reference.
b. Other statistics (i.e., statistics that are not a player’s performance statistics) and non-statistical information may be obtained from any nationally available news material.
2. Briefs shall not exceed six pages, exclusive of cover page and optional table of contents, but inclusive of any charts, tables, lists, or other appendices. Footnotes also count towards the page limit. Pages should also be numbered. Anything over the six-page limit will not be read or counted towards the brief score.
3. The font of the brief’s body must be 12-point Times New Roman and the font of the brief’s footnotes must be 10-point Times New Roman. The use of any other type of font will be grounds for a penalty. 1 point will be deducted from overall brief score for incorrect font in the body of the brief and 1 point will be deducted from overall brief score for incorrect font in footnotes or graphs/charts.
4. Briefs must be double-spaced, except footnotes, argument headings, and extended quotations.
5. No formal citation style is required; however, all citations should allow the Committee to quickly and easily verify the accuracy of the information. Generic citations such as “nfl.com” or “espn.com” do not allow the Committee to quickly and easily verify the information and will be grounds for deduction at the discretion of the brief grader.
6. The cover page should only include the team’s school, the case, and the side represented.
7. Service of Briefs
a. Each team must submit an electronic copy to the Committee email address at . If a submission is made and the submitting team does not receive a reply within two days they must submit their briefs again.
b. Service Deadlines: Electronic copies must arrive by December 23, 2015 at 5:00 pm central time.
8. Teams that fail to submit their briefs by the deadline will receive an initial 5-point penalty against their brief score, with an additional 3-point penalty for every subsequent 24-hour period that their brief is late.
a. Method of Delivery
ii. The electronic copy of the brief must be sent as a PDF or in Microsoft Word format. Failure to comply will result in a 1-point deduction from overall brief score.
iii. The subject line of the electronic brief submission must be “TPFNC Brief Submission – [School Name]” Failure to comply will result in a 1- point deduction from overall brief score.
iv. The email attachment must contain only the electronic copies of the submitted brief.
v. The email and the attachment must be free of viruses or any other files.
9. A team may not revise or amend its brief after submission, even if the deadline for submission has not yet passed.
10. Content
a. The brief should give an overview of the market for the player in question. An accurate history and present status of the market should be considered.
b. All player comparisons that are pertinent to the negotiation should be discussed with rationale.
c. A suggested contract for the player in question should be considered along with an explanation for the contract structure and the types of salary included.
d. The brief should be written as if being read by someone experienced in the industry, thus definitions are not necessary.
e. All information available until the submission of the brief is acceptable, and any information that comes out after a team has submitted their brief will not count against them.
f. All player-contracts that are used for comparisons must come from the TPFNC Player Pool.
Section Eight: Negotiations
1. Negotiators may only reference information available on January 6, 2016.
a. Thus, only information on the subject players or players that are being used for comparisons that was published prior to January 6, 2016 will be allowed in negotiation.
b. Any information published or made known after January 6, 2016, is inadmissible.
c. The only contract information permissible for comparison will be provided to teams in the “Player Contract Pool”.
2. If a team acts in violation of this section, or if they provide information that is known to be factually incorrect, the opposing team should object to the arbitrator immediately. No objections will be allowed once the hearing has concluded.
3. Only two team members may participate in any given round of negotiation.
4. If a team has three members, all members must participate in at least one round of negotiation.
5. All rounds will last 40 minutes. The two sides will lose points if they fail to come to a final agreement. The format will be as follows:
a. Team side opening remarks and a list of the players they will be using for comparison along with reasons for choosing those comparable players.
b. Player Agent side opening remarks and a list of the players they will be using for comparison along with reasons for choosing those comparable players.
c. The team side will provide the initial offer. The initial offer should be a printed contract offer, and the team side should have a printed contract offer to present to the judge(s) as well.
d. The two sides will negotiate back and forth until they come to a final agreement or the time has run out.
e. Each side will be allowed a single 2 minute “time-out” to leave the room and discuss their strategy.
f. Teams are allowed to bring any exhibits that supplement their presentation.
g. The sides should fill in a final contract breakdown to present to the judge(s) at the conclusion of the negotiation. Both teams will be required to sign the agreed upon contract before leaving the room.
6. If the two sides do not come to a final agreement each team will be deducted 10 points, and will not be rewarded points for any aspect(s) of the contract that was agreed upon prior to the time running out.
7. A maximum of two faculty members or coaches per team may enter the negotiation room. They may not interrupt the proceedings in any way.
8. Should an entire team miss any one of their scheduled oral arguments for reasons other than serious illness or uncontrollable circumstances (i.e. a “no show”) they will forfeit that round and all subsequent rounds. They will also be banned from participating in the TPFNC for two years. Should an event arise where a team cannot compete in any of their oral arguments they must notify the Committee of the competition at least one hour prior to their scheduled argument.
Section Nine: Scoring
1. Brief Scoring
a. Members of the Pro Football Competition Committee will serve as anonymous brief judges. The briefs are blind-graded, meaning that brief judges will have no knowledge of the identifying information of any particular law school or team member.
2. Oral Argument Scoring:
a. Each judge will evaluate the oral arguments based upon a standard scale.
b. The standard scale will be included in the packet sent to teams, as well as posted on the competition website.
c. Objectives
i. Each team will be given a set of “objectives”. Teams will be rewarded points for each goal they successfully include in the final agreed upon contract.
ii. If the goals are worth a different amount of points the teams will know when they receive their goals.
iii. Points awarded for the inclusion of the goals are added onto the score given by the judge to determine the team’s final score.
iv. Teams will not know what their opposition’s goals are, and teams should not let anyone know of their assigned goals.
v. Goals will be assigned by the Committee, and given to teams two weeks in advance to allow the teams to prepare.
vi. Examples of goals include, but are not limited to: a maximum or minimum amount of guaranteed money to include in the contract, a limitation on the number of years for the contract, a maximum/minimum signing bonus, a specific salary structure, and having the largest total contract value at the player’s position.