Don't Be Afraid to Win: How Free Agency Changed the Business of Pro Sports

by Jim Quinn

Overview

Labeled by The New York Times as “instrumental in helping change the face of major professional sports,” attorney Jim Quinn has influenced modern sports business for decades. Beginning back in the 1970’s with the landmark Oscar Robertson basketball free agency case, Quinn battled owners in all four major leagues to make sure the players got their fair share. In the early 1990’s, he faced the goliath National Football League and won the right to free agency for players, Quinn has spent a lifetime dealing in the gritty sports business to make fair agreements for players. Quinn shares significant cases and legal proceedings across major American sports and tells stories of the courtroom battles he fought on behalf of players and labor leaders seeking economic justice in their workplace. He sheds light on known and unknown figures who committed to larger causes than themselves and that modern sports owes a debt to the leaders of the past who risked their careers. Through Quinn’s lengthy career he has helped to empower athletes to speak and act in the best interest of the sports community and overcome some of the toxic figures who sought to drag down league success for their own ego and greed. In Don’t Be Afraid to Win, Quinn provides a unique point of view of someone who was personally involved in making changes happen in the business. His is a masterful examination of how sports has grown dramatically over the decades, how it benefited from the rise of sports unions and free agency, and how there is still fairness to be gained across the leagues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635766929
Publisher:	Radius Book Group
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

As one of the nation’s premier trial lawyers over the last four decades, Jim Quinn represented the players unions in all four of the major professional North American sports leagues, helping to create and draft the first free agency agreement in professional sports, as well as the first salary cap in sports. Don’t be Afraid to Win is his third book.

Table of Contents

Foreword Michele Roberts, Executive Director, National Basketball Players Association vii

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 The 21-Minute Strike 6

Chapter 2 The Agent from Hell 16

Chapter 3 TV Changes Everything 20

Chapter 4 "The Big O" Sues the NBA 25

Chapter 5 The Free Agency Wars Continue 49

Chapter 6 NBA and the "Phony Peace" 57

Chapter 7 Soccer-the Sport of the '80s 73

Chapter 8 Cable TV: Baseball's "Pot of Gold" 90

Chapter 9 The Salary Cap Is Born 106

Chapter 10 Trump's "Three-Dollar" League 133

Chapter 11 Let's Blow Up the Union 146

Chapter 12 Larry Died 159

Chapter 13 "We Can Always Get More Cattle" 164

Chapter 14 "God Almighty Free at Last" 187

Chapter 15 The Sword of Damocles 212

Chapter 16 Hockey Fights-from Slapshots to Slapstick 228

Chapter 17 A Union in Turmoil 254

Chapter 18 "Litigator to the Rescue" 271

Chapter 19 Death and Treachery 280

Chapter 20 The Brady Bunch 305

Chapter 21 Into the Breach Once Again 317

Chapter 22 The "Lockout King" Redux 326

Chapter 23 From the Depths to the Heights 333

Epilogue 341

Acknowledgments 351

Notes 353