The Injury Layer of the Revenue-Share Deal: Medical Disqualification Clauses and Post-Eligibility Coverage (Copy)

Robert A. Boland, Partner | Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick LLP

Robert Boland is both a leading sports law professor and practitioner. He is an Assistant Professor of Law at Seton Hall University Law School, where he helps lead a unique J.D. certificate program in Gaming, Hospitality, Entertainment and Sports Law.

• Education & Credentials

Boland is a graduate of Columbia University, where he was a letterwinner in both football and wrestling, and of Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. He is a member of the New York and Georgia bars and is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern District of New York and the District of Colorado.

• Recognition & Leadership

He was named one of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers for 2026. Boland has a long record of achievement as both an academic and an attorney, including numerous publications, media appearances, and an NFL head coaching search.
He served as the director of two highly regarded university sports management programs: as the founding professor of New York University’s groundbreaking sports business program and eventually as Academic Chair of its Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management from 2001 to 2015, and as the director of the acclaimed Master of Sports Administration (MSA) and MSA/MBA dual degree programs at Ohio University from 2015 to 2017.

• Professional Involvement

In addition to his teaching and academic work, Boland maintains an active sports law practice as a co-chair of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP’s Sports, Entertainment & Hospitality Sector Group. The synergy between these two roles keeps Boland at the center of the most current sports law matters, to the benefit of both his students and his clients.
Boland is one of the plaintiffs’ class counsel in Wisne v. NCAA, now pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, which challenges the NCAA’s implementation of its “5-for-5” eligibility rules.

• Experience

Perhaps Boland’s most distinctive professional experience came in 2017, when he was named Athletics Integrity Officer at Penn State University — a role created by consent agreement with the NCAA and the Big Ten. Over five years in the position, Boland oversaw Penn State’s institutional recovery from the Sandusky crisis and monitored its response to legalized sports betting, the Varsity Blues investigations, and the transition to NIL.

Kathleen M. Boozang, Professor of Law | Seton Hall University School of Law

Kathleen M. Boozang is a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law and one of the nation’s leading scholars at the intersection of health law and college athletics.

• Education & Credentials

Professor Boozang holds a B.S. from Boston College, a J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, and an LL.M. from Yale Law School.

• Recognition & Leadership

She served as Dean of Seton Hall Law from 2015 to 2022, and in 1993 she founded the school’s Health Law & Policy Program, which has consistently ranked among the top ten health law programs in the country in U.S. News & World Report.
Her honors include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Jersey Law Journal, which has also named her among the “Top Women in the Law.”

• Professional Involvement

She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

• Experience

Professor Boozang’s recent scholarship speaks directly to the medical dimension of the new athlete-compensation era. Her article “NIL Necessitates Shared Medical Decision Making for College Athletes,” published in the Marquette Sports Law Review, examines how athlete compensation transforms the legal and ethical framework governing sports medicine — including the medical decisions, disclosures, and coverage questions that now carry direct financial consequences for athletes.

SESSION 1 – Negotiating Injury and Medical Disqualification Clauses in Athlete Revenue-Share Agreements | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

Most college athlete revenue-share contracts say little or nothing about injuries. Too often that silence reflects a harder reality: athletes are given no meaningful opportunity to understand their injuries or who is directing their care, no control over injury management, and no voice in medical eligibility decisions. This session proposes concrete ways to bring athletes into injury decision-making — borrowing proven models from shared decision-making in healthcare and from professional sports contracts — and shows attorneys exactly where injury risk hides in these agreements: in payment triggers, content-creation duties, and buyout terms. Attendees will leave with hands-on drafting tools, a clause-by-clause risk map, and a briefing on the new federal and state legislation that could reshape these deals.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Insuring the Paid College Athlete: The Post-Eligibility Coverage Stack | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

When a college athlete’s playing days end, what insurance protects them? This session walks through every layer of coverage available to paid athletes — from the NCAA’s post-eligibility and catastrophic injury programs to disability, loss-of-value, and NIL contract protection policies. Attendees will learn how the House settlement, new state laws, and the “athlete as employee” debate are creating coverage needs that did not exist a few years ago, and how to help athletes and schools spot gaps, stack policies in the right order, and buy coverage at the right time.