Wilkinson Stekloff has handled some of the most significant litigation matters and investigations shaping professional and college sports today. The firm features a deep bench of lawyers with experience in sports litigation, led by Founding Partner Beth Wilkinson, who was recognized as a “Power Player” by Sports Business Daily, Founding Partner Brian Stekloff, Partner Rakesh Kilaru, who was named a Law360 Sports & Betting MVP in 2024, and Partner Cali Arat, all of whom are recommended by Legal 500 in the Sports Law category.

Having long been a leader in the space—Law360 named the firm a Sports & Betting Practice Group of the Year in 2020—Wilkinson Stekloff has solidified its place among premier sports litigation firms with its recent high-profile victory on behalf of the NFL, and by serving as lead antitrust counsel for the NCAA, including on issues spanning from compensation to eligibility rules. A more detailed description of some of our representative matters follows.

• In re National Football League’s “Sunday Ticket” Antitrust Litigation. Obtained a complete victory for the NFL and its 32 member teams in a class action lawsuit challenging the distribution of the Sunday Ticket subscription package and the NFL’s overall media strategy.  Plaintiffs sought over $21 billion in damages post-trebling as well as injunctive relief that would undermine the NFL’s entire broadcast model. The Wilkinson Stekloff team served as lead counsel throughout the nine-year litigation and ultimately obtained judgment as a matter of law after trial. Relying on the Wilkinson Stekloff team’s cross-examinations of Plaintiffs’ experts and post-trial briefs, Judge Gutierrez excluded the testimony of Plaintiffs’ key expert witnesses as unreliable, resulting in a complete victory for the NFL.  The American Lawyer and Law360 recognized the team as “Litigators of the Week” and “Legal Lions,” their respective weekly features, for this significant victory.
• Todd McNair v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. Won a defense verdict at trial for the NCAA in a lawsuit brought by former University of Southern California (USC) assistant football coach Todd McNair. McNair alleged that the NCAA had defamed him in a Committee on Infractions report relating to improper benefits received by star running back Reggie Bush that was issued in 2010 and affirmed by a separate appeals committee. After the verdict, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Frederick C. Shaller called the advocacy in the case “the best I’ve seen since I’ve been a judge.” The Wilkinson Stekloff team received a Shout-Out from The American Lawyer for the win, and were named as Law360 Legal Lions for the victory. On January 16, 2019, Judge Shaller granted McNair’s Motion for a New Trial, after which the parties reached a confidential settlement.
• In re College Athlete NIL Litigation.  Negotiated a groundbreaking settlement to a series of antitrust class-action lawsuits brought by hundreds of thousands of current and former student-athletes under the Sherman Act against the NCAA and the Autonomy Five collegiate athletic conferences. Plaintiffs challenged NCAA rules limiting student-athlete compensation and benefits, including rules related to name, image, and likeness (“NIL”), and prohibiting professional-style revenue sharing. The settlement is expected to bring “antitrust peace” for the NCAA for the next decade through several innovative legal mechanisms and release all past damages claims for a fraction of the damages Plaintiffs ultimately could claim.
• Chalmers, et al. v. NCAA, et al. Won dismissal of all claims in an antirust matter filed against the NCAA and six major athletic conferences, seeking damages for the purported misuse of former student-athletes’ NIL on behalf of a sprawling nationwide class dating back more than 40 years. Wilkinson Stekloff represented the NCAA and led the joint defense group, including directing the motion to dismiss briefing and arguing for dismissal before the court.  In recognition of this victory, Law360 named the team “Legal Lions of the Week”, and the American Lawyer gave a the firm a “Shout Out” in its Litigators of the Week feature.  The case is currently on appeal.
• In re NCAA Grant-in-Aid Antitrust Litigation. Served as lead counsel for the NCAA at summary judgment and trial in a challenge by certain current and former NCAA college football and basketball student athletes to NCAA rules limiting the level of athletics-based financial aid benefits that student athletes may receive.  Plaintiffs set out to fundamentally change college athletics in America by attacking their defining characteristic – that student athletes are amateurs – making this one of the most important cases in the NCAA’s history.  After a three-week bench trial, the district court enjoined certain limitations on benefits that student-athletes may receive, but reaffirmed the procompetitive value of the NCAA’s rules and rejected Plaintiffs’ broader-ranging efforts to transform college athletics.
• Washington Football Team Investigation. Retained by the National Football League to do an independent review of the Washington Football Team’s culture, policies, and allegations of workplace misconduct after allegations of sexual harassment by former team executives were published in The Washington Post.
• Independent Review Panel Regarding Gambling-Related Threats to Professional Tennis. Served on an Independent Review Panel tasked with reviewing betting-related integrity issues facing professional tennis. The Panel was commissioned by the organizations responsible for governing professional tennis, including the ATP, the WTA, the ITF, and the Grand Slam Board, after a 2016 report from BuzzFeed and the BBC alleged “evidence of widespread match-fixing by players at the upper level of world tennis.” The Panel conducted extensive interviews and reviewed substantial data regarding betting-related corruption in professional tennis, concluding that “tennis faces a serious integrity problem,” that “no level of professional tennis is immune from betting-related and other breaches of integrity,” and that “the problem is particularly acute and pervasive at the lower levels” of the sport. The Panel also advanced numerous recommendations for tennis to more effectively prevent betting-related integrity breaches and to more effectively punish wrongdoers, including limiting the sale of official live scoring data to reduce betting markets, restructuring player pathways to better align financial incentives, and creating a new supervisory board to provide independent enforcement oversight.

Before founding Wilkinson Stekloff, the firm’s partners handled other significant sports-related litigation, including the successful resolution of nationwide concussion-related litigation for the NFL, and the successful resolution of a federal class action against Major League Baseball following the elimination of a billion-dollar damages claim on Daubert grounds.