Entertainment, Media & Sports

With a deep bench of attorneys and advisors practicing in music and entertainment hubs and major sports cities across our country, Adams & Reese provides a full comprehensive playbook of legal services across the entertainment, media, and sports industries.

Adams & Reese attorneys understand the complex, challenging, and changing laws related to the high-profile and public-facing industries of entertainment, media, and sports. Through various areas of transactional and litigation representation, we empower both corporate and individual entertainment and sports industry clients. Our counsel leads to practical legal solutions that promote and preserve the work of our clients, their interests, and their long-term business success.

INDUSTRY CLIENTS

Our clients in the entertainment industry span nearly every sector, including music, film, television, book publishing, and digital media. In the music industry, we represent independent record labels, independent music publishers, and merchandisers, as well as artists, songwriters, and producers. We work with large nonprofit ministries with a music element in helping them to protect their IP. We also represent estates and trusts associated with deceased creators. In the media industry, we work with podcasters, TV stations, newspapers, magazines, publications, production companies, social media entities, and infomercial marketers, to name a few.

In the sports industry, Adams & Reese attorneys counsel athletes, professional sports teams, arena and stadium operators, league governing bodies, collegiate athletic associations, conferences, universities, athletic foundations, sports team and individual sponsors, etc. We also represent universities and athletic departments as they maneuver through the complex NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) world of college sports.

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Our legal services are designed to address the full range of client needs within the entertainment, media, and sports industries, including:

• • Emerging Media: Contracts for podcasts, social media ventures, and digital media creators.
  • Entertainment and Music Agreements: Record deals, license & distribution agreements, songwriter agreements, production agreements, copyright infringement (prosecution or defense), music catalog sales or acquisitions, band formation agreements, sponsorship & endorsement deals, and merchandise agreements.
  • Intellectual Property: Copyright disputes, licensing, trademark and domain name protection of assets, IP enforcement and monetization, endorsement agreements, and naming rights for celebrity-branded establishments.
  • Litigation: Litigation of cases related to all areas of the entertainment industry, including IP/technology, legal disputes encountered by individuals and entities in the music industry, copyright infringement litigation. 
  • Operational and Compliance: Alcohol and ticketing compliance for venues, employee and labor considerations, and government relations.
  • Sports Law: Sponsorship and licensing arrangements for arena, stadium operators, and other sports venues; full spectrum of legal services for professional sports teams and collegiate athletic departments; financing for sports facilities; defending against sports facility related injuries and premises liability claims; protecting athletes in their personal, professional, and charitable endeavors; NIL agreements; and corporate deals and contracts for athletes.

It is important to our attorneys to know and understand their industries, and therefore, we serve as active leaders in various entertainment and sports industry associations, such as the Country Music Association, Gospel Music Association, Academy of Country Music, National Academy of Recording Arts and Science, and Tennessee Art League.

We also hold leadership positions in legal organizations affiliated with entertainment and sports, including the Nashville Entertainment and IP Lawyers American Inns of Court, Federal Communications Bar Association, Copyright Society of the South, and the Tennessee Bar, Nashville Bar, and California Bar Association Entertainment and Sports Law sections.