Speaker Profile

Michael McCann is one of the nation’s leading experts in sports law. He is Associate Dean for Intellectual Life, founding Director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute and a tenured Professor of Law at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law. McCann is also a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches in the HLS Graduate Program, and Legal Analyst and Senior Writer at Sportico. McCann taught a Sports Law Analytics reading group at Yale Law School and created the first law school course on Name, Image and Likeness. In 2025, the Association of American Law Schools awarded McCann the Sports Law Award for "substantial and significant contributions to scholarship, teaching, and service in the area of law relating to sports." McCann has authored more than 25 law review articles published in the Yale Law Journal, Boston College Law Review, Georgia Law Review and other leading journals, co-authored the book Court Justice with former NBA player Ed O’Bannon and is the Editor of the Oxford University Handbook of American Sports Law. He has also authored more than 2,500 legal commentaries for Sportico and Sports Illustrated. McCann’s scholarly writings have been cited as authority by federal appellate and district court judges and have been awarded academic prizes, and he has testified as an expert witness at the U.S. Senate. He is a practicing attorney and a member of the Massachusetts bar. McCann has represented clients in antitrust, labor, employment and intellectual property matters. He served on the legal team for former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett in Clarett’s case against the NFL. McCann holds degrees from Harvard Law School, University of Virginia School of Law and Georgetown University.