Matthew Mitten

Matt is a Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the National Sports Law Institute and the LL.M. in Sports Law program for foreign lawyers at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as the Law School’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from July 2002 to June 2004. He currently teaches Amateur Sports Law, Professional Sports Law, Sports Sponsorship Legal and Business Issues Workshop, Antitrust Law, and Torts.

He has authored Sports Law in the United States (Wolters Kluwer 2011, 2nd ed. 2014, 3rd ed. 2017) and co-authored a law school textbook, Sports Law and Regulation: Cases, Materials, and Problems (Aspen/Wolters Kluwer 2005, 2nd ed. 2009, 3rd ed. 2013, 4th ed., 2017, 5th ed. 2020, 6th ed. 2024), and Sports Law: Governance and Regulation (Wolters Kluwer 2013, 2nd ed. 2016, 3rd ed. 2020, 4th ed. 2024), an undergraduate/graduate text. A leading sports law scholar, he has published articles in several highly ranked law reviews as well as in medical journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine.

He is an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland (serving on the ad hoc Division for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia and Anti-doping Division for the 2020/21 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan), American Arbitration Association (sports, commercial, and consumer arbitration matters), and JAMS Sports Program as well as the UFC and Professional Fighters League anti-doping panels. He has served as the sole arbitrator, chair, or panel member in 70 sports cases as well as numerous commercial or consumer arbitrations. He is a member of the Sports Lawyers Association (SLA) Board of Directors (serving as SLA president from May 2015-May 2017) and the Advisory Board for the Sports & Society Initiative of The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences. He formerly chaired the American Association of Law Schools’ Section on Law and Sports (receiving its 2019 Award for making a substantial and significant contribution to sports law scholarship, teaching, and/or service) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. He served on the inaugural Board of Directors of the Forum for the Scholarly Study of Intercollegiate Athletics at the invitation of former NCAA president Myles Brand.   

Matt earned a B.A. in Economics from The Ohio State University and his JD, magna cum laude, from the University of Toledo College of Law. He is a member of the Order of the Coif and served as a Note & Comment Editor for the University of Toledo Law Review. He practiced antitrust law, intellectual property law, and commercial litigation with Kilpatrick Townsend in Atlanta, Georgia. He previously was a professor of law at South Texas College of Law-Houston and received the 1997 Vinson & Elkins Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Scholarship, and Service. He has taught U. S. Sports Law as a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School, International Sports Law at the University of Barcelona, and Comparative Sports Law at the University of Queensland. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Toledo College of Law and a visiting lecturer in sports medicine at The University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine. He earned a Statement of Accomplishment, Human Rights in Sports, Council of Europe. In 2018, he received the National Athletic Trainers Association Professional Responsibility in Athletic Training Award for distinction in the advancement of legal, ethical, and regulatory issues.

He testified before a U.S. Congressional joint subcommittee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate Commerce Committee as well as the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics regarding various college sports law issues. He has discussed a wide variety of sports law, business, and ethics topics at more than 200 conferences and seminars throughout the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, China, England, Hungary, Republic of Korea, and Turkey.