Did Michael Vick get off easy when he was reinstated by the NFL?  Or would the League overstep its proper role in imposing further punishment on an athlete who has already paid his proverbial debt to society?  Variations on these questions arise every time a famous professional athlete breaks the law — an all-too-common occurence, it seems.  

Janie Kim and Matt Parlow make a thoughtful contribution to the debate with a new paper on SSRN entitled “Off-Court Misbehavior: Sports Leagues and Private Punishment.”  Here is the abstract:

This Essay examines how professional sports leagues address (apparently increasing) criminal activity by players off of the field or court. It analyzes the power of professional sports leagues and, in particular, the commissioners of those leagues, to discipline wayward athletes. Such discipline is often met with great controversy — from players’ unions and commentators alike — especially when a commissioner invokes the “in the best interest of the sport” clause of the professional sports league’s constitution and bylaws. The Essay then contextualizes such league discipline in criminal punishment theory — juxtaposing punishment norms in public law with incentives and rationales for discipline in professional sports — and analyzes the legal and cultural limitations to this approach.

As Kim and Parlow point out, one of the troubling aspects of league-administered punishment for off-court misconduct is that the procedures and standards seem so informal and ad hoc compared with those of the criminal justice system.  This raises legitimacy problems for league punishment — all the more so when the league itself is perceived to have unclean hands (see, e.g., MLB and steroids).