Rebooted XFL Taps NBC Sports Lawyer as Legal, Business Chief (1)

The XFL, whose 3rd try at a non-NFL soccer league debuts in February, hired veteran sports activities lawyer Wendy Bass as main enterprise and lawful officer.

Bass put in the previous two decades as senior vice president of programming and rights management for NBC Sports Team. She oversaw acquisitions and programming and managed electronic media tactic and partnerships.

At the XFL, Bass will guide the authorized, people functions, and technology departments. The league announced her employ in a Nov. 29 assertion. Bass mentioned by means of email the new league is functioning with Latham & Watkins for media promotions, Quarles & Brady on trademark issues, and Rochester, NY-primarily based Woods Oviatt Gilman on other matters.

The XFL was sold for $15 million out of bankruptcy in 2020 to an ownership group led by actor and entrepreneur Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and former Goldman Sachs Team Inc. husband or wife Gerald Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Companions LLC.

Formerly managed by specialist wrestling mogul Vince McMahon, the XFL submitted for Chapter 11 safety in April 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic pressured the upstart league to terminate its year after only 5 online games.

The relaunched XFL done a preliminary player draft last thirty day period for its eight groups situated in Washington, St. Louis, Seattle, San Antonio, Orlando, Las Vegas, Houston, and Arlington, Texas, in the vicinity of Dallas. The league is centered in Arlington.

Before this calendar year the XFL finalized a partnership with the NFL on data sharing and football investigation. The league, a single of many notable sporting activities investments by RedBird’s Cardinale, has a broadcast rights arrangement with Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN.

Bass claimed she was drawn to the XFL by Kevin LaForce, a former NFL executive who joined RedBird final year as a running director and head of the private fairness firm’s sporting activities and media organization. LaForce, who worked with Bass when he was at the NFL and she at broadcast associate NBC, arrived at out about the opportunity, Bass stated.

The XFL stated Bass reports to its President Russ Brandon, the brother of Gregg Brandon, who until eventually a short while ago was typical counsel for the NFL’s Buffalo Payments. Russ Brandon was also after president and CEO of the Costs, whose former common supervisor Doug Whaley is the XFL’s best player staff government.

Authorized Lineup

Bass joined NBC in 2005 following serving as an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York. She continued to do the job with the law company in subsequent a long time negotiating media rights bargains for key sporting functions, like the Olympics, PGA Tour, Wimbledon, and the Kentucky Derby. Gary Zenkel, an NBC Sports executive and president of the network’s Olympics company, is a former Cahill Gordon associate.

McMahon’s authentic vision of the XFL was developed in partnership with NBC Sporting activities, the Stamford, Conn.-centered athletics programming division of NBCUniversal Media LLC, a media and leisure conglomerate owned by cable big Comcast Corp.

A handful of legal professionals had important roles in McMahon’s XFL, which relished achievements on tv and stadium attendance prior to the pandemic halting perform. McMahon’s first XFL debut in 2001 lasted a several months ahead of he and NBC pulled the plug.

Several former XFL lawyers have moved on to new positions. Mali Friedman, who the McMahon-led league hired to realize success its prior standard counsel, Roxanne Kosarzycki, was named the major law firm for the NFL’s Washington Commanders this earlier January.

John Wilson, a K&L Gates sports legislation and technological know-how transactions companion who stepped in as interim basic counsel for the XFL when Friedman went on maternity leave ahead of the league’s pandemic-driven insolvency, mentioned he’s no lengthier advising the choice football outfit. He wished the league the finest in its upcoming iteration.

Alec Scheiner, a previous common counsel of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, now serves as a athletics and media financial investment husband or wife at RedBird. Last 12 months RedBird employed Michael Chiaravalloti, a previous managing director for JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s non-public bank, to be its chief compliance officer and in-household counsel.

RedBird was advised on its XFL buy by Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Sidley Austin represented Johnson’s camp on the offer, which closed in late 2020.

This past June, McMahon settled a lengthy-operating wrongful termination dispute with the XFL’s former commissioner, ex-quarterback-turned-athletics executive Oliver Luck, shortly after McMahon stepped down as CEO of World Wrestling Amusement Inc.

Luck, a former affiliate at what is now Norton Rose Fulbright, experienced sought approximately $24 million in pay back under a contract that McMahon required to nullify by firing him for bring about after the XFL suspended engage in two many years ago.