IMG Academy Hires Tampa Bay Buccaneers Legal Chief Malasky

IMG Academy, a preparatory board school and training facility for the next generation of elite athletes, has hired sports industry lawyer Daniel Malasky as its chief legal officer.

Malasky, who joined the Bradenton, Florida-based IMG Academy this month, spent the past five years as the top lawyer for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who former quarterback Tom Brady led to a Super Bowl win in 2021.

Malasky didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about his decision to join IMG Academy, which he announced Monday in a statement posted to his LinkedIn profile. Malasky’s switch was also confirmed by newly promoted IMG Academy vice president and associate general counsel Valerie Alou, a veteran sports lawyer and daughter of baseball legend Felipe Alou.

Alou said she’ll work closely with Malasky at IMG Academy, which was sold earlier this year by Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. to private equity firm BPEA EQT in an all-cash deal valuing the business at roughly $1.3 billion. Latham & Watkins advised Endeavor, while Ropes & Gray represented BPEA EQT on the transaction, which closed in the third quarter of this year.

Malasky’s move comes two months after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) tapped him to serve as one of nine directors for the Florida Sports Foundation Inc., an Orlando-based nonprofit tasked with promoting and developing amateur, participatory, and professional sports in Florida.

Media contacts for the Buccaneers didn’t respond to a comment request about Malasky’s replacement, nor did assistant general counsel Emily Lekahal, who has been in-house with the Buccaneers since 2019.

Malasky joined the team in 2018 after spending nearly 13 years working for the United States Tennis Association Inc., the nonprofit US governing body for the sport. Malasky held a variety of roles at the USTA, most recently as general counsel and managing director of business affairs, for which he was paid more than $418,000 in fiscal 2017, according to a federal tax filing by the organization.

Brady’s move to the Buccaneers earned Malasky—a graduate of Boston University’s law school—some jibes from his friends in New England, even if he had little role in recruiting the future Hall of Famer Brady to Florida, according to a 2020 profile by a publication affiliated with Malasky’s alma mater.

His sports law career began in 2004 when after just three years as an associate at a predecessor to DLA Piper, Malasky was named general counsel for a dirt track auto racing body. Malasky’s father, Alan Malasky, was a commercial litigator at several large law firms in Washington.

Malasky, while an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s, was a kicker for the school’s sprint football team, an intercollegiate sport comprised solely of lightweight varsity players.