Davis Polk Hires a Proskauer Sports Star as the Field Heats Up

Sports law has long been an attractive practice area for individual lawyers, especially those who are sports fans themselves. It’s exciting and enviable to work for famous sports franchises that are constantly in the headlines. You can impress relatives at Thanksgiving by telling them that you represent the NFL team on the television in front of them—as opposed to representing some private-equity or hedge fund they’ve never heard of.

But for years, with deal values in the millions rather than billions of dollars, sports law wasn’t a field that all firms sought to play on. It was something of a niche practice, dominated by a handful of firms known for their specific expertise in sports deals—including Covington & Burling, DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells, and Proskauer Rose.

This is changing, as you can see in the latest lateral partner hire by Davis Polk & Wardwell. Later today, the firm will announce the arrival of Jon Oram, one of the nation’s leading sports lawyers—according to Chambers (Band 1), The Hollywood Reporter, and other authorities. He’s coming over from Proskauer and will be based out of New York.

Oram is only the latest—although the biggest—in a series of sports-law names to be recruited by elite transactional firms in 2025. (Full disclosure: He’s also a friend of mine from law school.)

In February, Weil Gotshal & Manges brought aboard Steve Argeris from Hogan Lovells. In September, Kirkland & Ellis hired Frank Saviano from Latham & Watkins (which Saviano joined in 2020, after starting his career at Proskauer). In October, Kirkland reunited Saviano with a former Proskauer colleague, Jason Krochak, who also focuses his practice on the sports space.

Why are firms such as Davis Polk and Kirkland so interested in sports? They’re drawn to high levels of activity in the sector—and following the moves of their clients.

“The sports sector is white-hot,” Oram said in an interview. “The deals are bigger and more sophisticated than ever—driven in large part by the involvement of institutional investors, especially private equity and private credit.”

Oram also mentioned a striking statistic, showing how sports law has boomed since he and I graduated from law school.

“When I started as an associate, NBA teams sold for around $200 million,” Oram told me. “Today you can’t buy one for less than $4 billion. Earlier this year, a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers was acquired in a deal that values the team at $10 billion. That’s the trajectory the sports industry is on right now.”

Yes, there has been inflation. But $200 million from 25 years ago would today be worth around $400 million, not $4 billion—to say nothing of $10 billion. What explains these soaring values?

First, there’s scarcity: There are a limited number of major-league sports teams. Even with plenty of money, you can’t just go out and start your own franchise, in the same way that you can launch a tech startup or PE fund.

Second, changes in league ownership rules have opened up the sports sector to private equity. In 2019, Major League Baseball liberalized team ownership rules. Since then, the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer have made similar moves.

This regulatory shift has allowed sports properties to mature as an asset class. As Andrew L. Cohen, executive chairman of JPMorgan’s global private bank, told Bloomberg, major-league teams today are “more than just a passion investment,” evolving into “a real part of the portfolio.” Or as Davis Polk’s chair, Neil Barr, told me in an interview, “Ownership of these assets is shifting from a vanity or hobby model into a true investment model, involving tremendous amounts of capital.”

More capital chasing scarce assets has led to a predictable result: vastly higher valuations. And Davis Polk has handled several of these landmark transactions—including the $10 billion Lakers deal, which set a record for biggest NBA sale, and the $6 billion Washington Commanders sale, which set the NFL record.

“After the Commanders deal in 2023, we looked around and realized that we do have credentials here,” Barr said. “By that point, we had done two of the biggest deals in the history of sports”—referring to the Commanders sale and the $2.4 billion acquisition of the New York Mets, which set an MLB record in 2020.

“So we started exploring the idea of doing something more committed in the space, but didn’t take action at that time. When the opportunity to hire Jon presented itself earlier this year, though, it was one that we couldn’t pass up.”

“We’re now establishing a formalized sports practice, which Jon will lead. We plan to take advantage of this market opportunity to create a destination practice, handling the most significant transactional and non-transactional matters in the sports ecosystem.”

Turning to the broader dealmaking context, expanding its sports practice makes perfect sense in light of Davis Polk’s strategic plan.

“Our strategy has evolved from being focused on the public markets, such as securities offerings or syndicated debt, to embracing work involving private capital,” Barr explained. “For a number of reasons, including non-correlated returns and longer time horizons, sports assets are increasingly attractive to private capital. And so building out a destination sports practice fits well into our broader strategy as a firm.”

Developments like this make me wonder: Are the days of the “sports bar”—a small group of firms with specialized sports expertise, distinct from top transactional firms more generally—numbered?

It’s too early to tell. And certainly Proskauer, home of heavyweights such as Joe Leccese and Wayne Katz, still has a deep bench of sports-law talent. But there’s no denying that Big Law’s biggest names are lacing up their cleats and stepping onto the field.

“The top law firms are increasingly focused on sports,” Oram observed. “And they’re making the investments needed to achieve industry leadership, just as they have dominated so many other practices.”

David Lat, a lawyer turned writer, publishes Original Jurisdiction. He founded Above the Law and Underneath Their Robes, and is author of the novel “Supreme Ambitions.”

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