Bringing experience as an attorney, sports agent and player representative, coach, publicist and manager of sports events at the national and international level in a wide variety of sports, Robert Boland, J.D. joined the full-time faculty a Tisch Center in 2003. He had served as an adjunct faculty member at the Center, since 2001. A 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials Competitor in Greco-Roman Wrestling, Boland earned his undergraduate degree in American History from Columbia University, where he lettered in varsity football and wrestling. He remained at Columbia after graduation, serving in a number of capacities including acting director of women’s sports information.  

He joined the athletic department at the University of Tennessee in 1990, as assistant director of athletic media relations working closely with the famed Lady Volunteer programs, while doing graduate work in sports broadcast management. He has also been active directing media relations at many SEC, NCAA and U.S. Olympic Committee championship events. He earned his law degree from Alabama’s Cumberland School of Law in 1995.

After serving as an assistant district attorney, confidential assistant to a trial judge and as special counsel in antitrust litigation, the most common sports law issue, at two large law firms in New York, Boland co-founded Global Athletic Management Enterprises (GAME) in 1998.  Since founding GAME, he has represented professional athletes in contract negotiations with teams in football, baseball, basketball and soccer as well as in endorsement contracts. He is certified by the National Football League Player’s Association as a contract advisor, is a member of the bars of New York and Georgia and has received several Best In Nation awards from the College Sports Information Directors of America.

He has published several articles on sports law topics.  Four of his columns on management issues have appeared in the Sports Business Journal in 2006-07.  In October of 2005, he spoke at the International Conference on Sports and Entertainment Businesses (ICSEB), hosted by the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina.  In June 2006, he spoke on Coaching Contractual issues at the Sports Lawyers Association annual meeting, the largest gathering of attorneys working in sports worldwide, in Toronto, Canada.  In October 2006 he spoke on coaching contractual issues at the annual Craig Kelly Sports Law Forum at the University of South Carolina and is the co-author, with Robert Lattinville, of a law review article, “Coaching in the National Football League: A Market Analysis,” which was published in January 2007 in the Marquette University Sports Law Journal. 

He frequently appears in the media as an expert on sports business and law issues.  Boland has appeared on Canada’s Business News Network (BNN) television on sports business topics.  He has offered editorial assistance to writers at and been quoted in: Reuters; The New York Times; Brandweek Magazine; Crain’s New York Business; The Orange County Register and the Fort Wayne News Sentinel.

He was the keynote speaker on salary and contract matters at the American Hockey Coaches Association annual convention in April 2004.  He also led a strategic management study for Hockey East, the nation’s leading collegiate hockey league in 2004, and for Radford University athletics in 2005 with Carr Sports Associates.  Professor Boland’s research interests and areas of expertise include sports law, contractual and antitrust issues, naturally, but also extend to collegiate conference realignment and collegiate athletic leadership; franchise structure, valuation and economics and the impact of broadcast media on sports, as well as the topical areas of stadium finance and economic impact. 

He currently teaches Introduction to Sports Management, Leadership, Sports Law and Sports Finance on the undergraduate level and Legal Issues in Sports Business and Economics and Finance of Sports Industry on the graduate level.  He has also taught Structures and Process of Sports Organizations, Revenue Management in Sports Business and Planning and Development of Major Sporting Events at NYU.  He was awarded NYU’s divisional Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006.  In 2007, he led the effort to successfully recruit Michael Cramer, former president and minority owner of the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers to NYU’s full-time faculty, making NYU the only sports business program in the nation to have a former chief operating officer and equity owner of, not one but, two major professional sports franchises on its full-time faculty.

Professor Boland is married to Semone Wagner, a proud University of South Carolina Gamecock graduate.  They reside in Manhattan, near the NYU campus, and in Charleston, SC, with their fierce orange cat, Spencer.