Keeping His Eye on the Ball
As chief legal officer for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dan Malasky (’01) is focused on a safe NFL season.
Photos by Kyle Zedaker/ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Keeping His Eye on the Ball
As chief legal officer for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dan Malasky (’01) is focused on a safe NFL season.
Four months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Florida, Dan Malasky (’01), chief legal officer for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was thinking about the possibility of a work stoppage. Instead of worrying about a virus, he was preparing scenarios related to a potential labor dispute.
“During the collective bargaining negotiations between the NFL and the NFL Players’ Association, I spent a fair amount of time analyzing what would happen should games be lost or a season cancelled. That could impact a number of areas of our business—from sponsorships, concessions, merchandise, and ticket agreements to broadcast revenues and hosting community events,” he says.
While a new, 10-year collective bargaining agreement was reached, the pandemic soon sent Malasky back to scenario planning. The analyses for a possible strike and work stoppage from the virus were similar, except for one big factor: a significant public health risk.
“We shut down our AdventHealth Training Center before Florida’s Safer At Home order and worked extensively with government and medical leaders to evaluate how best to return to football at the appropriate time. As we looked at the prospect of reopening, the focus was on ensuring a return in a methodical, phased ‘crawl, walk, jog, run’ approach that mitigates risk to players, staff, officials, and, of course, our fans,” he says. “Extensive modifications have been implemented throughout our training facility and stadium since then, and we were thrilled to welcome Bucs fans back to Raymond James Stadium in October.”
When he is not in the midst of a possible labor dispute or pandemic, Malasky is “quarterbacking” the legal, human resources, and facility security teams for the Buccaneers. “This work involves every subject you could take in law school: IP, litigation, immigration, torts, licensing, workers compensation, antitrust, property, construction, corporations, employment, First Amendment—you name it.”
He also manages the contracts for just about every aspect of the game—except player agreements. “I wasn’t involved in signing Brady or Gronk, so my Boston friends cannot hold that against me,” he laughs, “but we will gladly welcome those fans into our Krewe.”
It took years of working as a lawyer in other sports to achieve his current position in the NFL.
“It’s difficult to break into the sports world, so when I was offered the position of general counsel for DIRT MotorSports a few years out of BU Law, I jumped at the opportunity,” he says. “That was one of the best decisions of my life, because it exposed me to the front line of sports and gave me in-house experience as we grew DIRT into the largest sanctioning body for dirt-track auto racing in this country.”
This work involves every subject you could take in law school: IP, litigation, immigration, torts, licensing, workers compensation, antitrust, property, construction, corporations, employment, First Amendment—you name it.
From auto racing, Malasky moved to the US Tennis Association (USTA), where he served as general counsel and managing director of business affairs for the USTA National Campus. As a leader in the organization’s professional tennis efforts, he oversaw the legal side of the US Open, the largest annually attended sporting event worldwide. He also helped facilitate the development of the largest tennis complex in the world in Lake Nona, outside of Orlando, which brought Malasky and his wife and two daughters to Florida, where he concurrently served as chair of the Central Florida Sports Commission (now the Greater Orlando Sports Commission).
In 2018, when a friend who is general counsel for another NFL team told him about the opportunity in Tampa Bay, Malasky was excited to make the leap from an individual sport to a team environment. More specifically, he was looking forward to working in football for the Buccaneers.
“I played football in high school and college and am privileged to work in the sport. Football has the unique ability to bring communities together during challenging times through collaboration and community spirit,” he explains. “This is my dream job. I am excited to follow my passion for this sport every day.”
