Players On the Move

The United Soccer League (USL) hired Tampa, FL, attorney Andrew McIntosh as its executive vice president and general counsel, the USL announced. McIntosh moves to the USL from his position a business and transactions lawyer at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, where he served as of counsel and worked for nearly a dozen years on matters including corporate governance and shareholder disputes. McIntosh also served as a member of the firm’s international practice group and is a co-founder of Cross Border Partners Advisory Services, a Florida-based consulting group that helps companies expand to new international markets.
In a statement, McIntosh said the USL’s “rapid growth is bringing increased interest from international investors and raised expectations for strong corporate governance, and I look forward to providing support in these crucial areas,” McIntosh said. The Tampa-based league touts itself as the largest and fastest-growing professional soccer organization in the United States. Its rival is New York-based Major League Soccer, a men’s professional league with 29 teams. USL encompasses a half-dozen separate leagues and more than 200 clubs. These include a women’s pro league — USL Super League — and a national youth platform. The USL Championship has broadcast partnerships with CBS and ESPN. USL is sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation and Canadian Soccer Association. McIntosh will focus on compliance, governance and business transaction matters, the league said. Before joining Shumaker in 2013, McIntosh was a shareholder at Fowler White Boggs. Among the USL’s most recent legal battles is one involving the franchise owner of the Colorado Hailstorm, Jeff Katofsky, who sued the USL in California state court on allegations of fraud. The lawsuit alleges the USL failed to pay $100,000 in prize money for the Hailstorm’s victory in an intra-league tournament, BizWest reported. … Nashville-based entertainment law firm Keller Turner Andrews & Ghanem, PLLC has added three attorneys to the firm, making it what it said in a statement is the largest independent entertainment law office in Nashville. J. Rush Hicks joins the firm as of counsel. Hicks has practiced in entertainment in Nashville since 1983. He previously served as Chair of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University. Cheshire Rigler and Alyssa Johnson join Keller Turner as associates. They both previously worked at other entertainment law offices in Nashville and expand Keller Turner into patent law. Hicks, Rigler and Johnson join existing entertainment team partners Jordan Keller, Jason Turner and Sarah Smith, along with associates Meredith McGinnis and Matthew Jafari. Keller Turner, which opened in 2011, said it has represented clients in entertainment, real estate, corporate, tax and estate planning matters and worldwide endeavors. The firm also said it has closed “nearly one billion dollars in music catalog transactions in the past five years.” … The Saudia Arabia-backed LIV Golf League has named veteran sports and entertainment attorney John Ruzich as chief legal officer. The move comes as negotiations drag on between the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) and LIV to combine their operations into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity. The competing pro golf organizations shocked the sports and businesses worlds in June 2022 by announcing plans to merge. But the parties’ self-imposed deadline of reaching a “framework agreement” by the end of 2023 came and went. Ruzich joins LIV after serving 12 years as CLO at New York City-based Legends Hospitality, which is owned by affiliates of the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and provides food, beverage and entertainment services to event venues. At LIV, Ruzich will oversee all legal matters for the golf league and its 13 teams, including international operations and events. He will be based in New York and begin this month, LIV said in a statement. Ruzich replaces John Loffhagen, a London-based attorney who took the legal reins of LIV in May 2022 and quietly departed 13 months later, with no explanation from the league or Loffhagen on the reasons for his departure. The PGA is based in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL; LIV is based in Knutsford, England. The PGA has been widely criticized for joining up with LIV, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, given that nation’s history of human rights abuses, including the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi five years ago. In addition, legal observers have called a merger monopolistic and said they doubt one would pass muster with U.S. and European antitrust regulators. LIV Golf launched in October 2021, with golfing great Greg Norman as its CEO, and swiftly doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to poach some of the PGA’s top golfers, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau. LIV has struggled to connect with fans and sponsors, however. Its format involves 13 teams with four golfers playing 56 holes over three days with no minimum score required to continue play. In contrast, under the PGA format individuals compete against one another, playing 72 holes over four days. Golfers who score above the cutoff after two days are eliminated from play. Ruzich began his legal career with roles at World Wrestling Entertainment and the New Jersey Devils. He later was general counsel for eight years at Classic Media, which owned the rights to a trove of cartoon characters, a job tenure that culminated with the company’s sale to DreamWorks Animation for $155 million in 2012. LIV will begin its third official full season in February 2025. … Broadcasting and streaming giant iHeartMedia has dialed-up the pay for its legal chief and extended her contract through September 2026. General counsel and secretary Jordan Fasbender also gets a new title for her business card: executive vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary. Fasbender, who joined San Antonio-based iHeart in 2019 as deputy general counsel from 21st Century Fox (where she rose to senior vice president and associate general counsel) and became iHeart GC in 2021, earned $2.33 million in 2023, according to the company’s proxy statement released in April. Her salary rose to $725,000 from $700,000 in 2022, in part reflecting expanded responsibilities. Under terms of her new contract, Fasbender’s salary rises to $825,000 and will be cranked-up to $850,000 next October. Her target bonus potential was increased to 115% of annual salary from 110% currently. The company also said it expects to grant Fasbender an annual equity award with a target grant date fair value equal to $1 million. In 2023, Fasbender received a stock award of $852,049 and non-equity award of $751,169. Fasbender is the fourth-highest paid executive at iHeart known for its iHeartRadio app, iHeartPodcast, iHeartRadio Music Festival and iHeartRadio Music Awards. According to the company’s April proxy statement, Fasbender hit her targets in 2023, which included goals related to privacy, ESG and compliance. Fasbender’s legal team juggles a wide range of issues in geographically diverse markets such as government compliance, intellectual property and litigation. iHeartMedia has about 860 radio stations in 160 markets, but it has increasingly relied on growth from its digital audio group as radio station operators grapple with a decline in listeners and ad revenues.

— ALM reporters Chris O’Malley and James Palmer contributed to this report.