In this week’s column, California Sports Lawyer® CEO and Managing Attorney Jeremy M. Evans examines how athlete health data can create contract leverage and raise risks involving privacy, compensation, and control.

Athlete health data, combined with artificial intelligence and technology, can make sports more engaging for fans, support injury prevention, and create excitement. The same information, if inaccurate or misinterpreted, could lead to unnecessary underuse of an athlete and potentially harm contract negotiations.

You can read the full column below. (Past columns can be found, here).

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During last week’s "The Future of Sports AI: Building Toward LA28" panel at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s LA Tech Week event, this author spoke about the growing value of athlete performance and health data. The question goes beyond who owns the information to who can collect it, access it, and use it to make decisions. A wearable that helps an athlete improve training or recovery could also generate information that influences contract negotiations, affects a potential trade, or helps develop a commercial AI product. Those different uses create opportunities for athletes, teams, brands, and technology companies, but they also raise questions about permission, compensation, accuracy, and accountability.

Athlete health data can reveal patterns in workload, recovery, and movement, but an AI-generated injury prediction is not a diagnosis or a guarantee of future availability. Research demonstrates the importance of validating predictive models in independent athlete populations before relying on them clinically. Legally, HIPAA, California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, and the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA can govern different parts of the collection, protection, and disclosure of health information, depending on the organization and records involved; HIPAA does not automatically cover every wearable or team-held employment record. The ADA and California’s FEHA also constrain medical inquiries and discriminatory employment decisions.

Under the NBA–NBPA collective bargaining agreement, physical examinations can be conditions of a player contract, and relevant medical information may be shared through authorized processes connected to a contemplated trade. Article XXII, Section 13 prohibits teams from using data collected from wearables worn at their request in future contract negotiations, trades, or waivers. The agreement also provides player access and restricts public disclosure and commercialization of that wearable data. Those protections do not eliminate the possibility of leaks: federal investigators documented unauthorized access to an NFL player’s records at Jackson Health System after a photograph of his medical information appeared in the media in 2015. That incident illustrates why permission to obtain medical information must be accompanied by controls over who can access it and what they can do with it.

Medical evaluations can also change the terms of a deal. In 2017, Cleveland’s concerns about Isaiah Thomas’s hip following a physical put its trade with Boston for Kyrie Irving in doubt. The teams completed the trade after Boston added a second-round draft pick. The episode shows how medical information can affect an athlete’s perceived value and the parties’ negotiating positions. Incomplete disclosure creates a separate risk by preventing a trading partner from properly evaluating a deal. The objective must be accurate information shared with authorized recipients for permitted purposes.

Different sports manage athlete information through different combinations of rules, agreements, and privacy protections. The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement restricts using specified team-requested wearable data in contract negotiations, while MLB’s agreement makes wearable use voluntary and restricts disclosure and commercial exploitation. The NFLPA’s WHOOP partnership emphasizes player ownership and opportunities to commercialize health data. In individual sports, the ATP’s wearable program promises confidentiality, while the PGA TOUR’s WHOOP partnership includes selected biometric information in broadcasts. College athletics adds another layer: the NCAA recommends written performance technology policies, while school-maintained student health records may fall under FERPA rather than HIPAA. Permission to collect information for training or research should not be assumed to include permission to commercialize it.

The contract should first identify what is being licensed and for how long. Original measurements, medical records, performance analysis, injury predictions, and products developed from the information should be addressed separately. An agreement should specify whether the permitted purpose is training, treatment, research, broadcasting, sponsorship, or AI model development, along with who can access the information and whether it can be sublicensed. The collection period, license term, and retention period may differ. Compensation, exclusivity, security, access, correction procedures, and responsibility for unauthorized disclosure also matter. The parties should address what happens when an athlete transfers, changes teams, retires, or ends the relationship, including whether existing predictions, trained models, or commercial products may continue to be used.

These agreements must also be considered together. A playing agreement, school authorization, sponsorship, brand or NIL agreement, technology subscription, and data license may involve the same information while granting different rights for different periods. The athlete, team or school, medical providers, and technology company should understand those differences before information is collected or shared. Where possible, the agreements should align permitted uses, access, confidentiality, retention, and termination obligations, with a clear process for resolving conflicts. Understanding the agreement does not excuse a prohibited use, and an individual agreement cannot simply override applicable law or collective bargaining restrictions. Each party should understand the value being exchanged and the limits on its use.

Athlete health data, combined with artificial intelligence and technology, can make sports more engaging for fans, support injury prevention, and create excitement. The same information, if inaccurate or misinterpreted, could lead to unnecessary underuse of an athlete and potentially harm contract negotiations. Medical reports cannot capture every aspect of an athlete’s determination, recovery, willpower, and ability to compete. Athlete health data can also become valuable information for sports betting, making unauthorized access and disclosure a concern. The NBA’s findings in the Jontay Porter case included his disclosure of confidential health information to someone he knew was an NBA bettor. That information should be protected as carefully as personal medical records and held as closely as bank account information. The rights to collect, use, and share athlete health data should also be clearly negotiated in the deal. It is that valuable commercially and medically.

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About Jeremy M. Evans:

Jeremy M. Evans is the CEO and Managing Attorney at California Sports Lawyer®, representing companies, creators, and talent in dealmaking matters across entertainment, media, sports, and intellectual property. An award-winning attorney and industry leader, Evans is based in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. He can be reached at Jeremy@CSLlegal.com. www.CSLlegal.com.

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