Robert Freeman

Practice Areas

Robert E. Freeman is a partner in Proskauer's Corporate Department, co-head of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group and a member of the Sports Law Group.

Rob began his career as an antitrust and intellectual property litigator before transitioning to a corporate transactional attorney. For almost three decades, Rob has helped to structure and negotiate the transactions that shape the way consumers access and view content. As the co-head of Proskauer’s TMT group, Rob leads a team of attorneys focused on media, sports, entertainment and technology, representing clients such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Cox Communications, AMC Networks, The Big Ten Conference, The Big 12 Conference, TMRW Sports, ForgeLight, Minute Media, Ziff Davis, Hearst, Crown Media, Seminole Hard Rock Digital, FanDuel, and NFL Media, among many others. Rob’s work for these clients includes a broad array of corporate transactions ranging from the negotiation of complex media and sports rights and content distribution agreements, including over both traditional (e.g., cable, satellite, telco) and digital (e.g., Internet, wireless) platforms, to the creation of joint ventures, strategic alliances and complex commercial licensing arrangements, and industry-specific mergers and acquisitions (including carve-out transactions). Most recently, Rob also has advised multiple clients on first-of-their-kind transactions related to sports betting. In addition, as recognized by Chambers USA, Rob has extensive experience in sports and arts-related sponsorship, naming rights, licensing, endorsement and talent-related agreements.

Recent examples of Rob’s work include representing The Big Ten Conference and The Big 12 Conference in the negotiation of their media rights deals, TMRW Sports in the launch of the TGL, including team sales, a media rights deal with ESPN and naming rights deal with SoFi, ForgeLight LLC in its acquisition of a majority stake in Univision Holdings, Inc, the leading Hispanic media company in the U.S.; Discovery in its $2 billion+ contractual joint venture with the PGA Tour to form “GOLFTV” and subsequent acquisitions of Golf Digest and Golf Channel Latin America; Cox Communications in the negotiation of the largest content acquisition deal in Cox’s history with The Walt Disney Company, which included all of Disney’s cable networks, ABC’s broadcast stations, and the ESPN family of programming services; and The Stars Group in its groundbreaking partnership with FOX Sports, which included the launch of sports betting platform FOX Bet and an equity investment by FOX of over $240 million in The Stars Group.

Rob is a frequent lecturer on sports, media, intellectual property, licensing, emerging technology, digital rights and sponsorship issues and is the editor of Proskauer’s “Three Point Shot” sports e-newsletter. He is a longtime member of the Board of Directors of the T. Howard Foundation, whose mission is to increase diversity in the media and entertainment industries. Rob has also chaired the Golf Committee for the March of Dimes’ annual golf outing in the NYC area.