Records of the company managing the University of Colorado Boulder’s sports licensing and sponsorship agreements should be open for public inspection, the owner of a college sports news organization contends in a lawsuit filed last week.
Daniel Libit, who runs The Intercollegiate, sued the university in Boulder District Court over its position that emails and other records of Buffalo Sports Properties aren’t subject to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) because the university doesn’t make or maintain them.
Buffalo Sports Properties, according to a recent CU news release, “manages all broadcast operations and corporate partnerships for CU as part of the overall multimedia rights relationship between the company and the athletic department.”
Libit and his Illinois-based company, Scrutiny is Unity, note in the lawsuit that Buffalo Sports Properties and its parent company, Learfield, are required to make certain business and accounting records available to CU under an agreement with the university. Because CU, a public institution, is subject to CORA, “all records transmitted to or by (Buffalo Sports Properties) in conducting business for the University are imputed to the University, and therefore are public records subject to CORA,” the lawsuit argues.