Michael J. Wall is of counsel and a business lawyer for Foley & Lardner LLP where he is a part of the Transactional & Securities Practice and the Sports & Entertainment Industry Team.
Before joining Foley, Michael served for 22 years on executive management teams of various businesses directly related to sports. For 13 years, Michael was the sole in-house counsel for the TD Garden and Boston Bruins, followed by nine years as General Counsel for Performance Sports Group, Ltd.—the former manufacturer of BAUER hockey, EASTON baseball, and CASCADE/MAVERIK lacrosse equipment and apparel.
Michael’s corporate law background includes public company corporate governance, M&A, litigation strategy, intellectual property procurement, management and enforcement, and consumer products regulatory compliance. Michael’s first-hand daily involvement in the sports and entertainment arena position him to counsel clients seeking to acquire or sell sports franchises; to finance, develop and construct sports and entertainment venues; and to negotiate the myriad agreements that are necessary to capture and preserve the revenue-generating opportunities ancillary to stadium and team operations.
Michael was executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary while at Performance Sports Group. In this role, Michael oversaw the company's initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange and helped grow the company from a single-sport $200 million company to a multi-sports enterprise with revenues in excess of $600 million. He also coordinated the adoption and implementation of a public company corporate governance program under U.S. and Canadian securities law, supervised eight business acquisitions between 2008 and 2016, and managed an IP portfolio inclusive of more than 800 patents, among other duties. Michael represented the company in its filing of voluntary petitions for protection under U.S. and Canadian bankruptcy law in order to facilitate a financial and corporate restructuring thorough a going-concern sale of the company’s assets and served as president of the bankruptcy estate following the closing of the sale.
Before joining Performance Sports Group, Michael served as chief legal officer for the Boston operations of Delaware North Companies, including the TD Garden, the Boston Bruins NHL franchise, and the concessionaires for the TD Garden, the Xfinity Center and Boston University's Agganis Arena. Serving in this role from 1995 through 2008, Michael counseled the executive management team of each entity on all legal aspects of their operations and business relationships.
