Kelly Crabb is a partner in the Media, Entertainment and Technology Group, resident in the firm’s Los Angeles office. His practice emphasizes clients with an entertainment, sports, and media focus and includes a mix of sophisticated and complex financing, production, and content work for substantial U.S., Asian, and European companies. His practice areas include motion pictures, television, Internet, video games, print publishing and other content production, financing, distribution and exhibition; music business contracts; commercial endorsements and advertising; live events (including Olympic Games and other international sporting events, concerts, and stage productions); content rights acquisition and licensing; corporate mergers and acquisitions and joint venture transactions; and matters related to the entertainment and music performance guilds. His book, The Movie Business, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2005, is regarded as a major work in the filmed entertainment community worldwide.
Mr. Crabb is well known in the Olympic Movement, having performed services related to four Olympic Games. He is currently working on projects for the Rio 2016 Olympic Committee and previously worked on the broadcasting agreement for the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (2012) and entertainment projects for the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee for the Winter Games of 2002. Mr. Crabb acted as international counsel to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee for the XXIX Olympiad in 2008. In one of the top sports news stories of 2004, Mr. Crabb successfully represented an Olympic gymnastics champion in connection with a dispute arising at the Athens Games before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, in Lausanne, Switzerland. In other sports-related work, he performed professional services for NBA China and Major League Baseball in China.
Mr. Crabb represents high-level motion picture and television producers (including Academy Award winning Gerald R. Molen, award-winning composer/producer, Patrick Leonard, and the creators of the successful Nickelodeon program, “Yo Gabba Gabba”). He is highly experienced and recognized in the arena of international entertainment and media, with high-level clients and cross-border deal experience in Japan, China, Korea, Russia, and Australia. Mr. Crabb has experience working with high profile personalities and cases. He has represented Paul McCartney, in connection a World Tour, and Dave Matthews, related to a management agreement. Mr. Crabb also negotiated the movie rights to the life story of Muhammad Ali and has done international work for basketball superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley. Mr. Crabb also handled the media rights for Elizabeth Smart, one of the major news events of 2003.
Mr. Crabb received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1984, where he was an editor of the Columbia Law Review from 1982-1984. He received his Master’s in Public Administration in 1973 and his undergraduate degree in 1971 from Brigham Young University. Mr. Crabb is a frequent lecturer on entertainment and sports law and a recognized author. Mr. Crabb was selected by the Los Angeles Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society as “Outstanding Lawyer of 2005.” In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 Super Lawyers Magazine named Mr. Crabb as one of Southern California’s “Super Lawyers” in the arts and entertainment practice. He is a member of both the California and New York state bars.
