Judge nixes Nike's attempt to close the courtroom as key details are discussed in lawsuit filed by former NFL player Odell Beckham Jr.

• Odell Beckham Jr. sued Nike in November, alleging breach of contract.
• A Nike lawyer asked the judge to close the courtroom during a Tuesday hearing in the case.

Nike paid Odell Beckham Jr. millions of dollars before the business relationship between the sportswear giant and former NFL star soured.

How much? Nike doesn't want that kind of information known.

A lawyer for the company on Tuesday took the extraordinary step of asking a judge to have a Portland, Oregon, courtroom closed to an Insider reporter covering a hearing in a lawsuit between the two parties. The request was the latest effort by Nike to limit access to legal proceedings against the company.

Insider, the Oregonian and the Portland Business Journal prevailed last year in a challenge to Nike's efforts to seal parts of a sweeping gender discrimination lawsuit. In 2018, the Portland Business Journal prevailed in an effort to have parts of a lawsuit against Nike's board of directors unsealed. In both cases, Nike argued the proceedings risked exposing trade secrets. The company is aggressively working to protect its intellectual property.

On Tuesday, attorney Maurice Suh, who represents Nike, tried the argument again, telling Multnomah County Judge Katharine von Ter Stegge that the "breadth of the confidentiality provisions" in Beckham's contract merited closing the courtroom to anyone not representing Nike or Beckham, noting the presence of a journalist in the courtroom.

(This report's author, Matthew Kish, was the only person in the courtroom aside from court staff and representatives for Nike and Beckham.)

Von Ter Stegge, who entered the courtroom with a quip about "so many lawyers," (at least eight) declined the request, which appeared to have been made without consulting Beckham's attorneys.

"In Oregon, matters which are heard in open court are constitutionally open to any member of the public…to observe, note and report," Jack Orchard, a lawyer who has represented the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, said in an email to Insider. "The judge's ruling was correct."

Orchard is a cofounder of the Portland law firm Ball Janik.

"We applaud the judge's correct decision to not have a reporter removed from a public courtroom during a public hearing," Jennifer Nelson, a senior staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Insider in a statement. "Such a request is antithetical to the First Amendment right of access to court proceedings that's essential to promoting transparency and trust in our judicial system."

Beckham sued Nike in November, alleging the company breached his endorsement contract. The lawsuit includes a financial summary of his most recent Nike contract.

Tuesday's hearing was about Nike's motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Nike disputes Beckham's claims. And it objected to the disclosure of financial terms in the lawsuit, noting in a subsequent request to seal parts of the lawsuit that the information is "highly confidential."

Nike is the industry leader, so terms of its endorsement deals are extremely valuable to competitors trying to poach Nike athletes.

But that shouldn't be enough to bar a reporter from the courtroom, Nelson said.

"The existence of a protective order or 'confidentiality provisions' should not preclude a journalist from reporting on court proceedings, and certainly is not a compelling enough reason on its own for a journalist to be removed from a public hearing at the request of the defendant," she wrote.

After the judge declined Nike's request to close the courtroom, attorneys for Nike and Beckham argued for roughly 90 minutes about the motion to dismiss.

The arguments did not appear hampered by the presence of a journalist in the courtroom, although at one point Suh and the judge referred to the "really big numbers" in the lawsuit instead of providing exact financial terms.

In the lawsuit, Beckham claims damages of $20.6 million. Nike alleges that Beckham breached his contract and that it's owed "no less than $12.3 million."

Broadly, Suh argued that Beckham breached the contract by, among other things, wearing custom Nike cleats that weren't available for purchase. He also argued Beckham already signed a legal release that prohibited him from even bringing the lawsuit.

"Nike didn't breach," Suh said. "(Beckham has) breached on multiple occasions."

Beckham's attorneys have pointed out that Beckham wore a pair of customized Nike cleats after he was traded from the Cleveland Browns to the Los Angeles Rams because Nike did not provide him with authorized cleats in his new team's colors.

"Mr. Beckham personally undertook to obtain customized Nike cleats that would not clash with the Rams uniforms," his attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. "These custom cleats retained all Nike marks. Fashion coverage of the cleats was extremely positive and drove traffic to Nike."

After the hearing, Suh and an attorney for Beckham declined to comment on the request to close the courtroom, but Suh added, "Although I do enjoy your publication."

Nike did not return an email seeking comment.

The judge said she expects to rule on the motion in two weeks.