1 1 September 2003

News:

Breeders’ Cup Limited may ask the California Horse Racing Board to review a rule that prohibits jockeys from wearing advertisements on their pants during the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships on October 25 at Santa Anita Park, acccording to a report in the Thoroughbred Times.

The EU Competition Commission looks set to seek to reopen negotiations with the FA Premier League on the £1.025 billion sale of Premier League television rights to British Sky Broadcasting.

UK legislation to reform the gambling industry and to regulate online gambling will go before a Parliamentary Scrutiny committee in October which is expected to report back by April 2004.

Features:

The launch of World Sports Law Report comes at a challenging time for sports business. The growth of legal and regulatory activity in sport is one of the prices to be paid for its explosive commercial growth.

The increasingly cosmopolitan nature of Europe’s sporting personnel is raising issues concerning the regulation of movement for non-European players. The free movement rights of European nationals have been well debated and publicised in a sporting context following the Bosman decision. However, the rights of non-Europeans to access the European sporting labour markets are less well-defined. This article examines the interplay of sports regulation, international treaties and government regulation on the international transfer market.

Sports data is a vital product in the global sports industry. It varies considerably in substance and can be provided in many different forms. For example it includes the list of runners and riders provided before a horse race, “in running” scores in a golf tournament and news information and articles used on a sports website. In this article we look at how the laws relating to the use of data have affected the UK horse racing industry.

Traditionally, sports rights owners have exploited their position by selling all broadcasting rights in an event to one single exclusive broadcaster. The emergence of new technologies - and the pressure from regulators such as the European Commisssion -creates the opportunity for rights holders to obtain better value and exposure for their premium content, and their sponsors, by separating their rights into various packages, each tailored for the individual method of transmission. This article, the first of two, examines the differences between sports content and other types of content and some of the key legal issues to be considered when seeking to exploit these rights across different media platforms.

Whilst column inches were understandably devoted this summer to the multi-million pound battle for the services of the England football captain and to the extraordinary injection of cash into the top tier transfer market by Roman Abramovich, the picture below the top flight remains far from healthy. This article looks at the use of administration to deal with financial crises and the Football League’s new proposals for sanctions against clubs who take this route.

Eddie Jordan’s disastrous pursuit of Vodafone’s sponsorship dollars in the English High Court has lessons about the way to do business in sport these days. This article looks at a number of cases which have demonstrated the need for clarity in contractual negotiations.