E-SPORTS
The impressive rise of E-sports over the last 5 years have been more explosively on a worldwide basis than any other sport both from a commercial as well as a participation perspective. The term “E-Sports” covers all forms of computer games played on-line via the internet or LAN, and E-sports have in fact been able to attract many new players and fans, which were often not a part of the established sports world beforehand.
From a legal standpoint, E-Sports are also very different from other traditional sports, in the sense that E-sports are not (yet) organized the same way as for instance football or cycling. E-sports do not have one single federation that promulgates the applicable “rules of the game”, as well as the conditions for proper participation in tournaments, since each E-sport typically has its own rules, regulated through contracts and conditions set-out by the computer game producers and the individual tournaments organizers.
However, E-sports face the same legal challenges as other traditional sports. Topics such as questions of eligibility of players participation on new teams, protection of logos and IP-rights, enforcement of players contracts and conditions rules among various teams and tournaments are equally difficult, but less transparent and strictly regulated in these “early” stages of the sport.
Through my extensive authorship and teaching experiences from 25 years in sports law, I have a profound knowledge of sports-related labor law, competition law and intellectual property rights matters, which are equally essential for rendering competent advice within E-sports.