Intellectual Property Rights in Sports Management

This essay explores the role of intellectual property rights in sports management and the various instruments of sports intellectual property rights. It discusses trademarks, copyright law, patents, trade secrets, personality rights, merchandising, and ambush marketing in sports. It emphasizes the importance of protecting intellectual properties in sports management.

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1. Introduction
Popular sports like football, tennis, cricket, yachting, racing and so on have given rise
to so many important international events that has created in turn an immense fan following
around the globe. This has in turn created high marketing potential for organisers of the
sports events. Popular organisers and association pertaining to various sports like NBA, PGA,
FIFA, IPL and so on have developed a mannerism that is able to create as well as extract
highest value form other agencies who are likely most interested in exploitation of the
marketing potential from the high rated sports events.
Thesis statement: This essay aims at exploring the intellectual property rights that are
heavily in context with the sports and sports business management and ascertain the role
of the various instruments of the sports intellectual property rights.
2. Discussion
There are innumerable sports clubs which can turn out to be the perfect example of
intellectual properties brand capitalisation. Hence, it is very important that trademarks re
given prominence in order to safeguard the commercial interests of the company. The best
way to achieve that is registration of the trademark under the Trademarks Act, 1999 (Leyshon
et al. 2016). Any proprietor can register various categories of goods as well as services in
context of which the trademark is being used. An evidence can be provided here. The
franchise of the Adelaide Cricket Club, other than running a cricket team in the country is
also indulged in the selling of the t-shirts, caps as well as other equipment.
In case if any context of trademark infringement occurs, criminal as well as civil
remedies can be implemented under the Trademarking act of the respective country.
Next in importance is the Copyright Law under which the protection of the ideas is done.
This law allows the owner to copyright the other reproducing or selling the works created by

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the authentic users (Parr 2018). Specifically the materials that come under the protection of
the copyright are artwork that is there in the logos, literature in promotional works, computer
software as well as the online games that are being developed in the colours of the team that
is copyrighting the game. However, it is evident that in the current times, infringement as
well as piracy of the copyrighted materials are occurring more frequently. Hence it has
become all the more important for the owners of the copyright to police their portfolio of
copyright. The Copyright Act of 1957 can provide remedy against the copyright
infringements (Torti 2015). The likes of the remedies include injunction as well as
prohibition of the orders, claiming damages, seizure as well as destruction of the infringed
materials and so on.
Another instrument of protection are the patents. Patients are not only applicable on
the product but they are also accredited for the processing of the achievement of the result.
There are a various sports methods for which patent is sought for. Patent protection is
nowadays sought for a number of innovative things like the methods in which golf balls are
shot, policies and processes of fitness training, procedures of training of the baseball pitches,
procedures of swimming training and so on. Generally the patent is being issued for the 20
years at least in most parts of the world. The Patent act of 1970s provides civil as well as
criminal remedies against the cases of infringement of the patented rights of the owners.
However a recently emerging in importance instrument is the Trade Secret. This
might be considered as a process or pattern for the compiling information that is hard to
acquire and by means of which the business owners can obtain a competitive edge over their
peers and the competitors. On many instances it have been recorded that leakage of
confidential business information have occurred and the team members of a certain agency
have themselves been involved with the act of leaking the information (Klein and Wueller
2015). In the American NBA a glowing evidence in this context, is evident. In the year 2008,

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Brett Favre signed for the New York Jets. In the same year he was alleged to call the Detroit
Lions in order to leak some of the schemes that was perceived to have been used by the
Green Bay Packers, his former club. However, when the court was approached by the
plaintiff, the judgement provided that he had definitely violated the Law of Trade Secrets.
However, in Australia there is no definite term for the protection of the trade secrets. The
secret is considered to be violated only when the proprietor claims it to be violated and
infiltrated.
In alignment to the above mentioned rights, another fulfilling rights that makes sports
gods, service as well as assets an intellectual property are the Personality Rights. This right is
also directly associated with the process of a brand creation of the individual sports
personalities or the sports franchises. Based on the capitalisation of the brand fame that is
being achieved by the sports personalities they bag in a certain and subtle image of fame that
paves the way for brand endorsement as well as revenue generation. Today most of the sports
personalities protect their brand fame by means of trademarking under the Trademark Law of
their respective council or countries. Trademarks against individual names have been issued
by some of the famous footballers like Alan Shearer, David Beckham as well as others have
claimed a trademark against their name. Another eminent example can be provided here.
Sachin Tendulkar, the famous sports personality had also registered his name under the
Trademark act 1999 of India. Mere linkage with the team name or the logo of that team
player is enough for giving unprecedented advantage to the personality or the agency who is
making use of the brand name that is trademarked (Menell 2016). Often there is the benefit of
an acute financial or business interest linked with the usage of any name that is trademarked.
The importance of merchandising and licensing is also huge in terms of declaring any asset as
an intellectual property. Nowadays most of the sports clubs are coming up with their own

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merchandise that are very innovative and attractive. Most common as well as popular
merchandising are in the form of mugs, shoes, toys as well as bobble heads.
In context of sporting domain names are also of significant value. During any sports
event, emission of important information or the broadcasting of that event including a portal
for online gaming that is a dummy of the popular sports event occurs through a certain
website domain by any sports association only. In a similar way many of the sports clubs
have their personal website through which they endorse a lot of activities (Edelman 2015).
The last instrument that is emphatically in vogue for intellectual properties in Australian
Sports Industry is ambush marketing. This refers to the attempt of any sports company to
capitulate over the popularity of any well-famous property without prior consent or legal
authorisation of the concerned entities. Evidences of such ambush marketing can date back to
1984 when Kodak did the sponsorship of the TV broadcast of the games as well as the track
team of the US in spite of that fact that Fuji film had been the title sponsor.
Sportsmen as well as sports development and management committees are today
looked up on as a most respectful business opportunity. Outside the domain of sports, the
sports personalities as well as the sports associations indulge in to advertisements and other
important activities like branding, sponsorship, merchandising and similar other activities
(Menell, Lemley and Merges 2016).
Once the fame and personality of the sportsters and the sports franchise are enacted
for commercialisation, the need to be protected as intellectual properties. Team names like
Manchester United, PSG or Royal Challengers as well as the events such as Olympics or the
US Opens with their famous taglines, logos are holding high value in the commercial domain
and these factors are significant aspects of branding as well as merchandising and this is the
reason why their legal protection is very necessary. As Torremans (2016), opines, it is highly

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important for the prevention of the infringement of the third parties. On the contrary, Mendis,
Secchi and Reeves (2015) associates much more value to the broadcasting rights,
sponsorships, other important revenue streams, licensing as well as involving various legal
requirements for safeguarding the rights.
As discussed by Raustiala and Sprigman (2016), the various IP which are part of the
sports domain providing spectacular scope of action in the context of business that might
involve some interesting legal face-offs. The first distinct IP is trademark. TMs are generally
applicable over the forms of logos, taglines or the captions. They indication the source of
origination of any product or any brand. Trademarks, as Amadi (2017), opines, are highly
associated with the network of sports. Again, as Douglas (2017) opines, trademarking assist
in brand development. Along with being an emblem of identification, they also help in
fostering the brand value when applicable to the merchandises, sponsorships and so on.
Advertisement revenues as well as
3. Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that commercialisation in sports have taken place at
such random rate that the associated clubs is on the fight not only in the field but off the field
also for the purpose of making large profits. That is why most sports franchises have been
observed to invest as well as exploit from their intellectual property and enter in to other
business domains like merchandising, branding, signature customised gaming and so on.
The IP repertoire of any sports company should grow with the increment of the
business operations and the significance as well as the value of the repertoire develops in
popularity as well as success with that of the teams as well as the players. Since most
existing business models on commercialization of sports are largely based on IP
wealth of sports clubs, it is important to nurture such intellectual properties through

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activities such as regular IP audits and valuation, adequate protection and
maintenance of IP portfolio. These investments, when made with right strategies, are bound
to return in multi folds.

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Reference List
Amadi, U.J., 2017. Intellectual property rights in sports: A trick or two Nigeria can learn
from the global game. African Sports Law and Business Bulletin, (1), p.14.
Douglas, N., 2017. Mechanical Timepieces & Intellectual Property Protection. Pace Intell.
Prop. Sports & Ent. LF, 8, p.29.
Edelman, M., 2015. From Meerkat to Periscope: Does intellectual property law prohibit the
live streaming of commercial sporting events. Colum. JL & Arts, 39, p.469.
Klein, D. and Wueller, J., 2015. Intellectual Property Concerns for Sponsors of Promotional
Contests and Sweepstakes.
Leyshon, A., Thrift, N., Crewe, L., French, S. and Webb, P., 2016. Leveraging affect:
Mobilising enthusiasm and the co-production of the musical economy. The production and
consumption of music in the digital age. London: Routledge, pp.248-62.
Mendis, D., Secchi, D. and Reeves, P., 2015. A Legal and Empirical Study into the
Intellectual Property Implications of 3D Printing.
Menell, P.S., 2016. Property, Intellectual Property, and Social Justice: Mapping the Next
Frontier. In Brigham-Kanner Prop. Rts. Conf. J. (Vol. 5, p. 147).
Menell, P.S., Lemley, M.A. and Merges, R.P., 2016. Intellectual Property in the New
Technological Age: 2016-Chapters 1 and 2.
Parr, R.L., 2018. Intellectual property: valuation, exploitation, and infringement damages.
John Wiley & Sons.
Raustiala, K. and Sprigman, C.J., 2016. When are IP rights necessary? Evidence from
innovation in IP's negative space.
Torremans, P., 2016. Holyoak and Torremans intellectual property law. Oxford University
Press.

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Torti, V., 2015. Intellectual Property Rights and Competition in Standard Setting: Objectives
and Tensions. Routledge.