Sports and the Law: The Rise of E-sports and the Application of Commercial Law

This article discusses the rise of E-sports and the legal issues surrounding it, including the application of commercial law. It also explores the development of sports law in Australia and the role of the Australian Sports Commission. The article concludes with a discussion on the potential normalization of gambling in E-sports and the need for regulation.

Running head: SPORTS AND THE LAW
Sports and the Law
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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With the rise of E-sports, Sport and the Law is more than ever a study in applied
commercial law
Introduction
The term E-sports are treated be as a competitive video game in an organized form.
The purpose of E-sports is that video game where the competition of players involves, either
individually or in teams against the other players in any kind of a particular video game.
Hence, the growing popularity of E-sports is because of the technological advances that take
place recently. It has helped in enabling more strategic and complex games to evolve it with
the help of the digital streaming platforms. The governance of e-sports raises a few
significant legal issues and concept. There are sports, which are considered to be traditional
and others are treated to be unique that reflect the high rate of development of the unique
characters of the e-sports games. The proposition commercial law can be applied in sports.
Therefore, the governance of any sport or competition is considered to be significant. The
governance of e-sports is still in the infancy. There was not a single governing body that can
take care of all the existing sports (Child, 2015). Hence, it can be stated that the rules,
regulations and events depend on the nature of the type of sport.
Role of Commercial Law on Sports Law
Over the years, there has been an increase in the sports club. The stocks of the team
were traded publicly in the major stock exchanges around the world. This is due to the fact
that sports in not formally recognized as an economic sector in Australia. The data therefore
estimates the contribution. It can be stated that the data is beyond the contribution of sport as
a sector to the economy of the country. The economy has therefore increased over the years.
It has been observed that the business of sport is riddled with the unfair practices that can be
infringed under the Commercial law. The country’s competition and commercial commission

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has announced that if any kind of investigation takes place it will be prosecuting the agents of
video games and their companies. The association of football can help in fixing the prices and
other trading conditions. As provided, sport and law is more than ever a study in the applied
commercial law. Therefore, the application of commercial can be done based on the known
sports, players and agents involved in it. The practice of the agents who fix the price must be
paid when the coaches and players change their clubs. The commercial law can also be
applied in cases when the coaches and players renew the deals of corporate sponsorship.
Based on a few relevant sections, the sports laws work accordingly. With the help of sports,
commercial value can be created and preserved. It is noteworthy to remember here that the
purpose and intention of sponsorship is to alter the attitude of the consumers for a particular
sport or brand of the company as per the Commercial Law. There have been threats against
the agents of football and it is considered to be important since it brings sport in line with the
standard rules of business. Thereafter, it realizes the essential and significant role that is
played by sports in the economy. Commercial law is to sport helps in promoting fairness and
professionalism and economic development. Over the years, it has been observed that plenty
of sporting activities have been subjected to the scrutiny of the commercial law. The initial
category is to include the disputes that are related to the execution of contracts as per the
Commercial Law. The contracts are linked to sponsorship, staging of sports rights, player
transfers and staging of sports events between the coaches and the players. Commercial law
also helps in over-viewing the contracts of employment and agency. In relation to sports,
Commercial law also deals with the disputes that relate to the civil liability and issues
governing these under this category. These issues as mentioned states an accident to an
athlete during a sports competition. For governing the commercial disputes, the CAS acts a
court of sole instance and handles them. To govern the activities and disputes of sports, the

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Court set up applies the commercial law and takes the decision in resolving them
(Bartkowiak-Théron & Asquith, 2017).
Development of Sports Law in Australia
In Australia, the Australian Sports Commission Act, 1989 was enacted to determine
the Australian Sports Commission and the purposes related to it. A statutory body or
authority is set up by the Australian Government, which is governed by the board of
commissioners. The Minister of sport usually appoints the commissioners for the sport. They
are however, responsible for allocating the funds that have been prescribed in the Australian
Sports Commission Act 1989. The attempt of ASC is to promote and provide an effective
national sports system that offers an improved participation in the quality sports by all the
Australians. The ASC therefore works with a range of the national sporting organizations
including local, state, governments, community organizations and schools for ensuring that
the sport runs well and is accessible. The policy of national sports is implemented by the
ASC that governs the three divisions (Whaley & McJohn, 2016). The three division sports
include the community sport, sport performance and development and lastly Australian
Institute of Sport. The relevant rule of commercial law is majorly applied while dealing with
sports in Australia. The purpose of the Australian Sports Foundation is to raise money for the
development of sports in Australia. The Australian Institute of Sports (AIS) is regarded as the
most popular division of the AIS. It tends to offer more than 700 scholarships to all to all the
athletes that cross the level of 35 programs in 26 different sports. Thereafter, this institute
also helps in offering the athletes to access for expert coaching, services of sports medicine,
world leading sports science and opportunities for work and travel. The Sport Performance
and Development division helps in supporting the improvement of the Australian sport from
the low level to the level of high performance (Moses, 2017). The performance provides
national sporting organization by the access to advice and resources including education,

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development advice and funding. However, the legal concern for e-sports does not stop the
issue of gambling. Thus, there are varieties of new issues that come up without proper legal
guidance and hence it can form problems for sponsors, fans and players. Therefore, with the
help of commercial law, the disputes related to the video games and other e-sports are
resolved. The contracts formed concerns the players that are obligated to enter into the
contracts with these sponsors and teams. The contracts formed therefore contain the terms
and non-compete clauses, specifications and the revenue terms. The agreements related to
sports are entered into privately and individually (O’Leary, 2017). If it lacks the involvement
of legal sophistication, it refers to a situation where the parties of the contract may not be
appropriately protecting themselves.
Proposition of the rise of E-sports
The goal and purpose of World e-sports Association was to bring together the
professionals from all over the world. The constituents of player representation, revenue
shares for the teams. For gaming and other online games, there must be a cyber security.
Therefore, it has been observed that all things in the internet, cyber security is considered a
major issue for e-sports. The hackers can attack the leagues. If the hackers are involved, the
source of attack was not identified. Since the interest and money in e-sports is growing
gradually, the number of nefarious hackers that can try to raid the e-spots servers for their
own personal gain. The concept of e-sports has increased over the years in the family of
online gaming (Weatherill, 2017). The industry of e-sports has been developing at an
increased rate where new players and fans take part in the tournaments and hence the leagues
grow in value and size. The industry has expanded and brought new participants and fans.
However, on the other hand it should have knowledge of the legal concerns. The legal
sophistication among the players, fans and sponsors have matured and developed. Along with
video games, gambling and betting is also considered aspects of e-sports. The courts and the

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regulators that real money betting on e-sports is not legal in Australia state it clearly.
Gambling is therefore prohibited in such a situation (Whish & Bailey, 2015). Commercial
law has an effect on the online video games and other online available and existing ones. The
first and foremost factor of e-sports is people. Individuals have engaged themselves into
activities that involve the use of internet (Szyszczak, 2018). E-sports can only be feasible if it
includes the association of the internet. Thereafter, technology has facilitated the growth of e-
sports but it is due to those who are playing video games and spends money on the things that
are related to the video games (James, 2017). Hence, this is the reason why e-sports is having
an enormous growth in the industry of games. Due to the technological advancement there
have been improvements in the sphere of video games and e-sports. Generally, e-sports have
a younger audience and its interest align with those who are engaged with the young interests
and video games. However, the growth has increased in the business due to the viewer and
fans. Therefore, gaming had developed in Australia over the years and helped in the business.
After the development, if any kind of dispute arises, then the rule of commercial law will be
applicable in such scenarios (Merrilees, 2015). Over the years, competitive gaming had
caught the attention of plenty of hosting large multiplayer competitions along with the
attendance levels in thousands. The role of law of the interlinking legal issues can be
involved potentially in sport. It can be stated that there are other areas that needs to be
checked. The software cheats, applications and server attacks are available. Software cheats
in majority numbers are said to be the external tools. Over the years and technological
advancements, the cheats have become more faster and accurate since the technology has
developed (Spengler, Anderson & Connaughton, 2016). The major difficulty was the process
of convincing the police so that the cheat cannot be detected. However, along with the
hacking methods and processes there are anti-cheat software that can be accessed for
recognizing the source code of cheat software. On the other hand, technology is also

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developing that helps in tracking the movements of the player’s mouse and keyboard to make
sure that the movements reflect what is being played on the screen. Few of the competition
organizers seek the extreme measures that requires professional players for maintaining the
unopened equipment to make sure that the cheat software cannot be installed prior to the start
of the competition (Seo & Jung, 2016).
Conclusion
The online technology had used e-sports that had the authority to enable the games,
teams, players and leagues for gaining the popularity and other kinds of interaction (Stein,
2015). In the e-sports industry, the state of play included the game owners, players, managers
and event organizers. The nature of e-sports forms the operational and legal challenges and
hence the participants in the growing industry for making sure that the activities are regulated
equally. Given the number of young people who compete and watch esports, there are
concerns around the normalisation of gambling and the role video games may play in
conditioning young people to become more frequent gamblers. In particular, “skins betting”,
where certain video games allow players to make in-game purchases for virtual items such as
skins, or digital designs, introduces young persons to softer forms of betting and gambling.
Secondary markets have arisen in the trading of skins with a real market value attributed to
the skins, which in turn allows them to be used as currency to bet on e-sports. However, for
the rise in e-sports, law and sports is more than ever where the commercial law can be
applied.

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