Regulating Sport: Finding a Role for the Law?

Abstract

How sport might be regulated in the future is a complex and complicated issue. This essay seeks to analyse, from a theoretical standpoint, the role of law in regulating sport in terms of both consumption and production of sport. It charts historical developments in boxing, football and cricket to examine this and hypothesizes as to potential future developments. In particular we analyse football in terms of consumptive issues and cricket in terms of participatory ones. We argue that both exhibit common characteristics in the relationship with law yet with a completely different structure, history, context and economy. Both are exhibiting characteristics of a global business eschewing national boundaries yet restricted by historical factors. It concludes that perhaps the law will have little role in the future landscape of sport in terms of consumption, but is likely to have significant impact in the commercial sphere.

Keywords: Regulating sport