Brooklyn Sports activities & Leisure Regulation Weblog

On Friday, November 11^th the Brooklyn Leisure and Sports activities Regulation Society and the Mental Property Regulation Affiliation hosted the second annual Brooklyn Regulation Faculty Sports activities Regulation Symposium. The symposium theme was “Sports activities Mental Property in a Time of Disruption” and had many college students, school, practitioners, household and mates in attendance. The occasion was an ideal success and BESLS and IPLA are already excited for subsequent yr!

The third panel of the day, “The Way forward for Sports activities Broadcasting,” offered perception into streaming providers, artistic improvement, and broadcast licensing. Anthony Iliakostas (Supervisor of ABC Information Rights and Clearances; Adjunct Professor at New York Regulation Faculty) moderated the panel and was joined by Michelle Torres (Senior Counsel at NBC Sports activities), Bretta Oluyede (Counsel at Youtube), and Laurie Curnes (Senior Director in ESPN’s company technique group).

The panel was kicked off with a common dialogue on the enterprise of sports activities content material licensing, and Anthony highlighted shopper frustrations with blackouts and geographical limitations. Regardless of the clear frustration and hurt to customers, the panelists articulated how such constraints are important for content material high quality and the business’s survival. With out blackouts, unique licenses, and geographical limitations, the networks and streaming providers wouldn’t have the ability to extract the mandatory promoting income to maintain producing and buying high-quality content material for customers.

Subsequent, the panelists mentioned the connection between sports activities leagues, manufacturing firms, and broadcast networks. Since leagues personal the copyright to important footage however lack the manufacturing and broadcasting capabilities, they want manufacturing and networks to additional their product. General, networks want the league’s mental property, and the leagues want the producer’s experience and the community’s content material outlet. This working, mutually helpful relationship is the behind-the-scenes to the various sports activities documentaries we’re seeing at this time.

Lastly, the panel concluded with a dialogue on the evolution of the sports activities broadcasting business. Whereas the business and content material licensing are nonetheless dominated by rights to recreation broadcasts (NFL Sunday, NBA on TNT, School Gameday, and many others.), there was a rise in various types of sports activities tv leisure. From Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” to HBO’s “Exhausting Knocks,” followers and networks usually are not simply searching for the video games being performed. Such distinctive broadcasts present leagues and groups with elevated income stemming from their mental property. Additional, networks and streaming providers now not must depend on dwell recreation rights as their sole sports activities content material. This evolving business has offered new types of enterprise for leagues, groups, networks and streaming providers, and new types of leisure for sports activities followers.

BESLS, IPLA, and everybody in attendance want to thank the panelists and moderator for an insightful dialog on the world of sports activities broadcasting.

Written by: Daniel Erber
Daniel is a 2023 J.D. Candidate at Brooklyn Regulation Faculty