To understand what kinds of legal issues would be happened in the sports industry, I watched two podcasts related to sports law. The first podcast is “The Future of Sports Dispute Resolution” provided by Pepperdine University, and another one is “Sports in Courts” provided by North Carolina State University. Both podcasts discussed about the potential disputes in the sports industry with some actual cases.
“The Future of Sports Dispute Resolution” discussed about disputes of the Olympic Games. According to the podcast, there are 4 different categories of issues would be raised; qualification issue, nationality issue, issue on the field of play, and doping dispute. For example, qualification issues would be happen before the Olympic Games. These issues are dealing with team selection. The Spain’s hockey team won the competition, and had been qualified to play at the Olympic Games once. However, after two players was founded the use of illegal doping, the team became disqualified to play at the Olympic Games because the number of players who are not allowed to use illegal doping exceeded the limit. The players filed the arbitration to prove that they are qualified to play at the Olympic Games. However their claim was thrown out.
In the “Sports in Courts” podcast, they expanded sports issues including the cases that are related to civil rights and the safety of the sports gear. Nike, Inc. was sued for infringing on civil rights of their employees in Malaysia. The plaintiff claimed that Nike was forcing their local employees at the factory in Malaysia to work for a long time shifting with very few wages. The plaintiff also mentioned that with that salary, the employees were able to use only $1.25 per day. $1.25 a day was not enough amount of money to live as a human in modern society in Malaysia.
As listed by the Future of Sports Dispute Resolution, we tend to think that legal issues in the sports industry come from the regulation of playing sports, the structure of the contest and the process of how to choose the right athletes or staffs to be qualified. However, we have to be careful with if we are infringing on other rights, such as civil rights, at the same time when we are operating the sports industry. In my business plan, I would hire some local staff in developing countries. Therefore, I have to research the average wage of the industry in those counties to avoid the similar issue with the Nike case. As well as, it would be better to research about other civil rights and human rights in those countries to prevent other potential issues.
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