Regulatory Schemes and Legal Aspects of Sport Governance: Theoretical Perspectives and Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Sport governance has become one of the most prominent subjects in the field of sport management research. Nevertheless, a dearth of understanding and consensus still exists in terms of the paradigmatic orientation, conceptual classification, and taxonomy in the field, resulting in limited and vague theoretical contributions and practical implications of sport governance literature. This article is an attempt to explore the area of sport governance practice and research by focusing on the regulatory schemes and the legal aspects of the system. Pursuant to previous studies, a theoretical framework and elements of sport governance practice are identified, and as a result, a working definition of sport governance is proposed. The studies published in this special issue are introduced in the context of the conceptual framework and the identified elements while their implications are noted and possible inquiries for future research are suggested.

Keywords:

• Sport governance
• definition
• theoretical framework

1. Introduction

Although the concept of sport governance originated from the theoretical foundation of corporate governance, these two types of governance are distinguishable in multiple ways, including the unique contexts (Shilbury & Ferkins, 2019) and predominant managerial foci. Given the idiosyncrasy of the sports industry, Henry and Lee (2004) developed a framework that conceptualized three domains of sport governance: organizational, systematic, and political governance. In essence, the model identified different levels of sport governance system in terms of the dominant agenda, role and responsibilities of primary stakeholders, and environmental contexts. Although the authors’ work narrowly focused on the matters of business ethics, the approach provides a theoretical foundation to understand what sport governance practice is.

The first domain, organizational governance, is closely related to the traditional concept of corporate governance. According to Henry and Lee (2004, p. 24), organizational governance is mainly ‘concerned with normative … standards of managerial behaviour.’ The main question presented at this level of governance is whether an organization satisfies normative standards in its operation. The authors further provided seven principles that good governance needs to maintain: transparency, accountability, democracy, responsibility, equity, effectiveness, and efficiency. Agency and stewardship theories have provided prescriptive guidelines in this governance domain (Ansell & Torfing, 2016; Judge, 2009; Mason et al., 2006; Miller-Millesen, 2003). For instance, studies have found that various organizational contingencies, such as board structure, representativeness, leadership style, and delegation of authority, critically influence the effectiveness of governance practices (Ferkins & Shilbury, 2019; Jones et al., 2018). The focal unit of analysis and observation at this level is individual sport organizations (e.g. team, for-profit sport organization, non-profit entity, professional and amateur league).

The second domain is systemic governance, which relates to ‘the competition, collaboration, and mutual adjustment between organizations in business’ (Henry & Lee, 2004, p. 24). Presumably, this category deals with the most crucial and unique aspect of sport business. A sport league is a naturally formed cartel, which is designed to produce athletic contests based on coordinated efforts among competitors (Cho et al., 2021; NCAA v. Board of Regents, 1984). The industry includes two distinctive types of competition—namely, on-field and economic competition. Sport teams in a league fiercely compete in athletic competitions while collaborating to make those games available in the market. In fact, economic competition almost does not exist here compared to other industries. Rather, collaboration and mutual adjustment among competitors create the main driving force that creates the entertainment value at issue. Some collaboration and mutual adjustment are necessary to make athletic competitions happen (Surdam, 2010), such as rules, schedules, and how to determine champions, whereas other measures are intended to maintain a competitive balance (Humphreys & Miceli, 2020a, 2020b; Tainsky et al., 2016), such as revenue sharing (Peeters, 2012; Wenz, 2012) and restrictive labor practices (Depken, 1999; Fort, 2011). Given the multifaceted dynamics in the domain, systemic governance practices have been examined in terms of institutional theory (Babiak et al., 2018) and cartel theory (Eckard, 1998; Fleisher et al., 1992, 1988; Fort & Quirk, 1999).

The last domain is political governance, which mainly deals with external authorities such as formal rule of law. According to Henry and Lee (2004, p. 24), political governance ‘is concerned with how governments or governing bodies in sport “steer,” rather than directly control, the behaviour of organizations.’ One difference between systemic and political governance is the nature of the interrelationship between a focal organization and external entities. Systemic governance is about horizontal interactions—namely, competition, collaboration, and mutual adjustment. Thus, the relevant external entities in this domain would be other teams, corporate sponsors, or strategic partners. In contrast, the interorganizational relationship in political governance is vertical; it considers the hierarchical relationships between a focal sport organization and external authorities, such as national and international federations or government agencies. In fact, a sport organization is subject to a variety of external regulatory systems. Corporate law and tax codes establish legal foundations to form a sport organization as a business entity whereas competition law such as Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits unfair or deceptive business practices. One notable point in this top-level governance domain is the idea of steering rather than directly controlling. In most developed countries, national and local governments are generally reluctant to directly intervene in internal businesses of sport organizations unless their action may constitute illegal behavior (Jonson & Thorpe, 2019). Hence, external regulatory schemes consisting of statutes and court decisions somewhat passively circumscribe the outer limits of sport organizations’ action and policies. As a result, sport entities usually maintain a remarkable level of autonomy free from government intervention, which might be understood in terms of collaborative governance (Emerson et al., 2012; Shilbury et al., 2013).

Given Henry and Lee’s (2004) framework, this introductory article attempts to clarify the sphere of sport governance by exploring conceptual foundations and theoretical contexts of four articles published in this special issue. The next section identifies elements of sport governance based on different definitions provided by previous studies (Australian Sport Commission, 2012; Ferkins et al., 2005; Hoye & Cuskelly, 2007; Hums & Maclean, 2017; King, 2014; O’Boyle, 2012; Sawyer et al., 2008) in the context of Henry and Lee’s (2004) framework. A working definition of sport governance is proposed. The paper then characterizes the four studies pursuant to the identified elements and Henry and Lee’s model. The implications of the published studies are discussed, and possible future inquiries are suggested.

2. Elements of Sport Governance

The publication frequency of sport governance studies in the field of sport management research has grown exponentially over the past two decades (Dowling et al., 2018); however, a dearth of coherent conceptual clarification and comprehensive meta-analysis aimed at streamlining the relevant body of literature remains. Thus, the implications of sport governance studies have been discursive (Hoye & Doherty, 2011; Shilbury et al., 2013). A few exceptional attempts were Dowling et al.’s (2018) and Shilbury and Ferkins’ (2019) scoping analysis and topical mapping (Arskey & O’Malley, 2005; Inoue et al., 2015) that described general paradigmatic orientations and gaps in the body of literature. Although these studies delineated the overall landscape of sport governance research in terms of topical frequency, they did not provide a clear definition of sport governance practice.

As sport governance is a composite of macro-level managerial practices that encompass various business and socioeconomic contexts (Shilbury & Ferkins, 2019), studies have proposed multiple definitions of sport governance that may particularly address their specific research scopes and agenda. For instance, traditional governance studies that focused on structural aspects of governing boards and their functional effectiveness mostly relied upon narrower definitions. In contrast, recent studies based on multi-theoretical perspectives generally used broader meanings of sport governance. This lack of nomenclatural generality resulted in the previously mentioned paradigmatic disorientation and vagueness (Dowling et al., 2018; Ferkins & Shilbury, 2019). Given this problem, this section attempts to explore common elements of sport governance practice that have been articulated in previous governance studies in relation to Henry and Lee’s (2004) conceptual model. This paper proposes a working definition that hopefully encompasses diverse aspects of sport governance.

2.1. Sport Governance as Goal-Oriented Managerial Action

Slack and Parent (2006) defined sport governance as a systematic process that aims to achieve strategic objectives of organizations through monitoring, directing, managing, and controlling activities. Governance literature echoes this component (i.e. goal-oriented organizational process). For instance, Hoye and Cuskelly (2007) described sport governance as a controlling process consisting of goal setting, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback as follows: ‘the structure and process used by an organization to develop its strategic goals and direction, monitor its performance against these goals and ensure that its board acts in the best interests of the members’ (p. 9). The Australian Sport Commission (2012, p. 2) also emphasized this behavioral dimension by stating:

[g]overnance is the system by which organisations are directed and managed. It influences how the objectives of the organisation are set and achieved, spells out the rules and procedures for making organisational decisions, and determines the means of optimising and monitoring performance, including how risk is monitored and assessed.

As such, sport governance is a systematic process employed to achieve organizational goals through a variety of managerial actions. This element of sport governance is primarily related to the domains of organizational and systemic governance in Henry and Lee’s (2004) model. When an organization’s goal-oriented action mainly deals with intraorganizational matters, it is within the domain of organizational governance. On the other hand, if the same organization engages in coordinated efforts with competitors or partners to achieve common objectives, such concerted action belongs to the domain of systemic governance. For instance, since 1998, Major League Baseball (MLB) has launched a series of partnerships with minority or women-owned businesses as part of its Diverse Business Partner program to execute the league’s diversity, equity, and inclusiveness (DEI) initiatives (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, n.d.).

2.2. Sport Governance as an Exercise of Granted Power and Authority

As sport governance is a set of managerial actions, the system needs some level of power and authority under which policies and regulations are effectively formulated and enforced. Hums and Maclean (2017, p. 5) defined sport governance as ‘the exercise of power and authority in sport organizations, including policy making, to determine organizational mission, membership, eligibility, and regulatory power, within the organization’s appropriate local, national or international scope.’ Although the authors’ perspectives encompass multilevel components designed to lead sport organizations, one of the most prominent concepts highlighted in the definition might be ‘the exercise of power and authority.’ Here the power and authority need to be granted under appropriate regulatory schemes that establish the legitimacy of the whole governance system (Jonson & Thorpe, 2019). Accordingly, internal and external regulatory schemes and the formal rule of law in a jurisdiction provide the legal foundation that provides organizations with the power and authority to govern.

Sport organizations’ exercise of power and authority can be found in all three domains of sport governance within different contexts. When the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, suspended Tom Brady for four games after the 2014 season for his alleged involvement in ‘deflategate,’ the Commissioner’s decision was made at the organizational governance level. On the other hand, the Commissioner utilized his plenary power granted under the Article 46 of the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement against the NFL Players Association’s opposition to the sanction, which constitutes an act of systemic governance. Finally, when the NFL Commissioner’s Office had to respond to Brady’s lawsuit in the federal court based on the argument that the sanction against him was arbitrary and biased, the Commissioner’s strategic decisions in the litigation process interacted with the external dynamics of political governance—namely, the judicial system (NFL v. NFLPA, 2016).

2.3. Sport Governance as a System of Compliance with Regulations and Law

The Latin root of the term governing means ‘to steer’ (Jonson & Thorpe, 2019). Sport governance is an effort to ‘steer’ organizations (Henry & Lee, 2004) by complying with internal policies, external regulations, and formal rule of law that may prescribe acceptable business operations. Sawyer et al. (2008) stated that ‘[the internal] governance mechanism (e.g. formal documents, organizational structure) specifies how rights, authority, and responsibility are distributed among the participants in order to monitor performance and achieve goals’ (p. 11). Here the intraorganizational governance procedure is likely stipulated in internal regulatory schemes, such as bylaws and policies. On the other hand, Ferkins et al. (2005) pointed out that the compliance at issue is not only about the organizational level, but also beyond. The authors described a sport governance system as an ‘institutionalized component of all sports codes from club level to national bodies, government agencies, sport service organizations and professional teams around the world’ (p. 245). As such, the observance of internal policies, external regulatory systems, and formal rule of law is an essential element of governance practice, which ensures that sport organizations’ behavior is in line with normative standards of society and self-regulatory mechanisms such as a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

This element of governance might be observed in all three domains of Henry and Lee’s (2004) framework. Recently, Northwestern University fired coach Pat Fitzgerald after investigating multiple hazing allegations surfaced from the football program (Morrissey, 2023). The university’s investigation and the resulting decision are matters of organizational governance dictated by relevant institutional policies. When the same university deals with a group of other universities in the Big 10 Conference to come up with a new name, image, and likeness (NIL) legislation, such a concerted effort is in the domain of systemic governance. Finally, formal legal proceedings in a court or government agency may have significant impacts on the NCAA and its member institutions as the undercurrents of political governance. For instance, although ultimately not successful, the unionization process initiated by Northwestern University football players revealed how federal labor union law could change the entire landscape of collegiate sports (Northwestern University and CAPA, 2015).

2.4. Sport Governance as a System Open to Internal and External Dynamics

Traditionally, sport governance scholars have focused more on the internal process and mechanism in lights of organizational functionalism (Langas, 2023). According to O’Boyle (2012, p. 1), sport governance is ‘the process of granting power, verifying performance, managing, leading and/or administrating within an organization.’ An increasingly common view has recently emerged: Sport governance is an open system where internal and external forces interact and jointly influence the organization’s strategic and operational moves (Hums & Maclean, 2017). This more structural and interactive viewpoint is reflected in the distinction between political governance and administrative governance.

Political governance focuses on ‘how power is exercised, who has influence, who decides and who benefits from decisions and action.’ Administrative governance—where governance is fundamentally concerned with: setting the rules and procedures for making organizational decisions; facilitating effective, entrepreneurial and prudent management; determining the means of optimizing performance; ensuring statutory and fiduciary compliance; monitoring and assessing risk; and meetings ethical standards (King, 2014, p. 5).

In practice, sport governance is a managerial process to achieve organizational objectives in consideration of internal dynamics and external environments. This element of sport governance is observed at multiple junctures of the organizational–systemic governance, organizational–political, or systemic–political governance contexts.

When Northwestern University’s football players began their unionization process, the move quickly became a broader concern for the NCAA, meaning the unionization initiative at the institutional level immediately reached to the top-level governance structure due to the possibility of ground-breaking impacts on the NCAA’s amateurism model (Northwestern University and CAPA, 2015). From Northwestern University’s perspective, the whole situation was a critical moment when the unprecedented internal force (i.e. the unionization of student athletes) was intertwined with multifaceted external factors (e.g. peer institutions’ interests, the entire NCAA governance system, relevant public opinion, and other stakeholders such as corporate and community partners). Thus, the university had to prepare and perform a series of coordinated responses to the unionization process within and outside of the NCAA governance system (Strauss, 2015). The Northwestern University saga was a quintessential example of how a higher education institution could face and must deal with a critical legal challenge in the domains of organizational and systemic governance.

Occasionally, a serious transgression committed by a celebrity athlete, coach, or professional staff member may become a crisis management issue (Cho et al., 2021) in sport governance. Such an incident may result in a challenging situation for a sport organization because the external dynamics of political governance would directly intervene to correct the wrong. Although various vehicles of political governance, including formal rule of law, and the terms of CBA (when applicable) usually opt to ‘steer’ rather than directly control sport (Henry & Lee, 2004), an incident involving scandalous criminal charges would show a totally different path. For example, Michigan State University recently settled 332 civil claims against the university, filed by victims subjected to sexual assault by Larry Nasser, for approximately $500 million (Levenson, 2018). Penn State University has paid out approximately $118 million to victims of child molestation committed by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky (Ruland, 2019). This was the result of civil litigation, not a part of the organizational structure of the NCAA. In Sandusky’s case, several university administrators, including the former president and athletic director, also faced criminal charges for knowingly ignoring whistleblowers’ reports and further endangering the victims (Penn State Scandal Fast Facts, 2023). In fact, this is not unique in the area of sport governance as a principal might be sued for the action of its agents in any organizational settings.

In recent years, the interactive dynamics between systemic governance and political governance have become particularly notable as a series of antitrust lawsuits brought some seismic changes to the business side of intercollegiate athletics. In antitrust litigation, plaintiffs usually argue that defendants’ actions unreasonably restrain competition in a relevant market (see American Needle v. NFL, 2010; Flood v. Kuhn, 1972; Law v. NCAA, 1998). Alternatively, the claimants may assert that defendants’ monopolistic market dominance has been unreasonably acquired or maintained (see Philadelphia World Hockey Club v. Philadelphia Hockey Club, 1972). From a governance perspective, antitrust cases against sport leagues are efforts to use legal authorities to ‘steer’ leagues’ pattern of business operation toward more procompetitive directions. A triad of antitrust cases filed against the NCAA—White v. NCAA (2008), NCAA v. O’Bannon (2015), and NCAA v. Alston (2021)—in conjunction with legislative moves in various states such as California Bill 26, brought remarkable reforms to the governance of collegiate sports, such as more liberal regulation of student athletes’ NIL rights. It is also noteworthy that the NCAA is lobbying Congress for some antitrust exemptions, which is also an attempt to utilize the external forces in the context of political governance. Such interactive dynamics in systemic and political governance are likely to shape a markedly different collegiate sport industry in the future.

2.5. Working Definition of Sport Governance

Based on the identified elements of sport governance, a working definition of sport governance is conceivable: the exercise of granted power and authority to monitor, direct, manage, and control a sport organization’s strategic performance and compliance with relevant regulations and laws in consideration of internal dynamics and external environment. This proposed definition captures most of the essential components of sport governance practice that previous studies have emphasized.

3. Published Articles’ Implications and Future Research

Four studies are published in this special issue. They cover the formal rule of law, regulatory schemes, and organizational strategies related to sport governance practices. Although many of their implications are connected to the domain of political governance, the papers also consider matters of systemic and organizational governance. This section introduces the published articles in terms of their contributions to the field and relevant body of literature. Possible inquiries for future research are suggested.

3.1. Financial Fair Play and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Sroka, 2022)

The main subject of this investigation (Sroka, 2022) is the Financial Fair Play (FFP) regime, which is a measure implemented by the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) to maintain the competitive balance and financial sustainability of European soccer clubs. The study examines four FFP cases adjudicated in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to explicate how the ambiguous language of the UEFA regulation as well as the governing body’s erroneous strategic move in the arbitration process compromised the integrity of the regulatory scheme. The article accordingly calls for a set of policy reforms to address the problem at the level of systemic governance. Although the study mainly analyzes the particular cases of FFP violations where the clubs facing sanctions opposed the UEFA’s applications of the rule in the enforcement procedure, the paper also points out that the validity of the FFP system itself would likely be in dispute under the EU competition law in line with other commentators (Kaplan, 2015; Lindholm, 2010; Long, 2012). In addition, the author suggests that a salary cap system benchmarking U.S. professional league may work better for the UEFA than the FFP.

The takeaways from the article call for more investigations about the FFP and relevant governance topics. Although the vice president of the European Commission personally complimented the FFP as an effort to protect European soccer (Long, 2012), the FFP’s restrictive effects on the labor market would be significant while its positive impact on competitive balance would be questionable at best (Szymanski, 2014). As the article comments, the FFP is likely in violation of the EU antitrust law, which will likely result in some sort of reform. At this juncture, a comparative analysis among the FFP, soft salary cap (NBA and MLB), and hard salary cap (NHL and NFL) in terms of their effectiveness would be valuable to the field and relevant body of research. On the other hand, from a governance standpoint, teams’ infractions of the competitive balance policy might be rationalized behavior for the sake of the financial interests at stake or non-pecuniary benefits (e.g. team owner’s ego-driven spending spree to hoard star players for winning the championship at all costs). Thus, it is important to create an appropriate level of deterrence effects or incentives to encourage compliance with the policy. A game theory would provide a coherent framework to investigate the subject (Cho et al., 2023). Finally, one of the triggering dynamics for the inception of the FFP was state-related entities’ acquisition of team ownership in European soccer leagues, which inevitably instigated the arms race. Whether the state-sponsored entities aimed to wash sport fields of their regimes or not, such market entry has become a reality in the business of global professional sports. Recently, after a year-long antitrust litigation, the LIV Golf League, DP World Tour, and PGA announced what they call ‘a merger.’ The situation calls for some future inquiries. Does the partnership constitute a violation of antitrust law even if the LIV’s action might not be traditional profit-seeking market behavior? Would a joint venture be the only option for the parties to deal with the government’s possible antitrust scrutiny? Is it a joint venture if LIV golf eventually folds? What are the market responses to the merger that will create a de facto global monopoly?

3.2. Equity or Discrimination: Addressing Legal Challenges to Transgender Participation in U.S. High School and College Sports (Coffey, 2022)

Coffey’s study (2022) illustrates a dilemma facing interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics due to two seemingly irreconcilable views in the domain of political governance. The main inquiry is what fairness in athletic competition means with respect to transgender athletes’ rights to sport participation. It recently became a controversial legal, ethical, and strategic decision-making issue in the field of sport governance when several conservative state legislatures passed or considered state statutes that may significantly restrict or completely ban transgender athletes from varsity-level competitions. The crux of the paper centers on whether transgender athletes’ rights to sport participation are legally protected under relevant federal and state laws. In essence, the study explores the situation where sport organizations need to proactively formulate their policies dealing with the thorny issue in the level of organizational and systemic governance even though the controlling rule of law is not yet settled in the level of political governance. Thus, sport organizations must make policy decisions based on the extrapolation of the legal rules on point, public opinion, and organizational goals. Given the fact that the divided views to the transgender athlete issue in the U.S. are deeply connected to the political orientations of the public, the decision-making is exceptionally complicated and challenging.

After analyzing the jurisprudence of Title IX of the Education Amendments in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on a similar federal statute, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Bostock v. Clayton Country, 2020), the author concludes that transgender athletes do have legally protected rights to sport participation in interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics. In addition, the article asserts that the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a pending case in a federal court that will likely become a precedent soon (Hecox v. Little, 2021), and various state antidiscrimination statutes further provide transgender athletes with unambiguous legal protection from policies and laws of discriminatory impacts.

The article suggests future research topics. First, the author raises a question as to why the NCAA did not respond to states’ legislative moves against transgender athletes immediately or proactively, particularly compared to the repealed statute in North Carolina that attempted to ban transgender people’s use of restrooms based on their gender identities. An empirical study could investigate how organizational leaders in interscholastic or intercollegiate athletics perceive the issue by conducting a survey or interview in this regard. Second, the study indicates that the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 10 principles for regulating transgender athletes’ participation have become benchmarks for international federations and other governing bodies such as the NCAA. As such, institutional isomorphism may explain various types of organizational behavior in sport governance (Clausen et al., 2018; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Kasale, 2023; Moreau, 2021; Nite & Edwards, 2021; Skille, 2011). Future studies could scrutinize the mimetic isomorphism of sport organizations in controversial situations to examine how and why they follow market leaders to deal with uncertainty. Different contingencies (e.g. politically sensitive issues versus purely managerial issues) and multiple sport contexts can be investigated together. Ultimately, the article asks: ‘How can one argue that their actions are legitimate when there is no current evidence of a problem in that state or many others?’ The article directly questions the validity of legislative initiatives’ key assumption against transgender athletes—that is, whether cisgender female athletes are truly disadvantaged because of transgender athletes’ participation (Hecox v. Little, 2020). A multivariate statistical analysis with respect to either real participation data or the general public’s perception of the issue in states with varying levels of restriction (high/medium/low) might help answer the question.

3.3. Betting on Athlete Data: The Legal Landscape of Professional Sports, Athletes’ Rights, and Gaming Companies (Brown & Brown, 2022)

This study (Brown & Brown, 2022) examines the legal aspects of using athlete biometric data (ABD) to generate revenues for sport leagues. Since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the federal regulation of sport gambling under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) is unconstitutional pursuant to the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering doctrine (Murphy v. NCAA, 2018), the U.S. sport betting industry has grown explosively to the point that about three dozen states have legalized the practice. Given the fact that ABD would be quite valuable to fantasy sport and betting platform operators, sport organizations have worked on new regulatory schemes and policies to streamline the commercialization process of the new digital resource collected from various forms of wearable technology while trying to figure out how to comply with relevant laws. As of this writing, although the ABD has not been included in the official league data that leagues may share with sport betting platforms, its market potential would be noteworthy, especially when in-game betting services become available. The authors elucidate how sport governing bodies could navigate different parameters of the legal system in the context of political governance to formulate their strategic plans or administrative policies at the level of systemic or organizational governance.

The investigation discusses several legal and regulatory paradigms to identify possible obstacles and issues in the area of ABD management, including athletes’ privacy rights, publicity rights, newsworthiness doctrine under the First Amendment, and collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in professional sports. Although the authors conclude that the CBA might be the best possible solution for sport leagues to address the identified legal and practical problems in consideration of the federal preemption doctrine of Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (1947), a couple of inquiries are reserved for future research. First, the Section 301 federal preemption might not be a broadly construed legal concept that may invariably provide a magic shield defense to sport leagues in lawsuits brought by athletes based on state privacy statutes (Baltazar v. Ace Parking Management, 2022). In fact, the doctrine is not a single body of law, but consists of multiple precedents and judicial tests (Befort, 1998). Future studies could delve into this convoluted crossroad between state privacy statutes and CBAs in relation to the ABD business. Second, from a governance standpoint, the resource dependency theory (Jones et al., 2020; Lucidarme et al., 2018; Salepi et al., 2022) would provide a coherent conceptual foundation for investigating the relationships between unions and leagues in developing an ABD business model. A future project could empirically scrutinize or theoretically expound on how the labor negotiations over the ABD issue would be performed in consideration of the legal and socioeconomic dynamics involved in the negotiation process.

3.4. Rethinking Sport Event Security: From Risk Management to a Community-Driven Approach (Menaker et al., 2021)

In this article (Menaker et al., 2021), the authors call for a paradigm shift in sport security management practices. The study contends that the traditional liability-driven risk management approach has failed to take into consideration diverse environmental factors that could cause security breaches and incidents within and around large-scale sport events. In essence, the paper argues that security management practice needs to shift its focus from the level of organizational governance (i.e. to avoid legal liability through property-centered risk management protocols) to the domains of systemic and political governance perspectives (i.e. a community-driven paradigm based on coordinated efforts among multiple stakeholders). Predicated on environmental criminology theories, the authors suggest a set of situational incident prevention strategies for application to the area of sport event management.

The study demonstrates that the paradigm shift is meritorious, yet the community-driven risk management approach cannot be successfully executed in practice without overcoming many logistic and resource allocation issues. The volunteer’s dilemma (Diekmann, 1985; Weesie & Franzen, 1998) explains why such multiparty cost-sharing might not be easy in reality. Future research could investigate the problem by using empirical data to come up with an optimization cost model (Hirotsu & Wright, 2004) to resolve the problem to some degree.

4. Conclusion

Given the lack of a comprehensive definition of sport governance, this introductory article constructed a working definition that hopefully encompasses various dimensions of the practice. In doing so, the article explored the theoretical framework conceptualized by Henry and Lee (2004) to understand different domains of sport governance while extracting elements of sport governance by exploring and synthesizing definitions proposed by previous studies. This special issue includes four studies examining regulatory schemes and legal aspects of sport governance, which are arguably two of the most influential subjects in the domain of political and systemic governance. The studies examined crucial aspects of sport governance practice in light of relevant legal issues and strategic decision-making.

Sport governance is defined as the exercise of granted power and authority to monitor, direct, manage, and control a sport organization’s strategic performance and compliance with relevant regulations and laws in consideration of internal dynamics and external environments. As the definition designates, compliance with controlling law is a major component of the macro-level management practice. In addition, regulatory schemes in the domain of systemic governance have profound impacts on individual sport organizations in multiple ways.

Acknowledgments

The authors equally contributed to the review and publication process of this special issue. They appreciate the Journal of Global Sport Management and other anonymous reviewers who participated in this project.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sungho Cho

Sungho Cho (Ph.D., University of Connecticut, U.S./J.D., Arizona State University, U.S.) is an Associate Professor in the Sport Management Program at the Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. His research interests include trademarks policy, antitrust, labor law, and sport governance. He has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, Journal of Sport Management, Sport Marketing Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Marketing and Sponsorship, International Journal of Sport Finance, Loyola Consumer Law Review, Social Behavior and Personality, Management Decision, among others.

Mark Conrad

Mark Conrad (J.D., New York Law School, U.S.) is a Professor of Law and Ethics at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business in New York City. His research interests are in sports law and business governance, intellectual property, First Amendment law, international sports, media law and arts law. His work has appeared in such journals as the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal and University of Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal. His recent book is titled ‘The Business of Sports – Off the Field, In the Office, On the News (3rd Ed) Routledge, 2017’.

John Holden

John T. Holden (Ph.D., Florida State University, U.S./J.D., Michigan State University, U.S.) is a William S. Spears Chair in Business Administration and Associate Professor in the Department of Management in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. Holden’s academic scholarship is focused on legal and regulatory issues in the sports industry. He is the author of more than 60 academic articles on sports policy and related issues of corruption and co-author of the first textbook specifically dedicated to managing a sports wagering business. Holden has also testified and submitted written recommendations regarding the legalization of sports betting and daily fantasy sports on the state and national levels. He also filed two amicus curiae briefs in the NCAA v. Murphy case at the Supreme Court and has been frequently quoted by the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal.

Mark Dodds

Mark Dodds (D.Sc., University of Jyväskylä, Finland/J.D., Marquette University, U.S.) is a Professor teaching sport law and sport marketing at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. Dr. Dodds’ research focuses on legal issues in sport business and sport corruption. He has published articles in journals such as: Sport Marketing Quarterly, International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, Journal of Brand Strategy, Journal of Sponsorship, Marquette Sports Law Review, Case Studies in Sport Management, and College Athletics and the Law. He co-edited the award-winning Encyclopedia of Sports Management and Marketing, Sports Leadership: A Reference Guide., and the Routledge Handbook of International Sport Business. Prior to arriving at SUNY Cortland, he worked in the sport marketing industry for over 12 years.