Memorandum submitted by the Sports Rights
Owners Coalition
The Sports Rights Owners Coalition (SROC) is
an informal group of major national, european and international
sports rights owners.
The objective of SROC is to be the forum through
which sports bodies can share information and experiences, and
discuss key issues, particularly relating to market, legal and
regulatory challenges and opportunities. I attach with this submission
a one page summary of our membership and key objectives. [not
printed]
Sports content plays a crucial role in the creative
industries. Specifically, our content forms a significant part
of the programming and other offerings of the traditional, new
and emerging broadcast media as well as in ticketing and associated
activities such as merchandising and sponsorship The income secured
by the rights owner from this sporting content is reinvested into
sport at many levels.
Across the world, sport is recognised by Governments
as being special; with the power to deliver considerable benefits
to communities and society in many different ways.
Traditionally, sporting bodies have looked to
Government for financial investment in its development at all
levels. In the future, SROC expects sport to increasingly look
to Governments for assistance in providing it with specific recognition
and protection by the law from those who seek to ambush and prey
on our events.
Such protection enhances the revenues sport
has for reinvestment. These issues are starting to be recognised
at national, EU and worldwide treaty level (for instance through
the London Olympic and Paralympic Games Act 2005 and the WIPO
Treaty relating to the Olympic logo).
To achieve our objectives, SROC looks to national
governments, the EU and treaty organisations, including WTO and
WIPO to:
— provide protection for sports bodies'
names, logos and marks;
— outlaw ambush marketing, through
the creation of a clear "association" right;
— outlaw unauthorised ticket touting;
— prevent the theft of broadcast footage
of sports events by Internet pirates and others such as pubs;
— to ensure that there is clear protection
for sports events fixtures and statistics; and
— to protect the integrity of sports
and to ensure a fair return from betting on their events.
THE INDEPENDENT
EUROPEAN REVIEW
OF SPORT
The Independent European Review of Sport was
initiated during UK's presidency of the Union.
SROC welcomes the detailed consideration that
the Report gave to rights related issues in sport, and the associated
recommendations directed toward both national governments and
the European institutions. The Report addressed many of the issues
we set out above and made strong recommendations for action.
These recommendations include: recognising that
sporting organisations should be permitted to enter into collective
agreements for the sale of sports rights; legislation to tackle
ticket touting; the need for clear legal relationship between
betting and sport; legislation to tackle ambush marketing; strong
IP protection for sport; and ensuring news access arrangements
do not harm the value of sports rights holders.
THE EUROPEAN
WHITE PAPER
ON SPORT
The European White Paper on Sport makes a welcome
mention of the economic value of intellectual property rights
to sport and to the overall health of the sport economy. To this
end, while we welcome efforts by the European Commission's Sports
Unit to raise awareness of the sports dimension of IP policies
and regulatory initiatives, sport in general is still not considered
among the principal Commission interlocutors on intellectual property
issues. It is SROC's view that several of the current and planned
EU legislative reviews and policy initiatives in the information
society and intellectual property spheres have or will have a
significant impact on the way sports rights are sold and protected
after sale.
The White Paper has failed adequately to address
the key issues.
The EU reviews and initiatives include:
— the EU Copyright Directive;
— the EU Satellite and Cable Directive;
— the implementation of the revised
Audiovisual Media Services Directive;
— the revision of the IP Enforcement
Directive;
— the Content Online (and related Mobile
TV) initiatives;
— the revision of the "Communications
Package"; and
— the review of the EU Conditional
Access Directive.
Given the vital importance of rights protection
to the operation of sports bodies, SROC regrets therefore that
the White Paper does not include a specific set of actions related
to intellectual property within the Pierre de Coubertin Action
Plan.
This is critical for the reasons set out above,
but in the EU context, particularly the facts that:
— European sport makes a significant
contribution to overall EU GDP and is the originator of much of
the content that now appeals to a global audience;
— the EU and international IP frameworks
need reinforcing as copyrighted sports content is increasingly
attractive to media & content companies and individual users,
seeking to create new business models off the back of copyrighted
content; the most significant threat of all is digital piracy.
We would urge the Select Committee to press
the European Commission for a more systematic consideration of
the sports sector as the Commission reviews existing IP legislation
and future IP and other content-related proposals and that the
forthcoming study on the economic impact of sport in the EU takes
full account of the IP dimension in its assessment.
Attached with this letter is the submission
that SROC made to the Consultation on the White Paper to demonstrate
the range of issues that are faced by sports bodies that have
a locus at the European level. [not printed]
BETTING AND
INTEGRITY
A particular issue that has been raised, and
perhaps the most significant omission from the White Paper, despite
representations from SROC, is sports related betting integrity.
It is evident that policy makers across the EU struggle to comprehend
even the basic ideas relating to sport and betting. There are
very divergent views across the EU in relation to betting—from
prohibition, to state ownership, to market models.
Protecting sport from the potential corrupting
influences of betting is a major issue for SROC members. They
are also concerned to ensure a fair return for their sports from
those using them as the key content for their betting businesses.
At present, the lack of proper and effective policy and structures
is allowing SROC to be ambushed, with no investment back into
sport from this ever increasing commercial activity off the back
of sports events, and no regulatory system in place to protect
the sports.
The nature of the debate about sports betting
has to change—it has to be brought to the fore, with openness
on all sides. Betting on sports is at an all-time high, particularly
as policy makers seek to come to terms with online sports betting
and the patterns of gambling are starting to change dramatically.
Technological advances, innovation and new betting products have
led to significant income for gambling businesses, with sports
content playing a lead role. However, while there is no policy
and regulatory framework at the EU-level for betting generally
and sports betting specifically, the gambling economy is burgeoning,
and sports' issues are not being addressed. The threat of match-fixing
or the fixing of specific incidences in sports matches relating
to the behaviour of individual athletes, as well as illegal betting
cartels or syndicates, is on the rise, as many recent incidents
have demonstrated, including countries with state monopolies.
Since SROC submitted evidence to the Commission's White Paper
consultation we have unfortunately seen further incidents of irregular
betting activity in sports.
Protecting the integrity of sports events and
competitions is inherently a national, and international issue
that requires cooperation between all sports rights owners, legitimate
betting operators and public institutions, national, EU and worldwide.
It is a major, cross-border endeavour and a great deal more needs
to be done by public authorities on a proactive rather than reactive
basis. The same goes for the provision of a fair return back to
the sport.
We believe there needs to be genuine cross-industry
cooperation in a dialogue with the Commission on sports betting.
This could lead to a statutory-based relationship between sports
rights holders and betting organisations. The purpose for such
a relationship would be to create an obligation for the betting
companies to participate in integrity measures, as well as ensure
a fair return for investment in the future of the sport.
The Independent European Sports Review recommended
the introduction of such a relationship in law between sport and
betting, at both a national and European level.
SROC is encouraged at the interest the British
Government is taking in this issue and their support for greater
regulatory protection for sport and the introduction of payments
by betting operators for their use of sports content. We would
also like to see greater action on this issue by the European
Union and would ask the Committee to raise this issue in their
meetings with Commission representatives.
SROC would be pleased to provide the Committee
with further evidence on these issues and to give oral evidence
if that were deemed helpful.
January 2008
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