WHEN IP AND SPORTS COLLIDE: WHO REALLY OWNS THE GAME?
1.0 The Invisible Hand behind the Game
A last minute winner, just like Maradona’s Hand of God moment. The stadium roars, phones are brought out and, within minutes, the clip is everywhere — only for you to wake up the next morning and it is gone like it never existed.
Think about that.
The goal felt like ours.
The celebration felt like family.
But behind the noise sits a system you don’t see. Broadcasters lock down footage. Brands trademark logos. Athletes control their image rights. Even a pose — like Usain Bolt’s lightning strike or Cole Palmer’s cold body wrap — can become protected property.
The goal is free until a camera captures it.
The celebration is yours until it becomes profitable.
Everyone loves sports because it brings a sense of community, fellowship and belonging.
But while the world sees community, intellectual property (IP) sees something deeper. Welcome to this month’s edition of The Stellar Brief, where IPLC OAU breaks down exactly how sports and intellectual property interact.
2.0 The Playing Field: What Counts as IP in Sports
IP in sports is basically anything that can be owned, controlled and monetised; not just the various games of sports themselves, but how they are seen, experienced, used and remembered.
IP in sports covers:
1. Broadcasting and Media Rights:
This covers any recorded medium captured during a gaming session, be it actual game footage or short replays of a particular match. Each of these is protected by copyright. So while you have a right to enjoy these clips and even interact with them by sharing them; you don’t have a right of ownership to them.
Moreso, the broadcasting rights of various stadiums prevent spectators from recording real-time game moments. Simply put, they say: you can view the moment but not own it.
2. Trademarks
A trademark is simply any sign, word, logo, or even pose, that tells people that a product originates from you or your brand, not someone else’s.
We see them everywhere, and we go through lengths just to get original products identifiable by their presence. But while we see colours and words, IP sees a protectable identity.
Trademarks in sports can be seen in play via club names, logos, badges, colours and even tournament names. Their registration with the relevant government agency prevents others from using these logos or colours, duplicating them and then selling merchandise on which they are affixed to make money.
3. Image Rights
The virality that comes with being a player or an athlete automatically moves an individual from just being an individual to being a controlled asset. Athletes' or players' names, faces, characters, likeness and other distinguishing features are protected by IP. Thus, using Lamine Yamal’s face in an ad or on your viewing centre’s poster without his permission can lead to a lawsuit. And the result? Not very nice.
4. Sports Tech
Innovation from the tech industry has also found application within the sports industry, the most relatable examples being the Goal Line Technology and the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR). And these are covered by the innovative IP – patents.
The introduction of the VAR completely transformed umpireship within the footballing sector. Rather contentious goal and/or foul moments where the referee could not get a clear view of the moment can now be almost accurately verified by the VAR to determine what penalty or goal to award.
This unique invention, as well as others like it, are typically patented to prevent use and commercialisation by any other person without the permission of the patent owner.
These areas of interplay reveal a distinct truth: sports, especially in the modern and developing era of intellectual property law, is much more than just a competitive outlet; it has now evolved into a commercial venture and economic product.
3.0 Broadcasting Rights: The Billion-Dollar Backbone
When it comes to broadcasting rights, this is where sports stop being just a game and starts to become real, serious business.
Leagues like Premier League, NBA, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, and the Serie A do not just organise matches; they sell access to them. Broadcast networks, anchoring stations and subscription platforms pay billions of dollars to these leagues for the right to film, distribute and stream these matches across various regions. This explains why certain subscription platforms, e.g. Startimes, do not have access to Premier League matches while others such as DSTV and GOTV do.
Now, this is where passion hits and tensions escalate.
Due to the love of sports, fans want easy and free access to stream and watch their favourite matches. But since the sport system is also a commercial franchise, paywalls go up. Subscriptions stack. And naturally, piracy fills the gap. Illegal streams pop up, offering the same 90 minutes without the cost.
The response? Aggressive takedowns, lawsuits, and constant digital policing to protect those rights.
So every time a stream gets cut mid-game, it’s not random — it’s enforcement and protection.
Because in reality, broadcasting rights transform a simple match into a global commodity. The 90 minutes on the pitch are just the raw material. The real product is the access — who gets to see it, how, and at what price.
Because at the end of the day, there must be a cash flow. And IP ensures it flows to the right hands.
4.0 Athletes as Brands: Image Rights and Endorsements
In the age of social media and digital marketing, the image of athletes has become an asset of great commercial value. Today's elite athletes are not just competitors but intellectual property portfolios, with their name, likeness, signature celebrations, and even playing style functioning as legally protectable assets under the right of publicity. Image rights allow athletes to control and benefit economically from the commercial use of their identity, with legal frameworks like Spain's Organic Law 1/1982 establishing that any use of an athlete's image for commercial purposes requires explicit consent.
The sponsorship contract, an atypical commercial agreement blending service law, image rights assignment, and advertising, sits at the heart of this economy. Yet it is also fertile ground for conflict. Clubs require athletes to avoid personal endorsements that clash with collective sponsors, creating constant tension: Messi's personal deal with Adidas collided directly with FC Barcelona's Nike partnership, while Maria Sharapova's Nike contract was suspended in 2016 following a positive doping test, activated under morality clauses that make an athlete's public conduct inseparable from their commercial value.
Legal disputes over unauthorized image use have been landmark. EA Sports and the NCAA paid a combined $60 million after using college athletes' likenesses in video games without consent, with courts ruling that faithfully recreating a player in the setting of their fame is not creative transformation but exploitation. The frontier has since shifted to NFTs, with the NFLPA suing DraftKings in 2024 over unpaid player likeness rights in digital collectibles, and generative AI now raising the sharpest question of all: when an athlete's face can be cloned in seconds, where does admiration end and exploitation begin?
5.0 Trademarks and Identity: Who Owns the Badge?
A club's badge, kit colours, and name are not just symbols but registered trademarks, fiercely protected as commercial assets and enforced through litigation, customs seizures, and takedown orders across global marketplaces. Sports trademarks protect the unique branding elements of teams and leagues, including names, logos, slogans, mascots, and colours, preserving authenticity, preventing counterfeit merchandise, and safeguarding the commercial value of sponsorships.
Counterfeit merchandise is the most pervasive threat. In 2022 alone, the IPR Center seized $97.8 million in counterfeit sports clothing and merchandise, while the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry estimated fake sports equipment costs the industry at least €500 million every year. A landmark European precedent reinforced this: Arsenal FC's 2002 suit against an unofficial merchandise trader established that unauthorized use of a registered trademark can undermine a product's guaranteed origin, even without direct consumer confusion.
Rebranding controversies expose a deeper tension between corporate ownership and community identity. In 2012, Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan changed the club's colours from blue to red and replaced the Bluebird crest with a dragon to appeal to international markets. Fans organized protests and demonstrations, and after three seasons of resistance, the club reverted to blue in 2015. Hull City's owner faced the same wall when his proposal to rename the club "Hull Tigers" was rejected by the Football Association after three years of fan opposition.
These cases crystallize the central conflict: clubs insist they own the trademark; fans insist they own the identity. Legally, the club holds the registration. Culturally, the badge belongs to the street.
6.0 The Digital Age Twist: Social Media, Gaming and NFTs
Short clips on social media are frequently taken down primarily due to copyright infringement and the enforcement of intellectual property rights by leagues and broadcasters, who pay billions for exclusive rights to broadcast matches. Posting a snippet of a game, even if it is just a few seconds, constitutes unauthorized distribution, as the rights owner has exclusive control over how that content can be shared.
Licensing rights for sports video games are generally owned by sport leagues, teams, and player associations (e.g NFC, FIFA, NBA), who license their intellectual property to game publishers like EA sports, Konami, etc. These publishers hold the rights to produce, distribute, and display the official names,logos and likenesses within their games.
In the case of NFT and digital collectibles, the moment is owned by the collectors and the content creator or publisher. The collector owns the NFT, which represents ownership of a unique, scarce 'artifact' or digital certificate authenticated on a Blockchain. This gives the right to sell, trade or display the moment on platforms like NBA Top Shot. The publisher typically retains the copyright and ownership of the underlying content.
Fan content (memes, reaction videos and commentary) exists in a complex legal space where creative expression often intersects with copyright infringement. However, fan content can become infringement if it simply republishes original work without adding significant value or if it hurts the market value of the original content.
7.0 Grey Areas and Controversies
Fair use is the primary legal defence in the US, evaluated case-by-case based on purpose, nature of the work, amount used and market impact. Memes often fall under fair use but may not be automatically safe. This defence may not avail a person who allows viewers to watch an original content for free or content with minimal reactions. However, commentary is strongly protected by irs operation as it serves to inform or critique.
Leagues operate as "joint ventures" that often adopt rules restricting competition for players and managing economic disparities which can feel restrictive compared to open market business. Therefore, whether sport leagues are too restrictive is a subject of intense debate, largely depending on whether the priority is competitive balance, financial stability or player freedom.
8.0 The Nigerian Context
The intersection of intellectual property and sports is increasingly recognized as vital for financial sustainability in Nigeria. As the sports economy grows, stakeholders are pushing for better protection to turn talent and content into valuable assets.
However, challenges in Nigeria broadcasting such as illegal rebroadcasting or cable piracy, slow legal enforcement, sophisticated technology usage, cultural normalisation of piracy and social media sharing lead to reduced broadcast deal values,reduced income for local leagues and jeopardized investment in sports infrastructure. It was allegedly reported that the industry is fighting back through initiatives like Partners Against Piracy (PAP), which in 2025 alone successfully closed 4,300 illegal networks across Africa and arrested 107 suspects.
9.0 Conclusion: The Future of the Game
The question we should ask now is, as technologies like the metaverse and AI-generated highlights blur the lines between reality and digital assets, will our legal framework evolve to protect the leagues, teams and players’ intellectual properties, or will they simply tighten the grip of the corporations that broadcast them?
Until that issue reaches a resolution, we leave you with this: the next time you watch a match or play any sporting video game, remember, you are not just watching a sport or playing a game, you are watching and playing a carefully licensed product. Respect it. Protect it.
THE TEAM BEHIND THIS ISSUE:
Writers: Miracle Oyedokun and Alao Felix Oluwadamilare
Editors: Oluwanifemi Oladosu and Rereloluwa Odedele
Proofreader: Omogbemi Rotimi