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	Intellectual Property (IP) rights (patents, industrial designs, trademarks, copyright, etc) are usually associated with industry, typically the manufacturing industry. IP rights give exclusivity to the IP owner for a limited period of time. But organizers of sports activities are utilizing IP laws to take advantage of the interest in particular sports.

Sports activities started as a hobby or a pastime event to enable participants to enjoy the sports or as a form of physical exercise. Now certain games have evolved into giant international events, or more appropriately international businesses with their own "tailor-made" law. Such international events even challenge sovereign laws of countries.

Popular games such as football, golf, tennis, basketball, cricket, yachting, car-racing, and so forth have evolved into international events with a huge following, creating gigantic marketing potential for the organizers. The organizers of popular games such as FIFA (football), PGA (golf), NBA (basketball), and so on organize and manage the events, typically international competitions in such a manner to extract maximum value from others who want to exploit the marketing potential the events offer.

The organizers initially create a distinctive logo, emblem or phrase(s) to identify the event. If the logos or emblems are original, they would also be protected as copyrighted works.

As an example, the emblem of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is protected as a trademark and as an artistic work under copyright laws. Terms such as "2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa", "2010 FIFA World Cup", "2010 World Cup", "Football World Cup" and similar derivations thereof are also protected against unauthorized use and subject to applicable laws in the various jurisdictions.

As the logo/emblem/phrases ("event identifiers") are promoted heavily in the main media, they are easily and very quickly associated with the event by the public and thereby acquire a strong trademark value. Event organizers then proceed to exploit the trademark value to other businesses.

Let us look at various streams of revenue to the organizers. The first line of revenue is sponsorship fees. This includes the right to display the sponsor's trademark inside the games venue/stadium, the right to use the event identifiers on articles manufactured by the sponsors or the right to use the event identifier in association with a service (e.g. banking, credit card (VISA), business process outsourcing (Mahindra Satyam)), or placement rights (e.g., a certain luxury watch brand adjacent to tee boxes in golf courses).

The second line of revenue is gate collection. Even here the printing of tickets may be sponsored - the ticket bearing the trademark of the sponsoring party.

The third source of revenue is exclusive supply of products for the games, such as footballs, tennis balls, shuttlecocks (badminton), fuel and lubricants (car racing), etc. The supplier of the articles has the right to describe themselves as the "official supplier" to promote their articles and advertise themselves as the exclusive provider of such articles. Ironically, although Adidas was a top-tier sponsor/partner in the FIFA World Cup 2010, it was Nike that attracted more of the viewers' attention, whether through the players' football boots or clever advertising spots. Is this a case of poor sponsorship strategy by Adidas?

The fourth source of revenue, and increasingly the most lucrative source of revenue, is exclusive right of recording and broadcasting the event over television and radio, and possibly over the internet in the near future. The broadcasting rights are given to regional and national broadcasting networks. All copyright in respect of recording and broadcasting the games are retained by the organizers or licensed to specific entities.

Lastly, the organizers also grant exclusive rights to manufacturers to manufacture and sell merchandise of mascots or products bearing the event identifier in return for payment of a royalty fee.

The organizers have a broad stream of revenue, namely:

1. Sponsorship fees
2. Gate collection
3. Exclusive rights to product use in event
4. Broadcasting rights
5. Merchandising rights

Apart from the event organizers, other manufacturers and service providers take advantage by sponsoring the sports attire and games equipment of particular teams or players. Just consider the brand of the player's T-shirt, shorts, cap, gloves, shoes, socks, etc. In South Africa, shoes of a non-sponsor brand worn by the players stood out just as prominently (if not more so) than those of one of the official sponsors. In the case of race car drivers, have you ever seen plain drivers' overalls? On the contrary, the driver's overall, including the crash helmet is often plastered with an assortment of trademarks.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5202279

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