Stephen F. Ross - Böcker

Fans of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey have long been exploited and oppressed by the monopolistic practices of team owners. The time has come for a revolution in the organization of major U.S. sports! Fans of the World, Unite! is a clarion call to sports fans. Appealing to anyone who is in despair due to the greed and incompetence of team owners, this book proposes a significant restructuring of sports leagues. It sets out a rational program for a revolution that will serve the best interests of the fans and of the sport itself. But Stephen F. Ross and Stefan Szymanski are no Marxists: they show how a revolution in the organization of sports might even benefit the owners. By harnessing the power of markets, sports leagues can be made both more responsive to the needs of the fans, and more efficient. Ross and Szymanski have spent many years evaluating the ways in which leagues work across the globe. Drawing on their extensive study of leagues, the authors boil down their plan to two major reforms. Borrowing from NASCAR, they propose that team owners should not own sports leagues as well. Rather, league ownership should be separate. Their second proposal is drawn from soccer: introduce competition through a promotion and relegation system. In this type of system, the worst teams in the league are kicked out at the end of the season and replaced by the best performing teams in the next division down. This gives poor performing teams incentive to step up their game, and allows fresh blood to enter the leagues if the poor performers fail to do so.The main goal of these reforms is to align the financial interest of those who own the league with the best interests of the fans and the sport. Having laid out the problem and the solution, the authors skillfully address practical implications of introducing their scheme, suggesting how leagues might at least make some changes, if not all of those suggested.The time for change has come! Armed with this book, and with fairness on their side, fans can set forth to begin a revolution.

This Handbook presents a comprehensive collection of essays by leading scholars and practitioners in the burgeoning field of international sports law. The authors address significant legal issues on two gradually converging tracks: the mainstream institutional framework of the law, primarily the International Olympic Committee, international sports federations, regional and national sports authority, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport; and the commercial sports industry. Topics include the institutional structure; fundamental issues, legal principles and decisions within those institutions; mediation, arbitration and litigation of disputes; doping, gambling and the expanding use of technology in competition; athlete eligibility requirements; discrimination; and protection of athletes. The book also covers a broad range of commercial issues related to competition law and labor markets; media, image, and intellectual property rights; event sponsorships; and players' agents. Comparative analyses of young sports models and practices in North America, Europe and elsewhere supplement the general theme of international sports law. This major collection of essays on some of the most controversial, cutting-edge issues in international sports law, will be a captivating read for academics and students of sports law, sports management, international law and comparative law, as well as practicing lawyers and players' agents. Senior executives and other professionals in the sports industry will also find much to interest them in this well-documented Handbook. Contributors include: P. Anderson, I.S. Blackshaw, R. Branco Martins, L. Colantuoni, S. Cornelius, T. Davis, A.J. Dreyer, S. Gardiner, T. Jagodic, L. Kurlantzick, S. Lettmaier, R.H. McLaren, M.J. Mitten, J.A.R. Nafziger, R. Parrish, R.W. Pound, S.F. Ross, R.C.R. Siekmann, P. Singh, J. Soek, H. Stevenson, K. Vieweg, C. Watson

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.Stephen F. Ross presents this succinct introduction to key topics of law specific to sports, comparing approaches to sports law across the globe, with particular focus on the United States, Europe, and common law jurisdictions. Contrasting the profit-maximizing approach of North American leagues with the global integrated approach of professional sports governed by national and international governing boards, the book offers a novel model for the latter.Key features include:an exploration of how law facilitates or impairs revenue generation through contract, intellectual property, and other doctrinesan insight into remedies for player contract breachesexamination of the widespread use of arbitration in the resolution of sports law disputesanalysis of competition law and human rights law as the principal external legal constraints on sporting entities.This Advanced Introduction will be a useful resource for scholars and advanced students of sports law. It will also be beneficial for sports lawyers and practitioners, as well as those in the fields of global and transnational law.