Abstract
Professional sport and major sporting events have close ties with the business world. Although they are dependent on a commercial and sponsorship rationale that sometimes conflicts with sporting values, these links are essential to the business model of professional sport, and generate significant employment and economic spin-offs. But the economic question also comes up again when we consider the cost of an event like the Olympic and Paralympic Games, whose complex calculation must include long-term benefits in terms of economic spin-offs or improved public health, but also take into account issues of sobriety, environmental impact and eco-responsibility.
The law, for its part, provides a framework and regulates sport at multiple levels, making it possible to control cheating and doping, and to deal with any disputes that may arise in the sporting world as efficiently, flexibly and rapidly as possible, particularly during the Olympic events themselves. Numerous procedures have been created for this purpose, and in particular for the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is supported by an exceptional legal framework. The regulation of sport through the law thus implies taking into account the specific nature of the international governance of the Olympic Games, the question of the settlement of international disputes in sport, as well as environmental and human rights concerns, in an international context.
This round table will examine the specific features of sports law and the role of economics in its operation.
