Saudi Arabia's significant investment in sports and esports — from major league sponsorships to hosting international events and building out an esports industry — has created substantial legal work around contracts, event licensing, and sector-specific regulatory questions.
This includes advising on player and team contracts, sponsorship and endorsement agreements, and event licensing for sports and esports competitions and tournaments. Player employment terms draw on our employment contracts practice.
This practice represents clients in disputes arising from sports and esports contracts, and advises on the commercial structuring of teams, leagues, and events operating in this space.
Given how quickly this sector is developing, staying current on the regulatory and commercial landscape is a genuine part of providing useful advice here.
A sponsorship agreement's exclusivity clause can restrict a team or player from accepting other sponsorship in an entire product category, sometimes for a duration that extends well beyond what seems proportionate to the value actually being offered, and this restriction only becomes a real problem once a better opportunity in that exact category arrives and the team discovers it's already contractually barred from pursuing it.
We review exclusivity terms closely relative to the value being offered before any sponsorship agreement is signed, since an attractive upfront payment can obscure a restriction that costs far more in foreclosed future opportunity than the original sponsorship was actually worth. Team and event branding is protected through trademark registration.
Esports introduces genuinely distinct contractual questions beyond traditional sports — who owns a player's in-game account and digital identity across different platforms, what streaming and content creation rights a team retains or grants to individual players, how sponsorship interacts with game publisher relationships that traditional sports sponsorship never has to consider.
We draft esports contracts with these sector-specific issues addressed explicitly, rather than adapting a traditional sports contract template that was never actually built to address the particular questions unique to competitive gaming and its underlying digital platforms.
A major sports or esports event, particularly one drawing significant public attendance, generally requires specific licensing and regulatory clearance that can take real time to secure, and event organizers who leave this licensing process until close to the event date risk a genuinely disruptive delay right when the event is meant to launch.
We help event organizers understand the specific licensing timeline required for their event well in advance, since building this into the planning schedule from the start avoids the kind of last-minute scramble that can threaten an otherwise well-organized event. Large entertainment-adjacent events overlap with the GEA framework under entertainment & media law.
Both — esports has its own distinct commercial and regulatory considerations alongside traditional sports, and this practice covers both areas.
Yes — sponsorship and endorsement agreements are a common part of this practice's work.
Contract disputes between players, teams, and sponsors, along with event and licensing disagreements, are among the most common matters we see.
We review the specific scope, duration, and product category against the value actually being offered, since an attractive upfront payment can obscure a restriction that costs far more in foreclosed opportunity later.
Yes, often significantly — questions around in-game account ownership, streaming rights, and game publisher relationships are specific to esports and need to be addressed explicitly rather than adapted from a traditional sports template.
This depends entirely on how the contract is drafted — we address this specifically in esports agreements, since it's a genuinely distinct question that traditional sports contracts never have to consider.
Expert Riyadh