Sports law is an amalgam

of laws that apply to athletes and

the sports they play. It is not a
single legal topic with generally
applicable principles. Sports
law touches on a variety of
matters, including contract, tort,
agency, antitrust, constitutional,
labor, trademark, Sex
Discrimination, criminal, and tax
issues.
Contracts in sports are no different than
contracts in everyday life. Professional
athletes are compensated for their services
with a paycheck just as anyone else. This
section examines the nature of personal
services contracts of pro athletes. However,
even the amateur athlete deals with important
contract-related issues. Amateur athletes
often have to make tough choices about
changing their status from amateur to
professional given the dramatic increase in
money that may be available to be earned in
their sports. Some professional athletes are
paid a lot more money in one year than most
people ever earns in their lifetimes
 Sports agents serve a valuable role in terms of
securing and negotiating contracts for the
professional athlete. Lawyers who represent athletes
have generally been trained in the fundamentals of
contracts and should be familiar with the current
market value of their client relative to other athletes
within the same sport. However, it should be noted
that hiring a lawyer is not required (nor is an agent
for that matter) to secure deals for the athlete. Some
athletes do not wish to hire an agent for a variety of
reasons, including having to pay commissions or
other fees associated with the representation. Since
the athlete has unique talents, abilities, and skills,
their contracts are categorized as personal services
contracts.
 Technically, a personal service contract may
not be assigned to someone else. An
assignment is a transfer of rights that a party
has under a contract to another person. Why
can’t a personal service contract be assigned?
The talents of an athlete are unique. For
example, Peyton Manning could not assign
his contract to another player. His talents are
so unique. The team owner would not honor
such an assignment.
 No one can be legally forced to work for
someone for whom they do not want to work.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S.
Constitution provides: Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States. This provision of the
Constitution has been interpreted as
including a prohibition against requiring
someone to work for an employer for whom
they do not wish to work.
 How then do team owners get away with
trading players from one team to another,
since this in effect is assigning a personal
service contract? Any contract may be
assigned with permission of the parties. The
right to assign is part of a player’s contract.
However, some players have enough
bargaining power to put in a do not
trade clause. This keeps a team from
assigning the player to a team for whom he
does not want to play.
 Though general contract principles apply in
sports contracts, often such contracts are so
important to the particular league or
community, that each community has a
vested financial and emotional interest in
seeing their team perform well. Of course
some sports do not receive the same sort of
public exposure and generate the same
widespread fan support.
 The occupation of professional athlete has
become recognized as one of the most financially
rewarding professions. Sports sponsors often pay
thousands of dollars to an athlete to promote its
product. A sports contract can have an impact on
the lives of thousands of people. Today’s
amateurs must face crucial issues such as
whether to continue to compete as an amateur or
be lured away by money to professional teams
during their sophomore or junior year of college.
 College sports such as football, basketball,
baseball, and hockey are often regarded as
proving grounds for the major professional
leagues. Many athletes are urged to abandon
amateur status to be compensated for their
services as a professional. Contracts for the
employment of athletes should always be in
writing and should contain covenants by the
athlete like promising to refrain from certain
acts, such as participating in dangerous
activities.
 A contract is a legally binding agreement. A
contract represents the meeting of the minds
of the parties. Contracts in sports are subject
to the same principles of contract formation
as any other form of employment agreement.
There six elements that are necessary to a
binding and enforceable contract:
 An agreement;
 Between competent parties;
 Based upon the genuine assent of
the parties;
 Supported by consideration;
 Made for a lawful objective;
 In the form required by law.
 Most sports contracts are express
contracts. An express contract is a contract in
which the agreement of the parties is
evidenced by their words, whether spoken or
written. There are virtually no more implied
contracts in the sports industry. An implied
contract is a contract in which the agreement
is not evidenced by written or spoken words,
but by the acts and conduct of the parties.
 Agreement
It is essential to a contract that there be an
offer and, while the offer is still in existence,
it must be accepted without qualification.
Once an offer is made, the person to whom it
is made can respond in four ways:
 Accept;
 Reject (this automatically terminates the
offer);
 Counteroffer (again, the offer is automatically
terminated);
 Nothing (the offer then terminates after
a reasonable time).
Offers may be terminated in any one of the following
ways:
 Revocation of the offer by the person making it (the
offeree);
 Counteroffer by offeree;

 Rejection of offer by offeree;

 Lapse of time;

 Death or disability of either party; or

 Performance of the contract becomes illegal after

the offer is made.
 An issue can arise with regard to the legal
“capacity” aspect of a minor signing a contract.
Sports such as gymnastics, swimming, and tennis
often involve contractual issues regarding
minors. Satisfying this element may require the
signature of a parent or guardian. Even though
minors may enter into contractual arrangements,
minors hold the ability to void such contracts at
their option. However, if the contract is voided,
the other party generally must be placed in the
same position as prior to entering into the
agreement, or at least at no worse position.
 The consent or assent of a party to an
agreement must be genuine and voluntary.
This assent will not be genuine or voluntary
in certain cases of mistake, deception or
undue pressure or duress. The agreement of
parties may be affected by the fact that one
or both of them made a mistake.
A unilateral mistake is a mistake made by one
party to the agreement. A mistake that is
unknown to the other party usually does not
affect the enforceability of the agreement.
 professional services contracts
(sometimes called standard
player contracts)
 endorsement contracts, and
 Appearance contracts.
 The standard player contract (SPK) is usually
in a “boilerplate” form. Boilerplate is standard
wording that can be reused over and over
without change. Whether the athlete is
involved in a league with a players association
or not, the contract usually offered to the
athlete and other athletes are all the same
other than the salary and bonus. There can be
addendums to the SPK.
 Unlike the professional services contract, the
endorsement contract does not involve an
employer-employee relationship. Rather, it is one
of contractor- independent contractor. An
endorsement contract is one that grants the
sponsor the right to use (i.e., license) the
athlete’s name, image, or likeness in connection
with advertising the sponsor’s products or
services. In most professional sports, the leagues
prohibit individual players from endorsing
alcoholic beverages or tobacco products.
 Sports in the Philippines is an important part of the
country's culture. There are seven major sports in the
Philippines. These
are basketball, badminton, boxing, football, billiards, tenni
s and volleyball. Despite being a tropical nation, ice
skating has recently become a popular sport in the
Philippines. Sports such
as athletics, weightlifting, aerobics, and martial arts are
also popular recreations. Among the others there
are: baseball, bowling, swimming, taekwondo, wrestling, u
nderwater
diving, kayaking, sailing, windsurfing, cockfighting, horse
racing, Cricket, Australian rules football, motor
racing, sepak takraw, and jai alai are also appreciated.
 With the sport of cockfighting being wildly
popular in the Philippines, attracting large
crowds who bet on the outcome of fights
between the birds, and the sport itself a popular
form of fertility worship among almost
all Southeast Asians. Such sports activity as
the sportof cockfighting, related to ritual forms
of worship as practices and rituals of ancient
worship intended for the blessings of the
supernatural, as "in Indus Valley and other
ancient civilizations, mother goddess had been
invoked for fertility and prosperity"[5] which
included that religious cockfight lay as a prime
example of "cultural synthesis of 'little' and
'great' cultures"
 On July 27, 2009, President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo signed Republic Act No. 9850 into law,
declaring Arnis as the Philippine National Martial Art
and Sport.
 Sports remain a popular aspect of Philippine culture.
As such, the country's government has had several
attempts at improving its athletics program through
various Republic Acts and Senate Bills, however,
implementation of such laws have been put aside by
many local governments so they can focus more on
poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, each sporting
community hosts/joins both local and international
tournaments with the purpose of building itself
and/or gauging itself against its peers. There have
been a campaign to mandate the government to give
free aid to Filipino athletes in preparation and
participation in international sports events.
 The country has received at least 5 (Summer
and Winter) Olympic bronze medals in only
three sports since the 1920s, namely in
swimming, boxing, and weightlifting. Plans to
prioritize the welfare of athletes in the
country to improve the Olympic rating of the
Philippines are ongoing. The re-
establishment of the now defunct Department
of Sports (Philippines) or the inclusion of the
Sports Commission under the proposed
Department of Culture have been subject for
debate.
 The Philippines has participated in all editions of
the Olympics except in 1980 when it joined
the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer
Olympics. The country is also the first tropical
nation to participate at the Winter Olympics,
debuting at the 1972 edition and has
participated in three other edition of the winter
games. Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) is
the National Olympic Committee of the
Philippines.
 The Philippines has also participated in
the Summer Paralympics although it has still to
make its debut in the Winter Paralympics.
The Paralympic Committee of the
Philippines is National Paralympic Committee of
the country.
 Cases of graft and corruption are also persists in
the Philippine sports industry. Graham Lim, a
former secretary general of the Basketball
Association of the Philippines, a former POC-
recognized national federation for basketball,
said in a The Manila Times article that politics
and monopoly in Philippine sports started when
the present leaders, including Peping Cojuangco,
the current Philippine Olympic
Committee president and his golfer-friend Richie
Garcia, the chairman of the Philippine Sports
Commission, took over the control of the
sporting sector in 2005 that made Philippine
athletes to suffer decline and deterioration on
their high-caliber quality due to corruption and
politicking.
 In 2009, Lim arrested and later declared a
"undesirable alien" by the Department of
Justice due to countless deportation cases, in
connection with his questionable citizenship,
said that the deportation order is issued
because the pressure pushed by his arch-
rivals Manny V. Pangilinan, the head of
the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, the
later-recognized NSA for basketball and
Cojuangco.
 Lim also exposed a top government official,
through a deputy has asked 6 million pesos to
settle the case, also he claims that several NSAs
(National Sports Associations) are headed by
some people who have "toe the line" to
Cojuangco and anyone who do not follow his
orders would be dismissed "by hook or by
crook". An NSA also questioned the appointment
of Cojuangco's daughter Mikee as the
representative of the Philippines in
the International Olympic Committee without any
caution.
 Former Senator Nikki Coseteng also noted that
the suffrage of the athletes was emerged due to
lack of foreign exposures and depleted training
program as a result on sports bodies' insufficient
budget and incompetent sports officials.
 Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, the former Table
Tennis Association of the Philippines president
filed a graft and corruption case against
Cojuangco and Garcia in 2012 due to issuance of
checks and releasing of funds of PSC to the
group of Ting Ledesma who have claimed as
TATAP officials despite a court case filed by
Manila Regional Title Court on the legitimacy of
TATAP officials.
 A column by Jarius Bondoc in the Philippine
Star dated March 2, 2016, reported that more
than 1 billion pesos of earnings from casinos
that supposed to fund the sports
development program of the PSC by the First
Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corporation,
have been diverted into the account of
former Philippine National Police chief Alan
Purisimafrom 2012 to 2015.
 In March 2015, Edgardo Cantada, brother of
prominent broadcaster Joe Cantada and
president of the now-unrecognized by the
POC, Philippine Volleyball Federation, also
questioned Cojuangco on the removal of the
body into the local olympic commission, and
replaced by another formed NSA by
Cojuangco, Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas.
Cantada pointed three reasons that POC is under
dictatorship: worsening campaign for the
national teams in international tourneys,
including the Southeast Asian Games, NSAs in
turmoil against POC are involved and the
negligence and corruption issues between
Cojuangco's favorite national sports
associations.
 The most important type of tort to
understand in sports risk management and
sports law is negligence. Negligence is
conduct that falls below a reasonable person
standard. In other words, it is the failure to
exercise reasonable care that a reasonably
prudent person would have in the same or
similar circumstances. This standard applies
to acts as well as omissions.
 There are elements that a plaintiff in a lawsuit has
to prove in order for a defendant to be found to be
negligent. The four elements of negligence are as
follows:
1) Duty or Duty of Care–There is a relationship
between the defendant and the plaintiff so that the
defendant owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to
the plaintiff. This duty could arise out of a
relationship, such as between a general manager of a
sports team and a spectator. It could arise out of a
voluntary assumption of a duty, such as a coach
giving a player a ride home from a game. Or, the duty
could be imposed by statute, such as a law requiring
that spectator’s bags be searched before entering a
sports stadium. In these relationships, the defendant
has a duty to anticipate foreseeable dangers and take
necessary precautions to protect the plaintiff.
2. Breach of Duty–The defendant breached the
duty of care that he or she owed to the plaintiff.
In other words, did the defendant’s actions or
failure to act fall below the standard of care
applicable to the given situation? If there is a
safety rule that is in place, that rule might be
determined to be the standard of care. For
example, if there is a rule requiring a soccer field
to be inspected for potentially hazardous objects
before play can begin, then such inspection may
be determined to be the standard of care. If there
is no such rule and a standard of care cannot
easily be discerned, the question is how a
reasonably prudent person would have behaved in
the same or similar situation
3. Proximate Cause–There must be a proximate
causal connection between the negligent conduct
and the resulting injury. For example: there was a
hole in the netting that was designed to protect
spectators behind home plate at a baseball
stadium. A spectator got hit in the face by a foul
ball that went through the hole, causing a serious
eye injury. Evidence at trial established that the
manager of the stadium knew that the hole in the
netting was there, failed to fix it and so the court
found that his negligence was the proximate
cause of the spectator’s injury. If the court found
that the spectator had a pre-existing eye injury
and the errant ball was not the cause of her
injury, the element of proximate cause would not
have been met.
4. Damages–The plaintiff has to suffer an actual
injury or damages. If in the previous example, the
spectator could not prove that she was injured by
the ball that hit her, then the fourth element
would not have been met.

 In order for your organization to avoid lawsuits

alleging negligent behavior, it is best to train
employees and volunteers to do their best to
exercise reasonable care that a reasonably
prudent person would have in the same or
similar circumstances.
When divers John Fabriga and John Pahoyo earned a score of 0 in the recent 28th
Southeast Asian Games, Filipinos who couldn't laugh at the humiliating absurdity tore at
their hair in frustration. It was a performance that, for many viewers and lovers of
Philippine sports, encapsulated the state of our country's athletic program.
 Our team's recent performance wouldn’t feel so frustrating
if we didn't possess a proud sports history.
 Our roster of heroes included sprinter Lydia de Vega,
taekwondoin and gymnast Bea Lucero, and swimmer
Teófilo Yldefonso, dubbed the ‘Ilocano Shark’ and was also
the first Southeast Asian to win an Olympic medal. The SEA
Games used to be dominated by the Philippines, and our
country had been to numerous competitions where it went
the distance, including the FIBA.
 In comparison, Philippine sports today feel like a
disappointment. There is always the nagging feeling that
we could do better because we can and have done so. The
seeming lack of results has caused many Filipinos to
abandon their interest in sports.
 Whenever there’s a discussion about the
inadequacy of Philippine sports, a single,
predominant cause is often brought up: money.
Our sports program is
woefully underfunded compared with others in
Southeast Asia, with the government struggling
to find the budget for more pressing concerns.
Additionally, given that athletic programs have
been traditionally used to build a country’s
international reputation, the situation is not
helping the regime’s image.
 Lacking government support, a few teams have
turned to the private sector for a possible
savior. The Lhuillier Group's sponsorship of
Philippine softball, for instance, has enabled us
to compete in the sport and bring home medals.
But many other sports lack an altruistic sponsor,
especially if they are the type with a high chance
of losing.
 The cycle has been set. A lack of funding has led
to a dearth of medals, fueling disinterest which
results in bigger budget cuts.
 Interest in Philippine sports only peaks during
well-televised events like the SEA Games, which
is also when the woeful budget is discussed.
Otherwise, it withers. Some sports have gotten
lucky by finding that one shining star who can
elevate the sport into public consciousness, such
as boxing through Flash Elorde and, now, Manny
Pacquiao. However, reliance on such heroes is
short-lived. Once its star wanes, the sport
follows suit, just like boxing during the period
between Elorde and Pacquiao.
 How do we break the cycle permanently? The
problem can’t be solved by forcing the public
and private sectors to give money or by finding
star athletes. Philippine sports must overcome
disinterest. It is unfortunate, but the
government will only throw money at problems
that catch public attention, and private
companies will sponsor anything that catches
the eyes of their market. Increased attention will
also attract the best people for tryouts, thus
widening the talent pool.
 Generating interest is a familiar problem for a PR
agency. The Philippines still has a deep interest
in sports thanks to our past glories, so the
problem isn't as insurmountable as it seems. It
only takes the right campaigns to bring our
athletic programs to the spotlight.
 Sports are only in the limelight a few times a
year, but the necessary training, which
requires the most funding, happens all year
long. Interest must be maintained throughout
the year by making the athletes and their
preparations just as important as the
competition.
 Many athletes are unknown heroes. Even
though the Philippines has earned 29 gold
medals in the recent SEA games, the general
public still doesn't know the names of the
winners. Sports winners are natural celebrities
and heroes, with bodies representing peak
physical fitness, as well as strong wills that
have overcome the harshest challenges.
Market and mentor them as such.
 Press coverage can be fickle, but the fans are
not. However, to stay interested, fans also
need news and engagement—a job social
media can easily fulfill. Train athletes to take
advantage of social media to educate, excite,
and build love for their respective sports.
 Despite losses and our unsuitability for the
sport, basketball still enjoys overwhelming
corporate support. That's because of the
deep well of fans who would support the
game come hell or high water. By
turning fans into evangelists through
constant engagement, they would be willing
to bat for your sport in boardrooms and
committees when sponsorships and budget
allocations are under discussion.
 The day after their disastrous performance at
the Men’s 3-meter Springboard Diving Finals,
Fabriga and Pahoyo once again climbed the
diving board—this time together for the
Men’s 3-meter Synchronized
Springboard competition. It was then that
they proved worthy of being our
representatives. Hopefully, as with these two
valiant athletes, Philippine sports can once
again make a victorious splash on the
international stage.