Legal aspects of marketing and eventmanagement

Today’s sport manager or administrator do not only have to be familiar with the process of management, but also need a knowledge of sport and the people involved with it. They are required to have management skills as well as a feeling for the business, which includes legal aspects.
All kind of sport institutions or manifestation are influenced by legal aspect settings by constitutional / public law, federal civil rights, federal constitutions or contracts. Especially the wide range of opportunities of event management and marketing always leads to potential problems which are covered by legislation. Organizers and managers are often unaware of all essential legal duties when they are preparing and drafting a marketing plan. Many of them search specialist advice from lawyers, safety experts, and others with specific expertise in the areas they are unsure about. The risks of ignoring the duties should not be underrated at first glance, to do so could lead to consequences which could leave uncalculating damages and fatally problems for the organization or marketing plan (vgl. WATT 1998, 140 ff.). Even sport management and marketing is mainly based by total quality management which essentials are just to be more effective (vgl. WATT 1998, 114 ff.). Searching a solution or making a recreation plan is normally too late or a worst case. This is the reason why the combination of sport and legislation of management have become more demanding.
The following chapters are about the host of legal issues affecting the marketing of products. The risks and duties of making sport products, as well as performing sport events, are illustrated in consideration of the property rights or the danger of collision with other currently available rights. Particularly, the chapters show how to protect own intellectual property associated with the creation of a product or with ideas developed out of sport sponsorship and licensing programs. Although this work mainly focuses on the U.S. law and literature, it is also internationally applicable and can be used in Germany, since the differences between the laws are minimal.
This paper starts with a short overview about some legal basics, followed by their influence on marketing and sport business.