Organizational and Legal Issues Surrounding E-sport within the International Olympic System

Abstract

On 28 October 2017, the sixth Olympic Summit was organized in Lausanne, bringing together representatives of the international Olympic Movement. One of the topics discussed was the ‘Development of eSports’. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) quickly committed to the e-sport community by organizing the first e-sport Forum in 2018 in Lausanne. In the run-up to the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo in 2020, the first Olympic Virtual Series will take place from 13 May to 23 June 2021, with more than 240,000 participants from over 100 countries competing in five e-sport disciplines (baseball, cycling, rowing, sailing and motorsport). The first Olympic e-sport week will be held in Singapore in 2023, with the Olympic Esports Series. The qualifying rounds and finals brought together 500,000 participants to watch more than 130 players compete in 10 e-sport disciplines. These successes led the IOC members meeting in Mumbai (India) at the 141st Session to create an Olympic e-sport Games. The first e-sport Olympic Games will be summoned in 2027 in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). To organize these Games, the IOC has joined forces with the Saudi Arabian National Olympic and Paralympic Committee (NOPC) and the expertise of the Esports World Cup Foundation (EWCF). These first Games are the culmination of a long process of reflection on the legal status of e-sport, which has been recognized as a sporting competition. However, the Olympic recognition of e-sport raises new legal issues, particularly with regard to the protection of the intellectual property rights of video game publishers whose games are selected.