Corporate M&A

Akerman LLP is a leading law firm recognized for its Sports Business Law Practice, which provides sophisticated counsel informed by broad-based industry knowledge and decades of experience.

The Sports, Fashion and Entertainment Practice Area at Antas da Cunha Ecija & Associados is considered innovative, differentiating and of excellence in the Portuguese and International market, focusing on transversal, and specialised legal advice for celebrities, companies and organisations in the Sports, Fashion and Entertainment industries. All this, in a “family office” mindset within a global, innovative and highly technological law firm.

Clarke Willmott are specialist solicitors for the sports sector. We provide a full service that is proactive, sharp and cost effective for all your legal issues, from sports employment disputes and disciplinary matters to stadia construction projects; from commercial contracts and sponsorship agreements, to advising on high profile sports club insolvencies.

We have a dedicated global, cross-practice Sports Sector Group that are long-standing advisers within the Entertainment and Sports sector, providing innovative and commercial solutions to our clients around the world. The group regularly advises on the biggest ticket issues facing sporting bodies, investors, clubs and lenders. With the rapid recent growth in the sector, we are adept at navigating the increasing complexity.

Across Europe, the US, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, we have a group of over 50 lawyers with sport industry experience and expertise. This enables us to efficiently and effectively support clients with multi-jurisdictional work and apply our global sports experience with an understanding of the locality of the matter. We are recognised for our quality across the globe with the most tier one rankings of any firm.

We advise key stakeholders and investors in the fast-growing Entertainment & Sports sector. They turn to us for legal insight and our multi-jurisdictional experience. Clients call on us to support on a wide range of legal issues, both non contentious and contentious. This includes M&A and capital markets transactions; private equity investment, the organisation of international sports events; strategic commercial contracts; the trading of sports commercial rights; finance and infrastructure transactions; as well as regulatory and disputes work. Our clients include media businesses, governing bodies, broadcasters, financial investors and major clubs and sports organisations.

We have particular strength in the sector in the UK, Spain and France where we have acted on market leading mandates for some time. In the UK we are recognised by Chambers and Legal 500 for our sports expertise and the quality of our sector leads. In France and Spain we are Band 1 ranked for sports and regularly awarded top tier accolades for our market leading work. We have advised on the biggest mandates on behalf of the full array of market participants including clubs, governing bodies, investors, athletes, organising committees and agencies.

Clyde & Co is a dynamic, global law firm focused on providing complete legal services to clients across the UK & Ireland, and globally.

Whether it’s complex M&A transactions, disputes or regulatory advice, we provide clients with everything they need on their most important matters when operating in the sports industry.

We also advise on compliance, investigations, financings and key employment matters. In addition, we have experience with rights commercialisation in broadcasting, licensing and sponsorship deals and on content distribution, including over-the-top (OTT) services.

The sports industry is one of the most thrilling sectors and provokes a multitude of passion, opinions and excitement for everyone involved. The opportunities and challenges are far-reaching and diverse. We at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer help businesses navigate the sector in order to help our clients thrive in the complex and rapidly changing landscape.

Hesperus is a forensic accounting firm dedicated to providing insights of the highest quality to our clients. Our work in the sector includes M&A diligence, disputes, investigations, financial transparency build outs, regulatory compliance, general audit concerns and more.

Knights’ Sports Team includes experts with substantial knowledge and a genuine passion to support those across the sector, with many of our colleagues having personal experience in the industry. We work with a wide range of clients including athletes, agents, clubs, brands, governing bodies, international federations and other businesses operating in the sector.

Our global, cross-practice sports sector team combines a real passion and understanding of the sector and its specific requirements and pressures (including increased regulatory scrutiny) with exceptional multi-jurisdictional expertise across all areas of corporate/M&A, finance and banking, capital markets and equity financing, commercial, technology and media, crisis management, data protection, IP, dispute resolution, regulatory and compliance investigations, real estate, restructuring and insolvency, anti-trust, employment and tax matters. This puts us in a unique position to be able to provide our clients with a full and seamless end-to-end service to help them successfully navigate the most complex and high-profile matters arising in the sector.

We are at the forefront of the generational changes in the sports industry – such as legalized sports betting and college athletes earning salaries in the U.S.

Reed Smith lawyers have decades of experience representing advertisers, owners, investors, teams, universities, and athletes in matters such as sponsorship and stadium naming rights agreements, team acquisitions, sports finance, multimedia rights deals, and arena and stadium development and operations.

Wordley Partnership specialise in disputes and corporate law advising professional and amateur sports clubs, organisations and businesses; associations; sports national governing bodies, individual sports participants , players, coaches and instructors.