Nandan Kamath is a sports lawyer and the founder of LawNK, a law firm based in Bengaluru specialising in sports, technology, and media law, representing a diverse clientele that includes national and international sports federations, leagues, teams, sponsors, and athletes. In this interview, he speaks to ALB about sports policymaking, required skillsets for sports lawyers, and his new book “Boundary Lab.”
ALB: Over the past decade, how has the legislative and regulatory framework governing sports in India evolved to match the increase in professionalism and commercialisation of sports in India?
Kamath: The professionalisation, commercialisation, medicalisation and technologisation of sport continually make new demands on sports governance.
The last major governance intervention was the National Sports Development Code, 2011, which provided recognition standards for our national sports bodies. There have been no significant updates to its framework since then. As a result, there have been numerous judicial interventions by constitutional courts pushing for public accountability of sports bodies.
A few years ago, a law was passed to make the National Anti-Doping Authority a statutory body. Previously, we have seen laws to require the broadcasting of major sporting events on free-to-air television. Outside of these, organised sport remains largely unlegislated territory in India.
Other than cricket, the government remains the primary funder of most sports bodies. A thoughtful legislative framework and investment in state regulatory capacity can potentially focus the state's attention, unlock value, and spur on the growth of Indian sport.
ALB: Beyond traditional areas like licensing, broadcasting rights, and IP, what are some of the newer, more complex issues that sports lawyers in India are grappling with today?
Kamath: The exciting thing about working on the interplay between sport and law is the diversity of issues one encounters. Often sport is also a frontrunner, with legal issues coming up for debate and resolution at an early stage in their evolution.
For instance, battles around the ownership, control and commercialisation of athlete data are already alive and are expected to intensify. As the industry grows, and digital and immersive experiences become more ubiquitous, fan data and consumer protection could also emerge as battlegrounds.
AI-enabled deepfakes are already creating real issues in the celebrity endorsement market, with fabricated ads being generated from publicly available reference materials. If sport is to benefit from AI's offerings, the impact of such threats will have to be moderated, and this could require legislative intervention.
I expect to see competition law play an important role in the next phase of India’s sports development. This can supplement a sports governance framework. If we can develop antitrust principles relevant to the Indian sports market and developmental context, we could prevent ourselves from being limited by the capacity, resources and imagination of our formal sports bodies.
ALB: As the sports industry in India continues to grow and professionalise, what new opportunities are emerging for lawyers looking to specialise in sports law?
Kamath: Sports law is often described as a specialisation within legal practice. In my experience, the practice is one that requires deep generalists - allrounders who understand transactional, regulatory, dispute resolution practices and a wide swathe of substantive and procedural laws. Issues can range from employment law to environmental law, criminal law to trusts law, natural justice principles to data protection.
While the sports sector is growing, professional opportunities are still limited in India. Careers may not always be linear in trajectory. Patience, resilience and fortitude will be as important as knowledge, skills and hard work for aspiring lawyers. I am excited about what the future holds for the profession and the contributions it can make to Indian sport. Most mature sports markets have got there with the active involvement of the legal fraternity.
ALB: In your book Boundary Lab, what are some of the key themes or predictions you make about how sports law will evolve in the coming years? How can lawyers and the broader sports ecosystem prepare for these changes?
Kamath: While Boundary Lab also addresses how rules and laws apply to sport, it is primarily a deep exploration of organised sport's role in society. Given sport's global and uniform structure of rule-making, it finds itself on the frontier of many of the significant contestations of our times, be they on matters of gender, fairness, privacy, or the appropriate role of technology in our lives.
Sport finds – and expands – human performance boundaries. That aspect is well understood. However, it also does this with social boundaries – the lines between the private and the public, rights and duties, and so much more. Whether or not one is interested in sport, what happens in sport and its regulation affects us all. We live our lives downstream of many of its resolutions.
I believe that sport plays a vital, often underacknowledged, role in shaping the public domain. This is why – in Boundary Lab – I advocate for active participation and public stakeholdership in sport. Sport always returns the favour.
