Balch Sports - Corporate & Compliance

Balch Sports’ Corporate & Compliance team addresses the growing number of legal issues facing the sports industry, including contract and rights negotiations, audits, compliance, and corporate governance. Our  accomplished team, led by Partner, Jonathan Hoffmann, is adept at determining issues and addressing them effectively because we take the time to understand our clients, their challenges, and their strengths in order to provide tailored, practical, and effective advice. 

We excel at advising large multi-sport events, having served as outside general counsel to host countries for the World Games, World Police & Fire Games and Transplant Games. Over and above contract negotiations regarding venues, sponsorships, broadcasting, have handled negotiations with international federations and rights holders, we are involved in strategic planning and provide advice on corporate governance. Additionally, Balch Sports' Corporate & Compliance practice has deep experience advising committees and organizations on intellectual property rights with a primary focus on trademark protection and monetization, as well as copyright licensing and enforcement. 

Our extensive sports-related capabilities mean that we can provide sport presentation companies exceptional legal advice in the myriad of issues they face routinely such as creative licensing counsel, production execution issues, distribution matters, vendor management concerns, and all manner of rights negotiations, maintenance, and termination. We oversee a variety of commercial deals for our sports law clients and serve as legal counsel on transactions related to operations, sponsorship, and the countless concerns of multi-faceted large-scale sporting and entertainment events.

Balch Sports regularly assist National Governing Bodies (NGBs) on policy auditing and investigations, training, risk mitigation, contract negotiations, and crisis management when necessary. Our team also advises on compliance related to SafeSport, Ted Stevens Act, and the USOPL. 

Because of Balch's deep experience in sports events, we have been able to counsel new venues on rights management, large venues on risk mitigation, political campaigns on licensing, as well as inauguration committees.

Core capabilities include:

• Venue rights and negotiations
• Contract Negotiation
• Corporate Governance
• Intellectual Property & Technology
• Data Privacy & Management
• Audit & Investigation