Friday, 23 January 2026
Author: Stephen Townley
This is the final article in a four-part series by Stephen Townley, a sports lawyer with nearly 50 years’ experience advising organisations including FIFA, the IOC, World Rugby, and the International Tennis Federation, examining sport’s intangible assets. In Parts 1 to 3, Stephen explored how sport marketing became big business, why 80% of sport’s value is now invisible, and how sport has moved from amateur clubs to investable asset classes. Here, he identifies the key trends and challenges ahead.
These ten challenges represent inflection points where sport law must evolve beyond conventional practice. The organisations that recognise their brand value resides primarily in intangible assets, deploy technology for protection rather than litigation for remedy, and build structures flexible enough to adapt to rapid change, will thrive. Those that cling to outdated models risk losing control of assets they have spent decades building.
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Stephen Townley
Stephen Townley is Consultant to Stobbs and their sister business Obviously on Rights/Intangible Asset Management and Intellectual Property in Sport. He is a lawyer, businessman and seasoned ADR professional with extensive expertise resolving high-value legal and business disputes in Asia, the Middle East and North America. Mr. Townley’s diverse litigation and transactional background includes the founding of Townleys, the first and largest international sports law and media boutique outside the United States, in 1983. It merged in 2001 with global 100 law firm Hammonds (now Squire Patton Boggs), where Mr. Townley served as head of international. Mr. Townley also served as general counsel and foreign law consultant for a number of firms.
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