The jurisprudential turn in sports law

Guy Osborn
Westminster Law School, University of Westminster

This collection is timely. Observing sport through a jurisprudential lens has become increasingly prevalent. Writing in idrottsforum some years ago regarding an earlier intervention, the editor of the collection under review here noted that Mitch Berman coined the term ‘jurisprudence of sport’, although it is arguable that there are a number of earlier examples of a jurisprudential approach being taken to sport without perhaps labelling it as such. These include David Fraser’s classic text Cricket and the Law and Jim Parry’s work around ethics and sport, both of these are jurisprudentially informed. A cursory literature review shows there have been a number of developments in this area and a growing field is emerging, and this book is a welcome and apposite addition to the area.

Many areas of sport are of course ripe for interventions using this perspective; the ethics of drug use and legal responses; the nature of sport itself, and the interaction with rules/norms/laws to name but a few. These areas have been subjected to socio-legal and other responses, but a jurisprudential approach has potential to add a unique angle to their exploration. So, it is with a real sense of anticipation that we turn to the book itself.

The book splits into two related parts, an approach that is both appropriate and pragmatic. The first part is foundational, consisting of five orienting chapters looking at various underpinning issues that help to frame the second part of the book. These five chapters include the aforementioned Mitch Berman outlining a research agenda for the area. The bonus here is that this is a new(ish) and emerging area, so Berman is able to encourage some eclectic approaches. Key to it seems to be the idea that sport becomes the centre of gravity and other fields or approaches can be applied – this is not unlike the argument for decentring law and using sport as the point of departure to allow rich analyses of areas of sports study (see https://www.entsportslawjournal.com/article/id/792/).

The book offers a fascinating insight into this emerging area and has some exciting approaches and case studies that will be of real interest to many readers.

Of course, a joy of sport is that there are countless, and ongoing, issues and case studies to apply these lenses to. Not only do we have regular sporting events that can be subjected to this (the Olympics, the World Cup are every four years, bi-annually if you count the Winter Olympics and these are the tip of the iceberg) – many other events are held regularly) but new case studies and issues that exhibit fundamental legal and philosophical questions regularly appear. Even a cursory analysis of the sports pages in a quality newspaper can illustrate this, so Berman’s call to arms is a valid one. The remaining chapters in this foundational section include a very short piece on the game ‘contract’, a focus on the issue of rules, an analysis of the intersection between state law and sport law using doping as a case study, and a chapter by Tuncel that examines the relationship between formalism and realism. These all raise valid and interesting points, perhaps other areas might have been considered for foundational underpinning, perhaps even linking directly to the philosophy of law/jurisprudence canon and seeing how this might intersect with sport, but all the chapters are of use and value, and there is no single, linear way to organise any edited collection as I know from experience.

The second part of the book is entitled ‘Specific Issues’. Here scholars have been selected to examine areas such as equality and migration, as well as examining the role of technology in sport – indeed the role of the video assistant referee (VAR)  gets not one but two chapters – the first examining its epistemic limits and the second its impact – again this is a neat example of an area that elicits much debate in newspapers and on fan discussion boards – has VAR ruined football? Does technology have a role? It hints at broader debates about the role of AI, what it is to be human and more, all very valid and interesting approaches that tell us something not only about sport, but about society more generally. The human, in the form of the referee gets a look at in Lopez Frias’ chapter on the role of discretion for the football referee, looking closely at one particular instance, Howard Webb at the 2010 World Cup. My fine colleague and friend Steve Greenfield also appears, scoping out a new dimension to the important area of juridification and suggesting a pivot to a more nuanced understanding of legal consciousness when considering this.

The book offers a fascinating insight into this emerging area and has some exciting approaches and case studies that will be of real interest to many readers. Sports law students will learn much form this, perhaps as an extra added gauze through which to view areas they have already considered, allowing for a better contextual understanding. Sports studies students will gain much too, offering as it does a unique and deep theoretical take on its specific areas. More broadly, it is an important statement that not only is sport to be taken seriously from a theoretical standpoint, but that philosophy can be applied, and usefully utilised, to help our understanding of sport.

Copyright © Guy Osborn 2026