ABSTRACT
In this chapter, a former NBA player who is also an experienced European and worldwide trade union representative discusses the role, experience and perspectives of athletes and fans. Palmer finds that the collision between European competition law and the governance models preferred by sport administrators has affected the experience of athletes and spectators in a variety of ways. Athletes, especially, bring rights with them into the arena that can be negatively impacted by pyramidal governance structures that embed already imbalanced power dynamics. While sport administrators advocate for a de facto exemption from competition law using a variety of code phrases, such as ‘specificity,’ ‘autonomy’ and the ‘European model of sport,’ experience shows that collective bargaining and social dialogue offer an already established path to derogations from laws and regulations that may impinge upon the business of sport. Athletes, spectators, and sport organisations, it is argued, all stand to gain if the risks posed by competition law to some of the accepted practices in sport are addressed collectively. The author also explores the impacts that current sport governance practices have on athletes and spectators through the lens of European competition law.
