Sports Legal Work Runs on Intellectual Property: Firms and Cities

A general counsel or chief executive picking sports law firms usually starts with deal teams. Sartori & Partners data point elsewhere: across 347 sports deals in the 12 months to October 2026, intellectual property lawyers appear on 33.1%, and disputes and investigations are 51.3% of the sector's deals. Both figures sit far above the deal market as a whole. The firms credited most often follow that mix, and one of them stands a full band ahead of the next three. This report reads who advises sports organizations, on what kind of matter, and from which cities.

Intellectual property is on 33.1% of sports deals, a third of the sector's work, against 11.1% of all deals. That is 3.0 times the market's share. Corporate and M&A, by contrast, sits close to its market level: 25.1% of sports deals against 23.3% of all deals. General litigation appears on 6.9% of sports deals, a rough size resting on a small count, against 3.7% in the market. Each share is taken over every sports deal, including deals with no practice recorded, so the shares compare one practice with another and do not split the whole.

Neighboring consumer sectors also lean on intellectual property, but less. The practice is on 31.9% of consumer goods and retail deals, 27.8% of education deals and 26.3% of media and entertainment deals. Sports carries the highest share of the four. Team names, league marks, broadcast footage, player likeness and merchandise are what a sports organization owns, and the deal record shows outside counsel spending its time defending them. A sports company that hires its main outside firm for transactional strength buys the smaller part of what it will need.

Disputes and investigations are 51.3% of sports deals, against 25.0% across the deal market, a gap of 26.3 points. That figure needs one plain reading. In Sartori & Partners records, a deal includes a dispute taken from a public court docket or a trademark-office filing, alongside transactions announced by firms. A count of sports deals is therefore a count of matters on record, not a measure of fees or revenue, and a trademark opposition weighs the same as an acquisition.

Those records explain why intellectual property and disputes rise together. Across the whole deal market, 95.3% of the deals that carry intellectual property lawyers are disputes and investigations. M&A, the other deal type large enough to publish for sports, holds at 19.3% of sports deals, the same as its 19.3% share of all deals. Education runs even further toward contested work, with disputes at 61.5% of its deals, while consumer goods and retail sits at 42.4%. For a buyer, the practical point is that a sports mandate is most often a filing to oppose, a mark to defend or a claim to answer, and the firm should be chosen on that record.

Akerman is credited on more sports deals than any other firm over 12 months, in the 21-40 band. King & Spalding, Merchant & Gould and Latham & Watkins follow in the 11-20 band. The remaining six of the top 10, from Katten Muchin Rosenman to Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, all sit in the 6-10 band. A band is a range of deals, so firms inside one band are not ranked against each other with any precision.

The sports list is mostly not the market's list. Of the ten firms credited on the most deals across all sectors, only Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin also sit in the sports top 10. The firm at the head of the whole market sits in the 1,200+ band; in sports, the first firm sits in the 21-40 band. The sector is small enough that a few dozen matters set the order, and a buyer should read the list as a set of firms with recent sports experience, not as a strict ranking.

Lawyers in New York worked on 40.5% of sports deals, against 29.9% of consumer goods and retail deals. Each figure is the share of a sector's deals, among those with a known lawyer location, that had lawyers working on them from the city. One deal can count in several cities, so the shares overlap and add up to more than the whole. They show where the work is done, not where lawyers are counted.

After New York come Washington, DC at 13.3%, London at 12.7% and Los Angeles at 10.9%. Los Angeles matters less to sports than to media and entertainment, where lawyers there worked on 16.2% of deals. Boston works the other way: lawyers there worked on 6.6% of sports deals, against 4.0% of media deals. Washington, DC holds second place in both sectors; in media and entertainment, lawyers there worked on 18.3% of deals.

For a sports organization outside those cities, the lesson is to ask where the firm's trademark and litigation partners sit, not where its sports marketing is written. A New York or Washington team can run a national portfolio; a local team may be closer to the club but further from the filings.

Sports deals rose 22.7% over the latest settled year, to 341 from 278. The deal market as a whole rose 10.6% over the same windows. Media and entertainment held flat (+4.2%), and consumer goods and retail held flat (-2.1%). The sports sector is small, so a few dozen extra matters move the figure, but the direction is clear: more sports work reached outside firms this year than last.

Only 4.6% of sports deals disclose a value, against 10.3% in media and entertainment, 10.7% in consumer goods and retail and 6.0% in education. The low figure follows from the work mix: oppositions, infringement claims and licensing disputes carry no published price. The companion report on sports lawyers who changed firms reads the hiring side of the sector; this one reads the matters. Sartori & Partners suggests that a buyer benchmark fees on comparable matters by type and city, since deal size gives little to go on.

First, build the panel around brand and rights protection. With intellectual property on 33.1% of sports deals and disputes at 51.3%, the firm that files and defends the marks will see the organization more often than the firm that closes its next investment. Ask each candidate for its trademark oppositions and infringement cases in sport over 12 months, and for the partners who ran them.

Second, do not read the market's deal table as a sports table. Only three of the market's top 10 firms appear in the sports top 10, and Akerman, in the 21-40 band, sits one band above King & Spalding, Merchant & Gould and Latham & Watkins. Invite firms from both bands, and test them on the same matters.

Third, keep the transactional mandate separate. M&A is 19.3% of sports deals, level with the market, so a deal firm chosen on general strength is a fair choice there, while the rights work goes to the firm with the filing record.