Event-specific ambush marketing legislation for mega-sporting events: an economics perspective

The bid process for hosting mega global sporting events mandates the enactment of event-specific ambush marketing legislation that provides extraordinary trademark law protections for private sports organisations and their official sponsors. Such event-specific ambush marketing legislation, or ESAML,has come under increasing scrutiny by academics and practitioners who question, among other things, the need for such legislation. One of the major areas of concern has become the potential social cost of such legislation that includes restrictions on free speech and curbs on marketplace competition. We apply economic theory as a means to explain why governments have been so willing to enact such legislation.