THE SPORTS BUSINESS was conceived toward the end of my service as international counsel for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games of 2008. I published my book, The Movie Business, in 2005 and was thinking that I had learned much about how international sport was commercialized. I had also worked on several projects for the National Basketball Association and one for Major League Baseball--a fascinating project in China involving, more or less, the development of a program facility to discover the Yao Ming of baseball. I started the book in my usual fashion, working on airplanes and in my spare time on the weekends to come up with a roadmap, but it was mostly catch as catch can. However, in 2015, I was asked by USC Law School to teach a class on sports law. That summer, I worked frantically to finish the core sections of the book--i.e., the basic principles of sports law and the four major areas of sports commerce (ticketing, licensing, sponsorships and broadcasting). I taught with that manuscript in 2015 and in 2016 I finished the first draft of the book. I am currently editing the book in preparation for going out to publishers and looking forward to seeing the book in the marketplace for all who are interested in learning about the businss of sports.
