News & Views

As the Premier League continues to dominate national headlines and valuations, a quieter revolution is taking place elsewhere in UK sport. Across cricket, rugby, lower-league football, national governing bodies, and emerging new formats, a new investor ecosystem is emerging. This new investor ecosystem is targeting under-leveraged rights and sports, distressed assets, and commercial innovation in traditionally overlooked spaces.

To keep you up to date with activity in the sport sector, here is a brief round-up of some of the sector's more significant business stories in July 2025.

A landlord has been ordered to repay nearly £700,000 in undisclosed insurance commissions.

With the new season fast approaching, a change in the regulatory framework governing football in England is also moving ever closer.  Men's professional football clubs will now be subject to a regime of statutory regulation, overseen by the new Independent Football Regulator.

Few Parliamentary Bills have garnered more media attention in recent years than the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (‘DUA Act’). The DUA Act’s draft papers effectively ping-ponged between the Houses of Parliament over numerous issues, with none more contentious than the attempt to include additional transparency measures on how AI tools have collected its source data. Whilst lobbied by big artists like Elton John and (the appropriately named) Dua Lipa, this issue was eventually dropped from the Bill to be discussed in more detail via consultation process led by the Secretary of State due within 9 months of the DUA Act coming into force.

It has been six years since the last update to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (‘PECR’) in the UK, and they still govern how marketing emails should be managed. On 19 June 2025 the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (‘DUAA’) received Royal Assent after much deliberation between the Houses, and tucked within it are some important changes to the PECR regime, with the headline being the increase in the potential penalties being applied.

To keep you up to date with activity in the sport sector, here is a brief round-up of some of the sector's more significant business stories in June 2025.

For law firm owners contemplating a sale or exit, whether this is prompted by succession planning, market consolidation, or strategic realignment, it is essential to approach the process with a clear understanding of the regulatory obligations involved. Unlike more straight forward corporate transactions, the sale of a legal practice carries with it unique regulatory requirements, and it is crucial that these matters are properly addressed to ensure compliance.

Whether it’s the sight of Mo Salah taking a selfie on a Google Pixel mobile with the Anfield crowd behind him, or Welcome to Wrexham on Netflix opening up commercial partnerships with international brands like TikTok, sports businesses and clubs are continually seeking ways to grow their brand value.

It is no secret that the power of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) lies within the sheer volume of data on which it is trained. The question that is now being asked is whose data was that and should it have been trained on that material in the first place?