A discreet practice for the people and companies building a young industry, from players, creators, and organizations to leagues and the capital around them. We work where the contracts, the intellectual property, and the rules are still being written.
A corporate and private-capital boutique with international reach: a principal office in Chicago, a second office in Oakbrook Terrace, offices in London and Dubai through partner firms, meeting locations by appointment in seven further US cities, and a partner network across ~51 jurisdictions on five continents. Founded 2013.
Many esports careers begin with a contract signed before the player turns eighteen, under a publisher's license and a league rulebook, neither of which the player negotiated. That is the shape of most matters here: one deal, three counterparties. We sequence exclusivity and content carve-outs so the organization's contract, the league's rulebook and the publisher's license do not break one another, and before anyone negotiates we establish who owns the gamer tag, the stream archive and the in-game assets, because every match is played under a license the players do not hold.
We have been counsel in esports and gaming since 2021 and in digital assets since 2014, which helps now that in-game economies and sponsorships arrive in the same term sheet. Each client, player or publisher, is the principal in the room, and most of the work is never public.
Where a tournament or an endorsement touches a regulator, it is usually the FTC's endorsement rules or a state's prize and gambling law. We test the prize structure in each jurisdiction the event reaches and read the disclosure rules before the announcement, not after the clip is shared.
Sponsorship and endorsement agreements drafted to protect players, teams, and leagues, with terms, exclusivity, and deliverables structured to hold and advertising and endorsement compliance built in.
Enter the practice: Sponsorship & Endorsements →Tournament rule design that accounts for the applicable laws, including anti-gambling considerations and integrity provisions for cheating, and that functions across the jurisdictions where an event is run.
Enter the practice: Tournament Rules & Compliance →Intellectual property and licensing strategy for the many assets inside a game. The music, visual assets, characters, stories, and trademarks are protected and cleared so the rights survive scrutiny.
Enter the practice: IP & Licensing →Careful negotiation of player contracts, covering compensation, rights, and individual interests, with the additional protections that matter for young and first-time competitors entering binding agreements.
Enter the practice: Player Rights & Contracts →Counsel on mergers, acquisitions, and investment in the sector. Deal structures are built around unfamiliar digital assets and business models, and the diligence is sized to what the transaction actually requires.
Enter the practice: M&A & Investment →Content-creation and streaming agreements for creators and platforms. Licensing, performance rights, and revenue terms are drafted so the upside is captured and the obligations are clear.
Enter the practice: Creators & Streaming →Nobody owns basketball. Every game title is copyrighted, so a league, a tournament, and a broadcast all run on a license from the publisher, often granted year to year under a tournament policy the publisher can rewrite. A multi-year sponsorship against a license that renews yearly is a mismatch the contract has to address.
The footage belongs to the publisher, the face and voice to the player, and the commentary and overlays to whoever produced the broadcast. A sponsor who cuts that clip into an advertisement needs all three. A team's license to the player's likeness needs an end date, or the jersey outlasts the player.
A tournament ruleset is a contract with every entrant, and courts read it as one. A ban for cheating or match-fixing holds up when the rules named the offense, the standard of proof, and the appeal route before the event began. Where betting on the match is legal, fixing it is also a crime.
Prize money and sponsor money carry different rules. A pay-to-enter tournament with a prize pool is a contest under state law, lawful where skill decides the result and still restricted in several states. Sponsor money brings the FTC's endorsement rules, which put the disclosure on the stream itself, repeated, not parked in a bio.
Many first contracts are signed before the player turns eighteen. Minors' terms, likeness and streaming rights, and buyout clauses are read for what the player keeps when the roster changes, which it will.
An esports organization's value sits in its player contracts, its league agreements, and its sponsorship deals. Most of those carry consent or change-of-control clauses, so a financing or a sale can need the league's approval and can release a sponsor. Investors price the league slot. Diligence asks whether it transfers.
We work with clients throughout the industry: gamers and content creators, teams and their organizations, leagues, competition venues, advertisers, broadcasters, and investors. Each has a stake, and each interest has to be represented for the industry to function. The work is partner-led and, by preference, kept quiet.
Entity structure, governance, financings, and the commercial and IP licensing agreements that quietly run an organization or a game company.
Explore corporate →Token economies, in-game items, and the regulatory strategy for digital-asset models, where we were early counsel to the category, before it had a settled name.
Explore digital assets →IP enforcement, contract disputes, and the high-stakes situations where the clock is running and the outcome matters.
Explore litigation →Hart David Carson LLP represents the people and companies building the industry: players, creators, organizations, leagues, venues, broadcasters, advertisers, and the investors and game companies around them. Each has a stake, and each interest has to be represented on its own terms for the industry to function.
Sponsorship and endorsement agreements carry the economics for players, teams, and leagues, so they are drafted to protect those interests. We structure terms, exclusivity, and deliverables to hold, with advertising and endorsement compliance built into the agreement.
A single game is layered intellectual property. Music, visual assets, characters, stories, and trademarks are among the layers, and each has to be licensed and protected separately. We build the IP and licensing strategy so the rights survive scrutiny rather than collapsing under it.
Tournament rules and operations have to account for the applicable law, including anti-gambling requirements that vary by jurisdiction and continue to evolve. We design rules and integrity provisions that function across the jurisdictions where an event is run.
Yes. We negotiate player contracts, covering compensation, rights, and individual interests, with the additional protections that matter for young and first-time competitors, and we draft content-creation and streaming agreements so a creator captures the upside and understands the obligations.
Yes. We counsel on mergers, acquisitions, and investment across esports and gaming, with deal structures built around unfamiliar digital assets and business models and the diligence the transaction actually requires.
Before anyone negotiates, we map who actually owns what: gamer tag and likeness, stream VODs, in-game assets, and the publisher's license that sits over the whole event. In this industry the chain of title is usually shorter than everyone assumed.
A single roster or sponsorship deal is negotiated against three counterparties at once: the organization, the league's rulebook, and the publisher whose IP the competition runs on. We sequence the exclusivity and content carve-outs so none of the three agreements breaks the other two.
Prize structures are tested against anti-gambling and skill-contest law in each jurisdiction the event touches. Endorsement deliverables are checked against FTC disclosure rules, and minors' contracts get the added protections a first-time competitor never thinks to ask for.
Closing is where the season's work begins. Roster moves, buyouts, sponsor renewals, and integrity incidents are handled mid-season under the machinery the contract built, with one partner as your point of contact through the split.
Every match is played on someone else's intellectual property, so we make sure your rights survive the license.
Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.