Sports Ticker 8 – Sturridge ban, Cycling World League and Sun Yang's ban

Welcome to the latest edition of the RPC Sports Ticker - providing fortnightly bite-size updates from around the sports industry.

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In this fortnight's edition, we cover a new partnership formed to create a Cycling World League, the "scrum" over the Six Nations broadcasting rights and worldwide bans for footballer Daniel Sturridge and gold medallist swimmer Sun Yang.

 As always, if there are any areas you'd like more information on (or if you have any questions or feedback), please let us know or get in touch with your usual RPC contact.

1. Discovery on track to form UCI Track Cycling World League

The International Cycling Union (UCI) has announced a partnership with Discovery, which will see the launch of a new UCI Track Cycling World League.

2. Terrestrial and Pay TV scrum over Six Nations

 Organisers of the Six Nations have said that they would not rule out selling the broadcasting rights to Sky Sports or another pay TV channel.

3. Total eclipse: Wada ban Sun for 8 years for sample tampering violation

 Olympic Gold medallist Sun Yang has been handed an eight-year ban in competitive swimming for tampering with a blood sample.

4. Sturridge's woes accumulate at Trabzonspor

England forward Daniel Sturridge has been handed a four month ban from playing football worldwide and a £150,000 fine.

5. Settlement between FIA and Ferrari ruffles feathers

Seven F1 teams have released a joint statement explaining that they "strongly object" to F1’s governing body (the FIA) agreeing a private settlement with Ferrari over the legality of its 2019 Formula 1 engine.

Extra time...

And, finally, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to grow, we have received a number of requests from clients to consider specific force majeure clauses and broader commercial options to manage the disruption which is being caused to sporting events.  Often, such clauses will be broad enough to incorporate Covid-19 within the definition of a force majeure event, which could give rise to termination rights (subject to how long it impacts on performance), insurance claims, and/or broader commercial discussions about extending agreements to make up for time 'lost'. If you haven't already, now is the time to check your contracts, open up discussions with business partners and consider options for mitigating potential losses.