DOSB legal opinion on the concept of sport and esport

The DOSB (German Olympic Sports Confederation) has commissioned a legal opinion on the concept of sport in connection with Esport, which concludes that Esport should not be recognized as a sport.

The fact that the DOSB is opposed to esports is nothing new. The concept of sport, which is also shaped by the case law surrounding Section 52 of the German Fiscal Code, is highly complicated and interspersed with many facets.

The legal opinion concludes that Esport is not a sport, mainly because “longstanding case law has concretized the requirements of physicality in the traditional sense,” which is not met as a prerequisite in PC and console games.

I hope to have access to the full text of the decision soon and will try to fairly evaluate the opinion here on the blog.

Despite this setback, even though it is of course a commissioned opinion, the legislature still has the opportunity to take Article 3 of the Basic Law seriously and to initiate legislative changes to equal rights for esports, even without first formally recognizing esports as a sport. It is to be hoped that the grand coalition will remember its coalition agreement after all.