The NUJS Centre for Sports Law & Policy (CSLP) is pleased to announce a special lecture on sports and journalism, which seeks to provide sports enthusiasts a platform to engage with sports law through the lens of media. The session is held by Dr Soumitra Bose, a reputed journalist and expert in Sports Law.
Guest Speaker Profile
Dr Soumitra Bose is a journalist who works extensively in sports, content creation, and online gaming. This discussion is particularly relevant in light of the work of Dr Bose, whose career spans over four decades of mainstream experience in sports journalism across print, broadcast, and digital media. His contributions to leading publications such as Hindustan Times, Outlook India, and The Times of India, as well as to regulatory authorities such as FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, reflect a sustained engagement with sport not merely as entertainment, but as a site of institutional scrutiny and public debate. His work demonstrates how media narratives can influence governance structures, shape stakeholder behaviour, and bring critical issues within the ambit of regulatory attention.
Further, his experience in emerging domains such as online gaming highlights how media continues to play a central role in framing new regulatory challenges in sport and sport-adjacent industries. This positions him uniquely to speak to the evolving relationship between media, governance, and law.
Concept note
Sports law is often understood through the lens of rules, disputes, and institutional frameworks. However, many of the most consequential developments in sports governance do not originate in courtrooms or arbitral bodies. Instead, they emerge from public narratives constructed, contested, and amplified through journalism and media.
From doping scandals and governance failures to athlete rights and integrity concerns, it is the media reporting that first brings issues into public focus. Investigative journalism exposes institutional breakdowns, opinion writing shapes normative debates, and sustained coverage influences how stakeholders, including regulators, federations, and the public, understand and respond to crises in sport. In this sense, law often follows narrative.
Despite this, engagement with sports law in India remains narrowly framed. The field is typically presented as a practice-oriented domain centred around contracts, dispute resolution, and arbitration before bodies such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) or domestic forums. This perspective overlooks the crucial role of media and content production in shaping the very problems that sports law seeks to address.
The Centre for Sports Law and Policy seeks to develop this understanding by situating sports law within a broader ecosystem of media, communication, and public discourse. This session aims to examine how journalism functions as an informal but powerful regulatory force in sport, one that shapes accountability and influences governance decisions.
The session, therefore, seeks to move beyond a conventional discussion of legal careers and instead focuses on journalism and its impact on sports and sports law: how do narratives produced through journalism shape the trajectory of sports governance and legal regulation? In doing so, it aims to provide participants with a more grounded and realistic understanding of how media influences the field of sports law.
Sub-themes
1. Journalism as an Informal Regulator in Sport
This segment will examine how media reporting influences regulatory action in sports. It will explore how issues such as corruption, doping, and governance failures are first articulated through journalism and subsequently taken up by regulatory bodies.
This segment can also analyse the role of media in moments of crisis in sport—how coverage can trigger investigations, compel institutional responses, and accelerate governance reform.
2. Career Pathways at the Intersection of Law and Media
This segment will explore how students can engage with sports law through journalism, content production, and policy-oriented media work. The expertise of Dr Soumitra Bose can aid law students and sports enthusiasts who have an active interest in journalism to understand the opportunities available, and how best to utilise them.
The Centre believes that Dr Soumitra Bose’s extensive experience in sports journalism and media strategy would provide participants with a unique perspective on how narratives shape institutions and how engagement with media can become a meaningful pathway into the field of sports law.
Event Details
⮚ Date: 4 April 2026
⮚ Time: 6:00 P.M. — 7:00 P.M.
⮚ Mode: Online (Google Meet)
⮚ Registration: Free and open to all (students, researchers, young professionals, and enthusiasts)
Registration Link
Please note that registration is mandatory for issuing the certificate.
Participation, Attendance & Certification
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Free Registration (Open to students, researchers, professionals, and anyone interested).
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Hosted online via Google Meet
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All participants must register through the Google Form.
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Participants should attend the full webinar to receive the certificate.
