Nick Fitzpatrick

Nick Fitzpatrick is Global Co-chair of our Media, Sport and Entertainment group and leads the UK Sport team. He has over 30 years’ experience of advising clients in the media, sport and entertainment sectors. He works with a full range of companies, from US studios and international broadcasters to major sports rights holders. His significant experience across a number of sectors makes him an exceptional strategist and a valued partner in helping clients achieve their business objectives. There are few sports related issues he has not encountered across the course of his career.

Nick focuses on a broad range of matters including negotiating and structuring complex arrangements for the hosting of major sporting and other events, the exploitation of media rights across all platforms, sponsorship, brand exploitation, event organisation, sports administration, copyright, gambling and advertising.

Prior to joining DLA Piper in 2005, Nick was a partner at a London-based international law firm. He also worked on secondment for the Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Bros. Having failed in his initial ambition to become a professional rock drummer, Nick has spent a career developing deep insights into the media, sport and entertainment industries. He is a frequent speaker at sector conferences and other events and enjoys the diversity of clients and challenges in the industries he focuses on, commenting, “I would never have wanted to be any other sort of lawyer”.

Nick is proud to have represented many of the world’s major media, sport and entertainment brands including the Premier League, for whom he has acted for decades, and through whom he got to meet his childhood hero Brian Clough. Other major sports clients include IDC, Football League, NBA, British Horseracing Authority, and beIN Sports.

He is delighted to have been recognised in The Lawyer's Hot 100 list, ranked as a Band 1 Sports lawyer in Chambers & Partners, and additionally in the Hall of Fame for Sport in Legal 500.

His experience includes:

• Advising on aspects of the hosting of the London, Rio and Tokyo Olympics, the Glasgow and Birmingham Commonwealth Games and the Baku European Games.
• Advising Premier League and English Football League on their commercial programs.
• Advising Formula 1, Formula E, McLaren F1 and various other motor sports promoters and broadcasters on most aspects of the commercial exploitation and staging of motor sports.
• Advising NBA on a wide variety of commercial regulatory and hosting issues with regard to its operations outside the US.
• Advising Football DataCo Limited and the European Leagues on the global sale of sports data rights.
• Advising Discovery Communications on distribution arrangements in Europe.

Contact

• Telephone: +44 (0)20 7796 6046
• E-Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Website: https://www.dlapiper.com/en/uk/people/f/fitzpatrick-nick/