The FeSR was particularly pleased to welcome Britta Dassler (Member of the Bundestag) and Benjamin Adjei (Member of the Bavarian Landtag), a representative of federal politics and a representative of Bavarian state politics, as speakers at the conference. Both were able to give the audience an understanding of the political work on esports to date and the possible future approach. Mrs. Dassler (among other things, chairwoman of the sports committee in the Bundestag) pointed out that the most urgent political question regarding esports at the moment is its political and legal recognition. She therefore called on the coalition parties to implement their coalition agreement and to allow esports to be put on an equal footing with sports. In this way, esports can face conventional sports at the same level. Finally, she appealed to all parties involved to deal with the topic of esports in a courageous, progressive and problem-oriented manner. Mr. Adjei (among others spokesperson for digitalisation in the Bavarian Parliament) also advocated the recognition and promotion of esports. Especially on a regional level esports has the potential to strengthen digital literacy, to promote inclusion, but also - if esports is practiced in clubs - to facilitate educational work. Therefore, it is important, especially on a regional level, to promote as well as shape esports.

Associations, clubs, leagues and game publishers were represented as practitioners. As speakers, Hans Jagnow (President of the German Esports Federation ESBD), Thomas Krumrey (corporate counsel at VfL Wolfsburg), Felix Hilgert (lawyer with Osborne Clarke, consulting international publishers) and Jan-Hendrik Heuschkel (vice president marketing communications at Freaks 4U Gaming) gave an insight into their work in esports and pointed out legal problems arising in the process. On the highly controversial question of whether esports is considered to be sports, Mr. Jagnow first took a step back and explained what esports actually is from the point of view of the ESBD. He distinguished it from other forms of computer or video gaming and explained when an eAthlete is physically active and when a computer or video game can be an esports title. Mr. Krumrey explained the motives of VfL Wolfsburg to establish an esports division (including an eAcademy). He pointed out synergies in terms of content and business as well as the potential of esports for VfL Wolfsburg and highlighted the associated legal (especially labor law) issues. Mr. Hilgert illustrated which legal questions the publisher faces when marketing and providing an esports title. For example, different rights of use are required than for normal single-player titles. Furthermore, this also raises classical legal questions of an event organiser and numerous esports-specific problems, such as cheating and the protection of minors in streaming. Mr. Heuschkel's talk on the structures of a league and event organiser in the esports industry followed on from Mr. Hilgert's talk. Mr. Heuschkel was able to report first-hand about the considerations a league and event organiser has to make when structuring its gaming operations and where legal difficulties arise. He emphasized the increasing - also legal - professionalization of the industry and illustrated this by comparing the work of the entrepreneur in his founding phase with the status quo.

The Research Center itself also contributed to the dialogue with initial research results. Prof. Dr. Martin Maties focused his talk on the question of whether esports is considered sports in the legal sense. Separated from the political and social discussion, he explained with the methods of legal concept formation that according to the current situation esports is sports in the legal sense. Given the many parallels between sports and esports, the critics of this kind of recognition are obliged to give a dogmatically clear reason why esports should not be sports in the legal sense. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Kubiciel considers securing integrity in esports to be a major task of dogmatic criminal law and criminal policy research. This requires the analysis of relevant threats to the integrity of esports and the examination of whether the applicable law adequately addresses these risks. As special dangers he identified, among others, game manipulation, betting fraud, money laundering but also dealing with cheating. The two members of the research unit, Nepomuk Nothelfer and Philipp Schlotthauer, gave a presentation titled "Play Hard, Work Hard - When Gaming Becomes Work", which showed that many eAthletes are employees whose employment relationship is a mixture of the activities of a teleworker and a competitive athlete. However, the legal findings from the fields of conventional sports and telework cannot be applied to esports without further reflection.

The conference was concluded by the subsequent panel discussion. The participants of the conference were given the opportunity to contribute their own thoughts and questions to the dialogue on the subject of esports and law.

After each of the presentations, during the breaks or in the panel discussion - the dialogue between all those involved was not only the conference's theme, but was also actively pursued by all participants far beyond the official conference schedule.