In the dissertation the theoretical and legal analysis of sports law as a subject of researches in legal science is carried out, definitions of a phenomenon of sports law in the literature are characterized. It is noted that the prevailing understanding of sports law as a complex branch of national law is not sufficiently justified, as the separation of this area is based on the discussion criteria of the subject and method of legal regulation. It is argued that the criterion for distinguishing the field of sports law should be the specifics of the rules that make up this legal field, and not the relationship to which their regulatory action. It is noted that the regulation of public relations in the field of sports is carried out by legal norms not only of the state, but also of other law-making entities, which belong to the circle of subjects of a special public institution, which is sports. It is noted that the normative sphere of sports includes sports and technical norms, sports and regulatory norms and organizational and sports norms; It is the last two categories of norms that make up the system of normative and legal regulation of sports relations – sports law, in contrast to the set of sports and technical norms that regulate 24 sports activities in various sports within the relationship "subject-object", which has no legal nature. The general approaches to the normative regulation of the sphere of sports, the need to establish the nature of public relations in this sphere, as well as the rules and regulations that regulate it, and sources of sports law are clarified. In this regard, the specifics of sports activities are studied, the author's definition of the concept of sport as a public institution and methodological approaches to defining the subject of sports law is proposed. The special nature of sports activity and the range of its subjects, as well as other sports subjects are noted. It is emphasized that public authorities are not institutional bodies of sports, unlike sports self-government bodies within the institute of sports, and therefore they are not subjects of sports. Because of this, the relations of sports entities with other entities (administrative, civil, labor, international, procedural relations, etc.) are governed by the rules of the relevant branch of law, not sports law, and in such relations their participants act as subjects of administrative law, etc., and not as subjects of sports law. The general concept of sports law is formulated as a branch of the world legal system, which consists of legal norms that regulate rights and duties of sports entities in sports relations. Types of sports law are defined: global (supranational), national and subinstitutional sports law. Each type of sports law is marked by the specifics of sports relations and the special subjective composition of these relations. The practice of normative-legal regulation of the sphere of sports in Ukraine is investigated, the problems of branch development of the sports legislation are defined and the offers concerning its improvement are formulated.
