INSTITUTIONAL-LEGAL MECHANISMS OF STATE SUPPORT FOR ESPORTS UNDER WARTIME THREATS

Abstract

Introduction. The official recognition of esports in Ukraine in 2020 created a legal prerequisite for its inclusion in the non-Olympic sports system, but recognition alone does not establish a coherent state-support model. Wartime threats simultaneously increase the relevance of digital resilience, human capital and international communication while intensifying risks related to information influence, loss of talent, infrastructure instability and the conflation of civilian esports with military-applied practices. Public administration should therefore focus not on individual teams or tournaments but on the institutional conditions under which the esports ecosystem produces measurable public value.

Purpose. The article aims to substantiate an institutional and legal model of state support for Ukrainian esports, distinguish public policy, regulation and support, and identify how support mechanisms should transform under wartime threats.

Materials and Methods. The study draws on current Ukrainian legislation in physical culture and sport, official documents of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, the Cybersecurity Strategy of Ukraine, the European Parliament resolution on esports and video games, and peer-reviewed research on esports governance, law, economics and integrity. Systemic, institutional, formal-legal, comparative, structural-functional and risk-based approaches are applied; modelling is used to construct an authorial state-support framework.

Results. State support for esports is conceptualised as the purposeful creation of legal, organisational, financial-economic, infrastructural, educational and human-capital, international-communication, integrity and security-resilience conditions for development, subject to public accountability and measurable outcomes. Eight groups of support mechanisms and a seven-stage management chain are proposed: legal status, public need, instrument choice, competitive access, implementation, evaluation and review. The analysis shows that the traditional-sport model cannot be transferred mechanically to esports because game publishers retain decisive intellectual-property control over competitive ecosystems. The study also substantiates an institutional separation between esports and military-technological sport; potential dual-use programmes should be voluntary, evidence-based and limited to targeted pilots. In wartime, the support model should shift from counting events and formal representation towards infrastructure resilience, human-capital retention, protection of the youth digital environment, transparency of partnerships and Ukraine’s international agency.

Prospects. Further empirical testing should include an audit of current support programmes and budget instruments, stakeholder surveys, comparison of regional conditions, life-cycle costing of infrastructure and validation of public-value indicators. A practical next step is to pilot a standard state-support programme passport with transparent eligibility criteria, performance indicators and a mandatory review mechanism.