Organisers have relationships with participants. It is interesting to consider how in the AFL its attempts to reduce the number of clubs has been made very difficult eg in trying to force mergers of clubs or to eliminate clubs as with Footscray. The rugby league competition hopes to reduce the current 20 teams to 14. If this is done there will be significant issues about the rights of the clubs that are to be eliminated and the arrangements to provide for the merger of clubs if that is a method used to reduce numbers. Clubs that do compete are subject to a number of rules.
Clubs are one level of participants in a competition.
They field teams which are made up of individual performers. So there is another set of relationships to consider. In a professional sport the individual player will be bound to the club by a contract of employment. That could lead, as it has in some sports, to the emergence of trade unions for sports eg cricket, Australian Rules football. The number of times when players have threatened to go on strike has grown in recent years eg jockeys, the Australian cricket team and the Australian soccer team in an international competition.