I've been trying to mull that out as well from an economic perspective but I think it's highly dependent on the existing distribution networks which adds additional complexity.

Major League sports information is disseminated fairly quickly and the attendance levels make technological prohibitions a challenge. The nature of world chess championships make it a little different, as long as the globally recognized top ranked players are in attendance (preventing an organizational schism) I think the organizers could do whatever they want.

In the end I think this ruling just means they can't enforce a civil penalty for violation of these rules, but there's no reason they can't expel the violator from their event.

It's an interesting case.

But then again, of most of the people going are hardcore fans, sales might not be affected to much (although there might be outrage)

PGA Tour banned cell phones until 2011: http://www.golf.com/ap-news/tour-allow-cell-phones-tournamen...