MLB AND FANDUEL SETTLE PLAYER LIKENESS LAWSUIT

img

On Nov. 15, Major League Baseball’s players union reached a settlement in a lawsuit against sports betting giant FanDuel (FLTRF.L), which was accused of using the names and likenesses of hundreds of MLB players on its platform without authorization.  

The law­suit, filed in Sep­tem­ber, claimed Fan­Du­el “fla­grant­ly” vio­lat­ed the rights of near­ly every active MLB play­er by uti­liz­ing their names, images, and like­ness­es with­out prop­er licens­ing. Accord­ing to a New York fed­er­al court fil­ing, the play­ers have now agreed to dis­miss the claims with prej­u­dice, pre­vent­ing them from being refiled. As part of the set­tle­ment, Fan­Du­el and the union entered into a con­fi­den­tial licens­ing agree­ment.  

“For pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, the abil­i­ty to con­trol the com­mer­cial use of their names, images, and like­ness­es is a cru­cial return on their sub­stan­tial career invest­ment,” the play­ers stat­ed in court doc­u­ments.  

Nei­ther the union nor Fan­Du­el has dis­closed fur­ther details about the agree­ment, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the play­ers union did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to requests for com­ment.  

This case is not iso­lat­ed. The Nation­al Foot­ball League’s play­ers union has also tak­en legal action, fil­ing a law­suit in August against DraftK­ings over alleged mis­use of NFL play­er like­ness­es in non-fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs). Addi­tion­al­ly, data pro­vi­sion com­pa­nies such as Sportradar have faced sim­i­lar accu­sa­tions for alleged­ly using play­er like­ness­es with­out con­sent.  

The broad­er impli­ca­tions of these legal bat­tles high­light a press­ing issue: ath­letes, like any pub­lic fig­ures, deserve a fair share of the bil­lions of dol­lars gen­er­at­ed by the sports bet­ting indus­try. Whether on dig­i­tal plat­forms, bet­ting apps, or NFTs, the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of ath­letes’ images with­out their con­sent is a grow­ing con­cern, as it under­mines their right to con­trol and prof­it from their per­son­al brand.