{"id":1908,"date":"2018-02-08T11:54:28","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T16:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/?p=1908"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:45:14","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:45:14","slug":"college-athletes-sue-fantasy-sports-gambling-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2018\/02\/college-athletes-sue-fantasy-sports-gambling-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"College Athletes Sue Fantasy Sports Gambling Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May 2016, a class of\u00a0former college athletes sued<\/a>\u00a0FanDuel and DraftKings, alleging that the sites wrongfully profited from their likenesses. Relying on Indiana’s right of publicity statute<\/a>,\u00a0the former college athletes argued<\/a>\u00a0that FanDuel and DraftKings violated their right to control the commercial use of their own identities.\u00a0The case was dismissed<\/a>\u00a0in district court by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, stating that the sites’ commentary on players\u2019 likely performance and estimated salaries fell within the newsworthiness and public interest exceptions of the Indiana statute.<\/p>\n

The class appealed\u00a0to the 7th Circuit.\u00a0The players argue\u00a0that the judge erred in applying free speech protections to DraftKings and FanDuel because their businesses are fundamentally illegal under Indiana law. Though FanDuel and DraftKings\u00a0compared themselves\u00a0to CBS and ESPN in the briefs filed for this lawsuit,\u00a0the players argue\u00a0that these websites have actually likened themselves to casinos. Furthermore, the\u00a0players argue\u00a0that their names, images and personas are essential to the operation of gambling on fantasy sports, and therefore they “functioned as the cards” in the websites\u2019 online casinos. Therefore, the commentary that FanDuel and DraftKings have supplied for these players, as well as the estimated salaries, are purely commercial and have no news value.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In response,\u00a0FanDuel and DraftKings have argued\u00a0that newsworthiness has nothing to do with the nature of the disseminator, or even the purpose behind the dissemination. Rather,\u00a0they argue\u00a0that newsworthiness is only about the content itself and that since college athletes\u2019 performance statistics are widely read and discussed by fans, the content hosted on their site should be considered newsworthy.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, the players\u00a0filed a response\u00a0arguing that because DraftKings and FanDuel allow their members to gamble through fantasy sports leagues, these sites are profiting off the players\u2019 likenesses without their permission. Furthermore,\u00a0they cited\u00a0a recent Seventh Circuit case\u00a0which held<\/a>\u00a0that the use of Michael Jordan’s likeness in an ad congratulating his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame was a violation of Illinois\u2019 right to publicity law.\u00a0Because this ad\u00a0<\/a>was hanging over a local grocery store, the court found that it enhanced the store’s\u00a0brand and commercial standing, without the permission of Michael Jordan.<\/p>\n

The players further argue\u00a0that Indiana and Illinois’ right to publicity laws are functionally the same, and that FanDuel and DraftKings have “made a far more transparent and direct commercial proposition.” These websites<\/a> facilitate gambling based on player profiles, that they then accepted fees for, generating profit off of the players\u2019 likenesses.<\/p>\n

Adele Zhang is the Online Content Chair and an Entertainment Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2020).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May 2016, a class of\u00a0former college athletes sued\u00a0FanDuel and DraftKings, alleging that the sites wrongfully profited from their likenesses. Relying on Indiana’s right of publicity statute,\u00a0the former college athletes argued\u00a0that FanDuel and DraftKings violated their right to control the commercial use of their own identities.\u00a0The case was dismissed\u00a0in district court by U.S. District Judge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[242,106,42,99,65,87,46,94,14],"ppma_author":[382],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlight","tag-basketball","tag-daily-fantasy-sports","tag-gambling","tag-highlight","tag-internet","tag-litigation","tag-ncaa","tag-publicity-rights","tag-sports-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZjrR-uM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":382,"user_id":39,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jsel","display_name":"JSEL","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4abb87a025d5a7951a4b4249facf4d22ea8002b216770229a96689038d0f83bc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","first_name":"Journal","last_name":"of Sports and Entertainment","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1908"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}