Does It Make Sense That A Non-Official Advertiser Can't Give Away Sporting Events Tickets?
from the hard-to-see-why dept
Back in October, we wrote about how the Philadelphia Eagles were trying to stop radio stations from doing promotional giveaways of tickets they had legally purchased. The team basically claims that the terms (which no one reads nor technically "agrees" to) on the back of the ticket forbid such uses of the tickets. Instead, clearly, the Eagles wanted to sell the rights to do promotional giveaways. Now there's a similar lawsuit involving Major League Soccer and FIFA. JJ points us to a lawsuit in which the organization that handles marketing for both soccer organizations is quite upset at Black & Decker for doing ticket giveaway promotions. The reason why they're so upset? B&D competitor Makita is "the official power tool" of both soccer leagues in the US. In this case, they're arguing trademark infringement and breach of contract, though both seem questionable. If it's an accurate promotion, such that B&D is literally giving away legally purchased tickets and merchandise, then as long as it doesn't suggest endorsement from the soccer leagues, there shouldn't be much confusion. As for the breach of contract, if B&D never agreed to the contract, it's hard to see how they can be held to it.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: advertising, eulas, promotions, sponsorships, tickets
Companies: black & dekker, fifa, major league soccer, makita
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Beyond absurd...
after all, these are the same guys who went to court to shut down a church's showing of the superbowl to the homeless.
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Re: Beyond absurd...
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What?
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that's like, built in lost money for no gain, right there.
doesn't that, essentially, defeat the point in the whole exercise? :S
morons
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Okay maybe if it were something related to the sport like shoes, power drinks, or clothing but how are power tools related to soccer?
Okay nevermind I just answered my own question.
The relation is that soccer is marketed to men and supposedly men and power tools go hand in hand. I guess...
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they gave me free movie tickets once
im on welfare
have to share my net cause of cost
and when i finished top of the class seminar for interview skills
they gave me a 10$ movie card
A) i went on cheap tuesday 4$ so i could have 6$ for pop n popcorn
THEY said didn't matter and took the whole amount
i hadn't the money for pop n popcorn it would seem despite there thievery anyhow ....17.07 with 1$ savings!!! - 16.07
then they had people stare and watch me everywhere i went and watch me the whole time i sat in the show
B) justice it would seem came for them as they stared at me yet some kid came into the place sat what 10 seats away and cammed the entire film HAHA
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Re: they gave me free movie tickets once
I made a sustained effort to read through to the end of your post, but my only reward was for my eyeballs to pop out of their sockets and proclaim that they are taking their seeing ability elsewhere....
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Major League Soccer and FIFA - Ha Ha HA
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The implied endorsement is always there
The implied endorsement is always there. The use of the name of the league, the team, and all that goes with it is there. Remember, this isn't a promote for the league (they do get some bonus exposure), it is a promotion for B&D.
B&D could have done it by being generic "buy one of our great power tool, and win tickets to a major sporting event in your area" or similar. If they mention the team, the league, whatever, it immediately creates the impression that there is an endorsement.
Remember, it isn't up to B&D to decide what kind of promotion (even free) that the soccer league gets. That choice is up to the soccer league only.
Sorry Mike, but this is another obvious one that you don't seem to get.
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Re: The implied endorsement is always there
Haven't you heard of the First Sale Doctrine, and how that trumps all of this bullshit contract law? If B&D buys these tickets, they can do whatever they want to do with them. They need to be able to tell the people what the goods (in this case tickets) are. Its not trademark or copyright infringement or anything of the sort as long as B&D is not misrepresenting the tickets.
If people couldn't advertise what they're selling or giving away, ebay and craigslist would have been shut down looooooong ago.
And promotion is not some sort of right, as you seem to claim. The soccer league can't prevent newspapers from covering it, tv from insulting it, or techdirt from bashing it.
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Re: Re: The implied endorsement is always there
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Re: The implied endorsement is always there
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Re: The implied endorsement is always there
i understand why the soccer league is not happy about B&D since what they are doing makes it less appealing for Makita to sponsor them but there is no case here.
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perhaps some1 should explain this to the league.
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Re: The implied endorsement is always there
Well then, the professional sporting leagues better get after season ticket holders who use their tickets to attract and/or reward clients.
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Implied endorsement by whom?
Back in the 70's, anybody could make up a shirt that said New York Yankees or New York Giants on it, and then wear it or sell it. The folks wearing those shirts didn't care one whit about whether the Yankees or Giants made the shirt or had taken a cut of the shirt-makers' revenue. But MLB and NLF started filing lawsuits claiming that fans would automatically assume that the Yankees or Giants had endorsed or at least approved of the shirt sellers, and by winning a couple of cases, they created a new rule of law -- you can't sell shirts showing support for a team without paying the team off.
I'd hate to see another expansion of team owners' monopoly on displays of support for their teams.
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Re: Implied endorsement by whom?
Absolutely, by allegedly telling the ticket sales personnel, after being rebuffed trying to purchase tickets for running a promo, that the tickets were for the personal use of B&D employees as a part of the company's employee appreciation day.
Quite frankly, I was a bit surprised to not see a COA for tortious interference with prospective contractual advantage.
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Does General Electric send out nastygrams to banks when they give away free toasters ?
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No, and the bank doesn't try to imply that they somehow have a relationship with GE either. They give away a "free toaster", nothing more and nothing less.
If B&D gave away major league event tickets they wouldn't have an issue. Using the team name and such implies a relationship which is not there.
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Last time I checked, that's what you do in a "giveaway", you give away something (like major league event tickets).
"Using the team name and such implies a relationship which is not there."
Some one else asked this earlier and you didn't respond, so I will ask again. If they are describing what the tickets are for, why should they avoid naming the teams or the league involved? Are we not allowed to even mention the names of the teams or the league anymore?
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WKRP is giving out free tickets to the first 10 callers
We are not allowed to tell you what the tickets are for
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We are waiting at he phones folks
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Radio stations give away tickets with permission (and are often either paid to give them away or make other in kind trade deals to get them).
So, sorry, you fail. Would you like to try again?
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So, if I have tickets for a game, I can't give them away because I don't have permission? /sarcasm
And you didn't answer my earlier questions. Why, if they are describing the tickets, are they disallowed from using the names of the teams or the sports league? Is using those names in a descriptive manner somehow an infringement of trademark? And if it is infringement, I guess all media coverage should stop because they're using the names descriptively too, right?
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Normally I agree with Mike...
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