Adidas has stopped selling T-shirts featuring the jersey number of injured Louisville guard Kevin Ware, calling it a "logo issue." The shirts read "Rise to the Occasion" with Ware's number 5 substituted for the "s" in "Rise.
Louisville had stated that they waived the royalties for the shirt so it would not be profiting from Ware's injury. Adidas agreed to make donations to the schools scholarship fund.
The bigger element of this story is that an on-going lawsuit against the NCAA and Electronic Arts over the rights to use player's images without compensation claims that Louisville should not be able to sell the shirt. The money from the T-shirt sales going to the scholarship fund does not change things. If they did not ask Kevin's permission, then they can not sell the shirt. If they did ask Kevin permission and he said yes, then Kevin would be ineligible. The whole thing seems a little bit out of hand and more complicated that it actually should be. Louisville should be able to sell the shirt with the profits going to charity or their scholarship fund in my opinion. However, with that lawsuit going on and the debate on whether college athletes deserve to be paid for their efforts, situations like this will remain complicated.
Who do you think has more right to sell the Kevin Ware T-shirts, Adidas or Louisville?
No comments:
Post a Comment