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ready to assist with any related questions.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the sports what a ford that name?
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today Before we get into our sports court segment, one
of my favorite segments. Want to remind you guys at
the Salt Lake City Slam doubleheader is underwhere you want
to win tickets, All you got to do is listen
to ESPN the Fan every morning eight twenty am with
Bryce Miyanoushi for your chance to win some tickets. Utah
Valo University will play you University of California Santa Barbara
at twelve pm, and then Utah State University will face
Illinois State at three pm in Salt Lake City at
the Slam event at the Delta Center December thirteenth. All right,
it is stile to play judge and jury. What's the
verdict on the biggest headlines in sports and law? That's right.
Sports Cort brought to you by our good friends at
Handy and Handy, Big firm experience, small firm attention. Each
week we break down the real life legal drama, intersecting
with your favorite athletes, teams, and leagues, from contract dispute
and io chaos, sideline scandals, court room battles. We're diving
deep with Utah's most trusted, trusted injury attorneys, Garrett and
Preston Handy. But I've been told we only have Preston
on the line today. Preston, how are you?
Speaker 3: That's true? That's true? Just me, let's do it. Issues
in the world of sports, what are they?
Speaker 2: Hey, there's there's plenty of them. There's always drama brewing
in the sports world.
Speaker 3: Right, that's true. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And look, let's start off with the swoosh.
Speaker 2: How about this, Nike wins a battle in trademark litigation.
Speaker 1: What's the latest on Nike?
Speaker 3: Well, they won just an initial battle, and this is
exciting stuff intellectual property litigation. But I think we'd all
agree that Nike is quite possibly the most recognizable logo
in the world for the last forty years, one of
them at least, right, And that involves a trademark and
a copyright and that type of thing. Well, now they're
on the other end of a problem, and so follow
along here. Nike for about the last twenty five years
has had a soccer shoe out there called the Total ninety.
Now important part is its total space ninety. And they've
been had this for twenty five years and they claim
that it's the soccer shoe of the youth of a generation. Well,
there is another company out there and it's Total ninety,
no space between the Total and the ninety, and they
have soccer apparel and they sell a bunch of things
related to soccer. So Nike kind of surprisingly currently does
not have a trademark on Total ninety. They did at
one point and they let it run out in twenty nineteen.
I don't know if someone wasn't mind in the kitchen. Well,
what happens in these trademark disputes is now Total ninety,
the one without a space, not the big Nike. They
are suing Nike for trademark infringement, saying that you're infringing
our trademark. We have it. This is going to create
confusion in the marketplace. You need to stop. They're suing
them saying, hey, we want a temporary restraining order for
you to not do this anymore. That's big Nike. And incidentally,
they apparently went to Nike some time ago before they
filed their lawsuit and tried to strike a deal and said, hey,
for this amount of money and the millions of dollars,
we'll let you use the trademark. We'll give you the trademark.
And it's very similar to a case that's going on
in Utah, the Utah Mammoth. There's a hockey bag company
called Mammoth Hockey Bags or mont Mammoth Hockey that is
suing U Tom Mammoth over because U TOI Mammoth doesn't
have a trademark. Kind of the same thing. They went
to and before and tried to get strike a deal
and it didn't work. So back to the Nike deal.
They're suing them over there and looked at this and said, hey,
this is going to cause confusion in the marketplace. Everyone's
going to think you were us, and we don't want that. Well,
the judge looked at this, and this is just a
temporary restraint order. They looked at it, and the judge
agreed with Nike and said, hey, even though they used
same or similar retails, as Nike sells products, it's intended
to saturate the market and over well my identity there
said the reason that there was no lack of evidence
of actual confusion that consumers believe Total nineties products are
related to Nike's Total ninety. Well, I don't know about that,
but they agreed with Nike, and essentially, right now they're
not going to grant the temporary strain order. They're gonna
let it go down the litigation path. And so I
guess it proves that it helps to be the eight
hundred pound gorilla in this situation because total ninety sounds
very much like total ninety to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, all this IP stuff can get pretty confusing.
It seems kind of like a money grab though, right
doesn't it? Like, I mean, come on, like the truth
of the matter is like some of these things are
just money.
Speaker 1: Grabs, are they not?
Speaker 2: Well, maybe is that big of a deal to have
this issue, right, is it really?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I think the Total ninety, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think that Nike is Nike is certainly not injured
by them. But I can promise you if Nike had
the trademark and they came in with that, Nike go
after that and shut them down, they probably benefit. But
they have benefit.
Speaker 1: They had the first place, and they let it expire.
So that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And then and then Total ninety went out and got it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, it's.
Speaker 3: Just Total Nighty probably benefits a little bit from the
Nike here in Total ninety people. Oh that's a good thing,
that's a positive thing. But you know, we'll see how
it goes. I'll bet there'll strike a deal down the road.
But Nike, you know, they're the They're the behemoth. They're
the eight intered pound gorilla.
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Let's move on to the football field.
Speaker 2: Mac Jones defeats a copyright claim over win passage tweet
tweets getting everybody in trouble these days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is another exciting intellectual property thing. So
this is an interesting story. We talked about it, or
it was the legal issue some time ago. We've got
this guy named Keith Bell and he is a psychologist
and he claims to be the father of swimming psychology.
And as part of this, he's published some books and
some motivational writings, that type of thing that he calls
the winning. He calls it the winning in the book
is a win, the win passage, he calls it. All
these kinds of things. And recently he went after Lane Kiffen.
That's not part of the day day and Lane Kiffin,
I don't know if anybody knows, he's been in the
news a little bit, but he had what's called the
Win Book, and winning isn't normal. He uses all these
motivational things. And he went after Lane Kiffin a while
ago saying because Lane Kiffen posted some kind of motivational
things and he said, hey, you're infringing on my trademark
and my copyrights. Well now he's going after Mac Jones,
and get this story. Mac Jones, as we know, is
an NFL quarterback, was an Alabama quarterback, played for New
England and now playing for San Francisco. Well, when he
was a seventeen year old, get this back in twenty sixteen,
when Mac was a seventeen year old probably didn't even
know what twee twitter was, but he tweeted out some
quotes from the win passage and he quote tweeted them
out as motivational things. Well, this Keith Bell in twin
wind of it and said, oh wait a minute, you
little seventeen year old, you were infringing on my on
my trademark, my copyrights if you actually benefited from it.
And so he went after mag Jones for this thing. Well,
the court didn't agree with our friend Keith Bill. He
basically said, hey, no, you know what, this wasn't being
put forth to earn money. He wasn't selling anything. He
was just sending out as a motivational statement. And you know,
so that doesn't qualify. And he says, reason that jones
tweet of wind passes constituted fair use and was not infringement.
And they've even cautioned the Cord even cautioned this Bell
and said, hey, you have a right impression of yourself
that all these things you put out there are only
your ideas. Noone uses motivational stuff and uses things like win.
And they even cautioned Ben said, hey, if you keep
filing these lawsuits, and moving forward, this could give right
to claims for harassing or other improper purpose. There's where
you're talking about shakedowns. Those are shatdowns. He wanted two
hundred two thousand dollars from mac Jones, claiming that he
he thinks that mac Jones doing this as a sevente
year old propped up his image in his position, and
that's why he is where it is today, not just
because he can throw a football.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Let's continue down the line of football this time the
Alliance of American Football judge rules in favor of Tom Dundon,
bringing af saga to a close.
Speaker 3: What do we have here, Well, Tom Dundon, who is
He's notable for being the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes,
and it looks like he's going to be the owner
or potter owner of the Portland Trailblazers. Well back some
time ago, he decided to buy the Alliance of American Football.
Everybody's heard of that, haven't they? The Alliance of American Football,
which was a failing football league I guess or minor
league professional football league. It was failing. Well, he bought
it and shortly thereafter it crashed. It collapsed in twenty nineteen.
And what happens is in the cases like when the
business fails with bigsiness, people used the bankruptcy laws. And
he went to the bankruptcy court and said, I'm going
to file bankruptcy, and all along there were a bunch
of creditors that said, hey, wait a minute, we're holding
the bag here. And so the trustee of the bankruptcy
court they looked at the facts of this and him
coming into bankruptcy and said, not so fast, mister Dundon.
You agreed when you bought this, when you bought this league,
to invest two hundred and fifty million dollars on it,
in it, to get it up and going to have
it a going concern, and to let these credits everyone
you know that had licenses and that type of thing,
let them go. So the trustee came after him, and
the court looked at it and they even said they
found him liable for breaching piduciary duty. They said he
was involved in some self dealing. Specifically, it said that
he the court found that Dundon engaged in equable conduct
by granting free advertising to Dundon owned controlled preferred entities.
And the court said, yeah, Dundon, you engaged in self dealing,
and this benefited your friends, and you used assets from
the league. And this self dealing included providing free advertising
to entities related to him like at and T, Top
Golf and Nity's owned by friend. He even said that you
were on off the site, opposite sides of various transactions.
That's a no no. But in the end, what the
what the court came out and said, They said, yeah,
but the trustee could not prove any causally related harm,
meaning that him doing these bad things, him these breaches
in that thing. It did not result in the actual
bankruptcy that he's there trying to get relief for. So
what the court did? They found him liable and awarded
one dollar one dollar wow that he'd have to pay.
I think billionaire Tom Dundon can.
Speaker 2: Afford that, No doubt he can. That's that's within his budget.
Final thing for you here, pressed and handy, handy and
handy handylaw Utah dot com. How can colleges solve the
Kelly Kiffin contract craziness? LSU paying Brian Kelly in his
entire fifty four million buy out and Lank Kiffin abruptly
leaving college football playoff bound Old Miss for LSU and
a seven year, ninety one million deal that has sparked
a lot of criticism. Give me your take on this.
Speaker 3: Well, I saw this headline from Michael mccannon, who's a
legal scholar and a law professor, and he does these
and he's he said, how can we do this? You know?
And he said, there's a way to get around us.
And as we know, they've both been in the news.
We talked about the Brian Kelly issue was he was
fired by LSU and he came to him and said, hey,
well you fired me, only fifty four million, and they said,
not so fast. We haven't terminated yet. And oh, by
the way, we're going to fire you for cause. And
we talked about this a few weeks ago on Sports Court, saying, hey,
this is a bet i'd look for LSU because they
didn't note anything for costs and they're going to owe
him the fifty four million dollars. Well, they relooked at
it again and said, you know what I think we do,
So they agreed to they formally terminated him, and they
agreed to pay him his fifty four million dollars, but
they also sent a letter to him saying, hey, here's
the terms of that contract that allowed you to get
a fifty four million dollars buyout that also had other
terms that means you need to seek a job, you
need to keep us posted about the jobs, the interviews,
you have that type of the progress at that time,
because if you get a job, we're not going to
be on the hook for it. Well, on the heels
of that, what happened Lane Kiffin, He left oh Mis,
got a big contract with the same LSU they're in
the news, and they gave him a big buyout. So
the question, the legal question, is there anything we can
do to avoid this craziness, the unpredictability, that type thing
in sports. And I think with the structure right now,
the answers probably know. But what McCann says is, you know,
all of these cases, the Austin case, the ed Obamon case,
the House case, they're all wrapped in these laws of
anti trust law, which anti trust laws prevents anti competition.
And what happens with coaches. Universities and leagues and conferences.
They all compete for coaches, and what do they do.
They offer them big contracts to go to their school
to go to their conference, and as part of the
big contract, what do they do They offer them huge
buyouts and that makes it really tough, you know, and
the courts pointed out that, well, you know what, all
these coaches they're able to leave, and why can't the
players And that's what ended up in the NIL type
thing and allow them players to profit from their NIL
and the transfer portal and all. That's craziness. So we're
looking for, you know, some type of stabilitiyess and one
of the things that Michael mccannon offered up as potentially
these universities just not they can't conspire because that would
be a bit They just don't offer these big buyouts
and these guaranteed things. But that's not realistic because you
know what, what if a few schools said, hey, we're
not doing this. Guess what, there's a school over in
the corner that absolutely will to get the best coach
and get the best players and all of that. So
it's it's a tough situation and I don't know there's
any real legal way around it unless you know, something
gets in place like that, and you know, and the
one school takes this and doesn't offer it and down
the road it becomes normal for not to have these
big buyouts. But right now it's crazy. And the coaches
they have a lot of the control, you know. Even
though Brian Kelly got fired, guess what, he has a
contract that gets him fifty four million.
Speaker 1: Crazy times.
Speaker 3: I don't think there is a real answer to it.
It's kind of what's going on here.
Speaker 1: We just got into the wrong business. You and I.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, someone taught me and said be a high
level coach. I always said, oh great, but I don't
think I could have done that.
Speaker 1: We all have different school would have been any good
at it. Hey, you're a great.
Speaker 2: A great representative of those that have been injured. There
at Handy and Handy Handy law youta dot com. That's
the verdict on this week's session of the Sports Court,
powered by Handy and Handy handylawutah dot com. Personal attention,
proven results, serious sports, serious questions, always serious attorneys precedent.
Why should our listeners give you a call if they've
been in an accent they've been injured, so that you
can represent them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ben, we love coming on here with you and
talking about these interesting legal issues in the world of sports.
Some are more interesting than others. But we are a
personal injury law firm by day. We specialize in personal
injury law, meaning that we represent individuals that have been
involved in all kinds of accents where they've suffered injury
and damages like medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering.
We've been doing this a long time. We've been at
it and we do. We think to do a really
great job of reps on our clients. We give them
personal attention. Give us a call, you'll talk to either
me or Garrett, the names on the Law of h
We'll talk to you about your case. It doesn't cost
you a dying to hire us unless we win. We'd
love to hear from you. Give us a call it
a zero one two six four six six seven seven,
or visit our website at handy Law Utah dot com.
Speaker 2: There you go, guys, aight O one two six four
sixty six seven seven eight on one two six four
sixty six seven seven.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: They don't get paid unless they win for you. They've
been trusted for over forty five years now Here in
the in the along the Wassats run a lot of
experience representing those that have been injured Handy and Handy Handy.
Speaker 1: Law Utah dot com. Thanks so much. Press appreciate you
joining us for another edition of sports Cord.
Speaker 3: Thanks Ben, have a great weekend.
Speaker 1: You too, appreciate you spending some time with us.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Handy and Handy Handy Law Utah dot com.
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