Steve McKelvey
John Grady

“Sport Marketing and the Law” column of Sport Marketing Quarterly—have, through the appellate process, produced new decisions warranting attention from legal and sport marketing scholars and practitioners. These recent decisions have the potential to reshape certain aspects of sport marketing practice and reflect litigation trends of which savvy sport marketers should be aware.Read more

John Grady
Mark S. Nagel

On February 15, 2013, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel’s licensing company, JMAN2 Enterprises LLC, filed suit against Eric Vaughn, who had been selling a variety of shirts that featured the phrase “Keep Calm and Johnny Football” with various uses of Texas A&M’s color scheme and/or protected logos (Watson, 2013a). Manziel filed to register a trademark in his nickname “Johnny Football” during the 2012 season prior to winning the Heisman Trophy (the trademark registration was still pending approval before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] at the time of this writing). His...Read more