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David Purdum
Multiple Authors
On Friday, legal action was initiated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association against DraftKings, alleging that the sports betting firm violated trademark rights by employing phrases like March Madness, Final Four, and other nomenclature tied to its men’s and women’s basketball championships.
The lawsuit, submitted on Friday in the Southern District of Indiana’s federal court, indicates that the NCAA is seeking an urgent temporary injunction to prevent DraftKings from utilizing its protected terminology.
According to the complaint, the NCAA had previously asked DraftKings to address the matter; while the betting service did eliminate certain “flagrant” instances of trademark usage, it “insisted on its entitlement to directly incorporate the NCAA’s trademarks within its sports wagering applications.”
On Friday evening, DraftKings’ wagering application prominently displayed various allusions to March Madness, Sweet Sixteen, Elite 8, and Final Four, presented next to betting opportunities. ESPN, a media entity with a commercial affiliation with DraftKings, contacted the betting company for a statement.
Beyond DraftKings, other online betting platforms also featured “March Madness” and similar phrases within their applications as of Friday night.
“Given that DraftKings is actively violating the NCAA’s intellectual property during the ongoing NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I Basketball Tournaments (‘Tournaments’), and considering the NCAA’s steadfast opposition to associating with the gambling sector, this matter is pressing and vital to the core objectives of the NCAA,” the legal filing states.
Through a statement publicizing the litigation, the NCAA declared that DraftKings’ “unapproved utilization of its proprietary marks directly contravenes one of the Association’s fundamental organizational principles: that wagering on sports should never be connected with, supported by, or joined to NCAA tournaments or the collegiate athletes participating in such events.”
The NCAA petitioned for the commencement of a briefing timetable starting on Monday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Charlie Baker, the NCAA president, dispatched correspondence to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, asking the federal agency to halt prediction markets from enabling speculation on collegiate athletic contests.
