A baseball player’s picture is worth a thousand words and, according to a new lawsuit filed by the MLBPA against online sportsbooks, lots of gambling dollars.
The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleges that Boston-based DraftKings and the UK-headquartered Bet365 used ballplayers’ images without permission while promoting gambling offerings. According to the complaint, both companies inappropriately appropriated “nearly every active MLB player’s image” for their websites and social media accounts, “including in posts encouraging customers to place bets on the featured player.”
“Defendants’ use of MLB player images on their sportsbook betting platforms and in use of player names and images in associated advertising, without a license for such use, is a flagrant violation of Pennsylvania’s right of publicity statute,” reads the suit.
For these alleged offenses, the baseball union hopes to recover unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, and to compel the court to “prevent Defendants’ further willful misappropriation of those players’ publicity rights.”
The MLBPA action follows a federal suit filed in New York last month against DraftKings by the NFLPA, in which lawyers for the football players accused the gambling behemoth of unlicensed use of its members’ names, images, and likenesses when hawking NFTs.
For non-degenerate gamblers, the most interesting part of the MLBPA suit comes with the illustration of how different baseball and football bets are promoted.
The complaint includes screenshots of DraftKings’ website offering futures bets on the 2024 World Series winners, in which the entire Philadelphia Phillies lineup is pictured alongside a pitch to take the Phils at +550. As noted in the complaint, “Clicking on the player’s image takes users to a page of prop bets pertaining to such player.”
And the suit also has a screenshot of a DraftKings’ page of bets for Monday night’s Atlanta Falcons–Philadelphia Eagles game, where the bets and team logos are listed, but not one player’s photo is used. (The Eagles were listed as 6.5-point favorites.)
The lawsuit implies the baseball images are nothing more than bait for the unlearned bettor. “There is no other purpose for using popular MLB player names and images in advertising other than to increase the consumer appeal of the apps and draw users to make bets on the platforms,” reads the complaint, “particularly given that the core information that bettors need in order to make informed decisions about placing sports bets is statistical data.”
Back to me: I worked for several years at Pimlico, the Maryland racetrack, and the typically casual bettors who gave a horse’s appearance as much or more weight than all its stats in the Daily Racing Form were mocked as sure losers by the veteran railbirds. Then again, none of the railbirds I hung out with at the track ever figured out how to beat the house, either. Gambling is ass.
The full lawsuit can be read below:
