(AsiaGameHub) – The association is requesting a temporary restraining order.
US.- The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has initiated legal action against DraftKings in federal court located in Indianapolis. The association stated its intention to seek an urgent temporary restraining order to prevent the company from utilizing the NCAA’s federally registered trademarks, specifically March Madness, Final Four, Elite Eight, and Sweet Sixteen.
The NCAA emphasized that sports betting should not be connected to, endorsed by, or linked with NCAA championships or the student-athletes participating in them. Furthermore, it clarified that it has no commercial partnerships with any sports betting operators.
The NCAA asserted: “The NCAA makes clear in the complaint and its motion that every day that DraftKings continues to use these marks, millions of sports fans — and, critically, college students and young adults who are particularly susceptible to gambling harm — are exposed to the false suggestion that the Association has authorised or endorsed DraftKings’ gambling platform.”
DraftKings’ response
DraftKings contends that the terms in question are “the universally recognised names for the tournaments and their rounds, used by millions of college basketball fans, journalists, and participants in the sports-betting ecosystem. They are the same words used by other online sportsbooks, who have not been singled out by the NCAA’s fevered complaint.”
The company claimed that the request for a restraining order was “based on a contrived and manufactured ’emergency,’” and pointed out that the NCAA has a commercial agreement with a company that supplies in-game data to sportsbooks.
DraftKings further argued that its use of these terms is protected under the First Amendment, asserting that the NCAA’s trademark claim would not succeed on its merits. “No trademark gives any organisation the right to monopolise the language fans, players, journalists, and sportsbooks use every day to accurately refer to college basketball tournaments,” the company stated.
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