Distinguish between media rights and personal image rights

Posted on: January 3, 2021 at 16:43:05 CT

A school has media rights which it can and they do sell. Players do not currently directly share in the income from the sale of those rights. I.e. the money goes to the school which uses it for various things which can include some payments to players in the form of scholarships.

The Booker Blumenthal bill proposes players (as a group) receiving a portion of that revenue.

Personal image rights are the rights to use the player's name and image (among other things) for various purposes, i.e. the player endorses Wendy's Baconator, serves as pitch man for a local car dealer, etc. Each and every player who's personal image rights are used must consent. It is not a majority vote.

Another example, is the star QB appears as pitchman for a local business and game footage is shown of him making a play. My understanding is the producer of that commercial must have the consent/agreement of every player who appears in the game footage. Just the star QB's agreement is not legally sufficient.

The entertainment industry has dealt with this issue for years. An example, is several years ago, a network TV program shot part of its show in a restaurant in Phoenix, The Henry. A video was shot of the stars of the show having lunch. The producer contacted everyone in the restaurant and asked for their consent for the use of their image in the film. People were told that if they didn't consent, they would be edited out of the video.

Personal image rights and the use of personal images is a very well established area of the law.