MLB World Reacts To The ‘Cleveland Guardians’ News
Back in July, Cleveland’s MLB franchise, formerly known as the Cleveland Indians, announced they would be rebranding the team to the Cleveland Guardians.
The organization was expected to fully roll out the new brand at the start of the 2022 season, but a new roadblock could now be in the way of those plans.
According to multiple reports, a local roller derby team, also named the Cleveland Guardians, has filed a lawsuit to block the MLB franchise from using the name.
The MLB world took to Twitter to react to these unfortunate circumstances in Cleveland’s nickname saga.
The Cleveland Guardians roller derby team has filed a federal lawsuit to block the Cleveland Guardians baseball team from using the name, per @wkyc.
The derby club says it has "common law" trademark rights dating back to 2013.
They also hold the web domain and social accounts. pic.twitter.com/6AYpargyB2
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) October 27, 2021
Cleveland Indians tried to purchase Cleveland Guardians roller derby IP rights but only offered a nominal amount.
"Likely no more than fifteen minutes of annual team revenue."
I get that this is to avoid disclosing confidential communication, but what's 15 min of revenue? pic.twitter.com/mEw0L0qAEm
— Darren Heitner (@DarrenHeitner) October 27, 2021
Hope they haven't printed up the merchandise yet https://t.co/g2PjoeQoD5
— T Dog Media (@tdogmedia) October 27, 2021
This could get ugly 👀 https://t.co/y8yQeqh1P2
— 4 Train Savages (@FourSavages) October 27, 2021
Only one way to settle the Cleveland Guardians dispute is a full contact baseball game on roller skates, best 5 out of 7 https://t.co/pugWXDv6wE
— Donny Lowrider (@Tehdon) October 27, 2021
This is hilarious to me because they could’ve avoided this by just naming the team something better https://t.co/hwUM77f35N
— Brian Spradlin (@spradlin20) October 27, 2021
The Cleveland roller derby Guardians filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio. The lawsuit claims that the MLB franchise shortchanged the derby team with a “nominal” offer for their name and social media accounts.
“They offered to pay a nominal amount, likely no more than fifteen minutes of annual team revenue,” the suit said.
According to A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports, the Cleveland MLB Guardians offered less than $10,000 for naming rights back in June. The then-Indians ignored a counter offer.
“When the roller derby team complained to the Indians, the MLB franchise offered a truly nominal amount to buy the team’s intellectual property rights, including its social media accounts and the valuable www.clevelandguardians.com domain name,” the derby team’s lead attorney Christopher Pardo said in a statement, per WKYC Cleveland.
The original owners of the name don’t seem to be backing down anytime soon.
“We know we are in the right, however, and just like our athletes do on the track, we will put everything into this effort at the courthouse,” team owner Gary Sweatt said in a statement.
The Cleveland roller derby Guardians were established in 2013.
Stay tuned for updates on this developing situation.
The post MLB World Reacts To The ‘Cleveland Guardians’ News appeared first on The Spun.