Penny Hardaway lawsuit (College basketball sponsorship vs publicity rights)

[LadyStanley]

(Paywall)

Lawsuit filed over Penny Hardaway sponsorship deal
(SI)

In a nutshell, college contracted with lawfirm for sponsorship, giving it access and use of Hardaway in promotional videos, etc. And they've incurred expenses in getting this all set up and started.

However, Hardaway is handled for publicity by another firm.

So the lawsuit will discover if Hardaway gave up some of his publicity rights (a Tennessee state law thing) by his employment with Memphis, or the college had no right to include access to him for sponsorship.

An interesting conundrum.

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[mouser]

Will be interesting to see the details. Immediately on the surface one would assume Memphis shouldn't have the right to sell Hardaway's image or access in a sponsorship without his approval. However we don't know what's in Hardaway's contract with the university covering those rights. Plus being a public employee at a public university may involve some additional legal elements.

It should be highlighted the law firm appears to be suing the university's media arm for signing a contract that included representations they didn't have the authority to make. As opposed to suing Hardaway or the media arm to attempt to enforce the contract stipulations of access to Hardaway and use of his likeness.