DePaul Journal of Sports Law Volume 4 Issue 2 Spring 2008 Article 4 Is Fantasy Baseball Free Speech? Refining the Balance Between the Right of Publicity and the First Amendment Timothy W. Havlir Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jslcp Recommended Citation Timothy W. Havlir, Is Fantasy Baseball Free Speech? Refining the Balance Between the Right of Publicity and the First Amendment, 4 DePaul J. Sports L. & Contemp. Probs. 229 (2008) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/jslcp/vol4/iss2/4 This Notes and Comments is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Journal of Sports Law by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. IS FANTASY BASEBALL FREE SPEECH? REFINING THE BALANCE BETWEEN THE RIGHT OF PUBLICITY AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT "MLB Would Like You to Stop Enjoying [Its] Product So Much." I. INTRODUCTION Never one to shy away from a public relations "challenge," Major League Baseball (MLB) has been hyper-aggressive in seeking royal- ties from other businesses that use anything MLB-related. 2 Fantasy baseball, a game based on the day-to-day statistics of professional ballplayers, has been no exception.3 When the internet enabled fan- tasy leagues to become commercially viable in the mid-90s, 4 MLB be- gan to seek and obtain licensing agreements from fantasy baseball providers.5 The providers paid MLB a share of their profits in ex- change for permission to use players' names and daily statistics.6 But there is an interesting legal issue lurking here: Does the law require a fantasy provider to purchase a license from MLB? Fantasy baseball is yet another example of new technologies stretching old laws.