Franchise Team Name / Logo in New Cities

[thecove]

I saw a lot of wishes / questions for current team logos to be used when a franchise is moved to another city in the game. I flipped through a couple of pages of current threads and couldn't find one that addressed this specifically.

First let me say that I work in the legal department of a fairly large company and more specifically I work on my company's trademarks, which includes licensing our trademarks to third parties.

Now, all trademark license contracts are different, depending on the scope and dollar amount involved.

But one of the fundamentals of a trademark license agreement is that the trademark owner (in this case, the NFL and each of the 32 teams) has complete control of how their trademarks are depicted and used by the licensee (in this case EA).

The NFL and each of the 32 teams has spent vast amounts of money in their marketing with the logos and getting instant brand recognition of the trademarks. Those trademarks are GREEN BAY PACKERS, MINNESOTA VIKINGS, or KANSAS CITY CHIEFS among others.

Because of this, the NFL and the teams as trademark owners will only allow the licensee (EA) to use these trademarks in the current form. The licensee is not allowed to alter the marks in any way shape or form.

Usually there is a schedule (list) in the contract of marks that a licensee is allowed to use. The licensee is only allowed to use the trademarks on that schedule and they must use them exaclty how they are depicted on the list. Any alteration of the trademarks by the licensee may viewed as a breach of the license agreement.

Additionally, the rights owner will almost always put a clause in the contract that allows them to review any and all instances of the licensees use of the trademarks and approve or disapprove of the proposed use.

(Sorry I'm trying to keep the legal jargon to a minimum)

So getting back to the original point, the NFL would not like to see a highlight from a game on YouTube involving the Las Vegas Vikings for all to see. And the owner of the Chiefs Logo would not want their logo associated with a team in La Habana, Cuba or in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, especially when these owners have spent so much money on the teams being known as the Minessota Vikings and the Kansas City Chiefs.

This is just my educated assumption of why the logos cannot be used when moving a team in franchise mode. Now there could be other sports games that allow this but I can say for certain that it was written into the agreement for that game or a major oversight by the league that worked on that contract. Any trademark team worth their weight will have very strict controls on how their trademarks are used by a licensee written into the contract.

Anyway, I hope this helps people understand some of the underlying issues that prevent EA or any other from using logos in this specific situation.

Cheers.