I played T-ball at age 5-6 in Dallas and my team was the Cubs (exact same uniform, logo as Chicago Cubs.) All the other teams had the same uniforms as real pro teams too. My sister played softball for the ‘Blue Jays’ at age 8-9 and, yes, same uniforms. I’ve seen high school teams with the same logo as the Minnesota Vikings.
Do they have to get copyright permission from those actual pro teams under some sort of arrangement?
It’d be trademark that’d be the issue, not copyright, but in principle, yes, they would. Except that I suspect that, in practice, most operate under the principle of “don’t get caught”. And the pros probably don’t put much effort into trying to catch them, because it’s bad optics to sue a Little League team.
Are these teams buying replica uniforms licensed by the pro team?
If not, is some commercial establishment cranking out uniforms with unauthorized logos on them? That is who the legal targets would be, not the little kids (+ parents & coaches).
When I was playing little league(not the official little league, just my local kids baseball), we we named the same as the MLB teams(Reds, Tigers, etc.), but our labeling was all generic.
Most apparel companies avoid doing this so they don’t get in massive trouble. I work with schools(teacher and coach) and our clothing companies are very wary of anything trademark infringing.
We own our school labeling for our stuff, but we can not ask them to make anything that looks like a trademarked item. Schools are a huge business for them and they can’t afford to lose us. We(well, parents if they buy stuff) dumb thousands into them. I was doing middle school track and we’d put in $2000+ total orders just for that team, hardly the biggest money maker.
Nopt just bad optics, but probably bad business too.
While baseball remains popular and very profitable as a sport and a business, it has had increasing trouble attracting younger fans over the last couple of decades. According to this story from a few years ago:
If you’re already having trouble cultivating the next generation of baseball players and baseball fans, you probably don’t want to alienate them by suing them for using your trademarks in their non-profit leagues.
Of course you can go back to anytime in baseball’s history and find someone complaining about
Then again, if you let enough leagues get away with it, you’ll have a hard time defending the trademarks from serious infringements. Isn’t that what happened with Monopoly?
My high school’s football team was called “The Vikings” and their logo was literally just the NFL Vikings logo. It still has that logo 20 years later.
In Los Angeles, the Kings sponsors a lot of youth hockey. They gave my son’s team full sets of gear (skate to helmet and everything in between) with Kings logos everywhere. So at least some youth teams are wearing pro logos legitimately.
Mine, too.
Sister Bay was my permanent address for 3 summers (plus some), but I was already in college (my mom moved up there my Freshman year). I did drive by Gibraltar High School a lot as I worked at the White Gull Inn.
Brian
I grew up in Sister Bay. I was born in the Fox Cities of Wisconsin (Neenah) and we moved to Sister Bay right before my third birthday.
My Scandinavian ancestors were among the early settlers in Sister Bay and northern Door County. My grandmother had 15 siblings, so with the exception of the Johnson family that owns the restaurant with the goats on the roof (who hail from Milwaukee, I believe), if the last name is Johnson, they’re probably a cousin of mine.