Last week's edition of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal revealed the results of a Turnkey Sports Poll taken in January, in which more than 800 senior-level sports industry executives spanning professional and college sports were asked the following:
Who should own the intellectual property of a PLAYER’S NAME?
- Player 47.35%
- It’s in the public domain 28.16%
- League 11.02%
- Club 9.39%
- No response/Not sure 4.08%
Who should own the intellectual property of a PLAYER’S STATISTICS?
- It’s in the public domain 46.12%
- League 37.55%
- Club 10.61%
- Player 2.86%
- No response/Not sure 2.86%
Who should own the intellectual property of a PLAYER’S IMAGE?
- Player 52.65%
- League 18.37%
- Club 15.51%
- It’s in the public domain 8.57%
- No response/Not sure 4.90%
And the correct answer to each one of these questions is?......"No response/Not sure". The reason is because it all depends on
how the name, statistic or image is being used. What a terribly confusing survey....
