Who has Licensing Rights for NPB Teams?
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Re: Who has Licensing Rights for NPB Teams?
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Apr 6, 2004 9:42 AM
| YBS Fan
]
The teams each are in charge of their own merchandising. A few people tried to create on-line shops before The YakyuShop succeeded, and they all complained that getting each team's permission was the biggest road block to the ventures. The story I heard a number of times was that each team would OK a license if all the other teams did, but no team would be the first. You might want to ask the YakyuShop curator how he finally managed it. That'd probably be an interesting interview.
The "NPB!" logo mark was created just a few years ago in the hopes of creating a licensing empire similar to MLB. One must go through the Commissioners' Office for this mark. However, no effort, that I've read of at least, has been made to centralize merchandising under the NPB logo. It just looks like another license requirement on top of the licenses from each team.
Player image license rights were sold to one of the video game makers, who then sells licenses to the other game makers in a strange twist of conflict of intrest. The owners did this without the Players' Union's conscent. While the players have challenged the Owners' right to do so, they've done nothing to regain the rights to their images, big business just rolling on ignoring the players' cries for justice in this case.
The "NPB!" logo mark was created just a few years ago in the hopes of creating a licensing empire similar to MLB. One must go through the Commissioners' Office for this mark. However, no effort, that I've read of at least, has been made to centralize merchandising under the NPB logo. It just looks like another license requirement on top of the licenses from each team.
Player image license rights were sold to one of the video game makers, who then sells licenses to the other game makers in a strange twist of conflict of intrest. The owners did this without the Players' Union's conscent. While the players have challenged the Owners' right to do so, they've done nothing to regain the rights to their images, big business just rolling on ignoring the players' cries for justice in this case.
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Great forum, btw!
My question is, who has licensing rights for these teams? Who regulates merchandising rights for companies who wish to manufacture and sell goods that bear NPB team names or logos?