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1 Florida Ent. & Sports L. Rev. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/fdaetnm1 and id is 1 raw text is: NEW NAME, SAME TEAM: THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REALITIES OF CHANGING A PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAM NAME Darren Adam Heitner* and Hayes Rule** INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................1 I. SPORTS TEAMS CHANGING THEIR NAME ...................................2 A . Changes in the Past............................................................3 1. Washington Bullets .....................................................3 2. Tennessee Oilers .........................................................4 B. Recent and Ongoing Changes ............................................5 1. Washington Football Team.........................................5 2. Cleveland Guardians ...................................................6 II. CHOOSING A NEW NAME............................................................8 III. LEGALLY CHANGING THE NAME ..............................................12 CONCLUSION...........................................................................................14 INTRODUCTION In light of recent social justice movements, sports team nicknames have been placed under a larger microscope than possibly any time before now. Discussions surrounding team names have recently prompted at least two professional organizations-the Washington Football Team and Cleveland Guardians-to move away from racially-insensitive names. These franchises were not the first sports entities to change their name and they will certainly not be the last. This Essay seeks to provide a short guide of the legal considerations for changing a team's name. * Darren Adam Heitner, Esq. is the Founder of Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and intellectual property law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. Heitner also serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class. Heitner was named to UF's 40 Under 40 and honored with UF Law's Outstanding Young Alumnus Award. He is the author of How to Play the Game, What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association. ** Hayes Rule is a J.D. Candidate, 2022, at Florida State University College of Law and current corporate law clerk at Holland & Knight LLP. Before law school, Hayes played NCAA Division I golf and received a B.A. in journalism from Mercer University. Passionate for the intersection of sports and law, Hayes is the Co-Founder of the Student Sports Law Network and a member of the Sports Lawyers Association's NextGen Committee. Hayes would like to give special thanks to his wife, Kristen, and his 1-year-old son, Xander, for all of their love and support. 1

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