“There is no decision that happens without my final approval”, Michael Jordan said while on the stand Tuesday.
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Dominick’s Finer Foods has acknowledged it wasn’t authorized to use Jordan’s image in a 2009 magazine ad. The jury will decide the fair market value of the infringement by the grocery chain, which has since gone out of business. Stay tuned for the outcome of this lawsuit and see the ad that caused this legal battle below.
The former NBA star could testify as soon as Monday to explain why he so meticulously guards his image.
Jordan’s agent previously testified that his client does not agree to one-time deals like that one. Jordan said he would never have approved the Dominick’s ad. “I feel like it was a misuse of my likeness and name”, he said. That includes a $480 million deal with Nike from 2000 to 2012. “It’s the use of his identity”, Frederick Sperling said.
NBA star James, 30, will only make $44million in endorsement money this year, according to Forbes’ 2015 List Of The World’s Highest-Paid Athletes. They say the Dominick’s ad was nothing like the $480-million deal Jordan had with Nike for more than a decade, and is instead closer to the half-million-dollar deal Jordan signed with Sirius radio.
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Jordan, 52, displayed an amused discomfort with having to wear reading glasses while on the witness stand, jokingly saying “don’t look” when he put them on to read a page he was handed.
