Jordan says he owns the trademark to the imagery used in it. Furthermore, as he alleged in the lawsuit, Jordan has his own steak brands: he’s associated with steakhouses in New York City, Chicago, and Connecticut, and said he sells steaks through michaeljordansteaks.com (the site now redirects to his steak house website).
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Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist testified Monday in federal court in Chicago.
Jurors at a civil trial focused on the market value of Michael Jordan’s identity handed him a major win Friday, order a grocery-store chain to pay him $8.9 million for invoking his name in a steak ad without his permission. Jordan’s attorneys argued that he wouldn’t have accepted such a deal based on his endorsement history and determined with the help of a sports economist that using Jordan’s name in the ad was worth $10 million.
He says Jordan’s climbing income in recent years is unusual for a former athlete.
Steven Mandell, the Dominick’s attorney, told jurors he was also proud of Jordan’s accomplishments in sports.
“I have the final say-so on everything that involves my likeness and my name”, Jordan told jurors in Chicago. It might be worth $10 million in some contexts, he said, but not necessarily in a one-off ad. Dressed in a charcoal suit and gray tie, Jordan drew laughs when he said “don’t look” as he put on reading glasses to read an evidence document while he was on the stand.
Jordan, his agent and certainly one of his advertising executives took the stand throughout testimony. All that’s left for the jury to decide is damages.
“It didn’t fit the strategy we operated on in terms of signing and evaluating deals”, Jordan said.
The edition did not sell as well as expected, according to a video deposition played in court by the defense.
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“It was not selling well across the board, which tells me it just wasn’t resonating with consumers”, Botteselle said.
