The Butkus Award has been presented to the nation’s best collegiate linebacker each year since 1985. In recent years, it has been awarded at the ESPN-televised Home Depot College Football Awards Show, along with such honors as the Davey O’Brien Award (Quarterback), Doak Walker Award (Running Back), and Biletnikoff Award (Wide Receiver). The future of this award, however, is now the subject of a pending lawsuit.
A dispute has arisen between the award’s namesake, Dick Butkus and the Downtown Athletic Club of Orlando (DACO), the group that administers the award bearing his name. According to a complaint filed by Butkus in April, 2007, “DACO has consistently failed to exploit the potential of the award as a source for generating revenue for charitable, social or commercial purposes.” Butkus v. Downtown Athletic Club of Orlando, Inc., No. CV-07-02507 (C.D. Cal., amended complaint filed Apr. 23, 2007). Essentially, Butkus wants his name back; he seeks, among other things, a declaration of his right to use his name and identity in connection with a collegiate linebacker award, and an injunction against DACO’s use of the same.
The controversy raises some interesting questions about trademark rights and an athlete’s right of publicity, and the possible tension between the two: DACO secured a U.S. registration for the service mark, BUTKUS AWARD in 1989, and has handed out the award under that name for over 20 years. On the other hand, any continued use by DACO of that mark surely implicates Butkus’s right of publicity.
The Butkus-DACO dispute points out the caution and care that all parties should use when trying to build an enduring sports property on an athlete’s or sports figure’s name and identity. As a threshold matter, any grant of rights to the athlete’s name should be clear as to scope and duration.
Butkus and DACO are reportedly discussing settlement of their dispute, which echoes another recent falling out between presenter and namesake of a sports award. In 2005, a rift developed between the Los Angeles Athletic Club (LAAC), which honors the best men’s and women’s college basketball player in the county with the Wooden Award, and John Wooden and family, as a result of the Woodens’ decision to allow another organization to present a separate (and, perhaps, confusingly similar) award called the Wooden Cup. No litigation ensued, but the Wooden Award ceremonies proceed today without the participation of the coaching legend.
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