MLBPA Sues FanDuel, DraftKings Over Use of Player Images

The Major League Baseball Players Association is taking a swing at the two biggest betting companies—in court. 

The MLBPA filed a lawsuit against DraftKings and Bet365 Group in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Monday. It filed a separate lawsuit against FanDuel and Underdog Fantasy in New York State court. The news was first reported by Law360.

The players’ union argues the betting sites are using their images without permission, and the union seeks compensation and punitive damages. 

According to the complaint against DraftKings, “defendants’ use of player images within their sportsbook platforms is not merely informational—it is promotional.”

Moreover, according to the union’s lawyers, the violations are specific to the sites’ baseball offerings: “Both DraftKings and Bet365 offer the same types of bets in other sports without using player images.”

Those other sports include football. 

Just last month, the NFL Players Association filed a $65 million lawsuit against DraftKings, the league’s official betting partner, for breach of contract. As with the MLBPA lawsuits, that suit also relates to NIL (name, image, and likeness). However, the similarities mostly end there, as the NFL case centers on DraftKings’ now defunct NFT marketplace, which closed in July while facing a separate class-action lawsuit arguing the cryptocurrency tokens it sold are unregistered securities.

FanDuel and DraftKings are the two largest sites in the space, combining for two-thirds of online gaming revenue in the U.S. DraftKings has a $18.5 billion market cap, while FanDuel’s parent company, Flutter Entertainment, is worth just shy of $40 billion. Underdog Fantasy is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) app that launched in 2020 and in July announced a YouTube show with Bill Belichick.

DraftKings and Bet365 have yet to respond to requests for comment. FanDuel and Underdog Fantasy declined to comment.

The MLBPA has been litigious this summer in enforcing what it sees as its players’ NIL rights: The union also sued the Pirates and jersey patch sponsor Sheetz last month.