DraftKings has been using “March Madness” and other familiar terms to refer to the NCAA Tournament for more than five years and has the legal right to do so, the sportsbook said in a court filing Wednesday in response to a complaint filed by the NCAA last week.
The NCAA is seeking an emergency temporary restraining order to stop DraftKings from using registered trademarks associated with its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
The complaint for trademark infringement, filed in the Southern District of Indiana, requests that DraftKings stop using “March Madness,” “Final Four,” “Elite Eight” and “Sweet Sixteen” and variations of those terms to promote its business.
In its response, DraftKings described those terms as “the universally recognized names for the tournaments and their rounds, used by millions of college basketball fans, journalists, and participants in the sports-betting ecosystem. They are the same words used by other online sportsbooks, who have not been singled out by the NCAA’s fevered complaint.”
DraftKings said the NCAA had asked for the restraining order “based on a contrived and manufactured ‘emergency,’” and it noted that the NCAA has a commercial agreement with a company whose business is providing in-game data to sportsbooks.
The NCAA said it actively avoids any appearance of affiliation with gambling and said in the complaint that DraftKings’ use of the terms confuses customers by making it appear the NCAA is on board.
DraftKings said its use of the terms is protected under the First Amendment, arguing the NCAA’s trademark claim would fail on the merits.
“No trademark gives any organization the right to monopolize the language fans, players, journalists, and sportsbooks use every day to accurately refer to college basketball tournaments,” the company said in a statement.
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