Cleveland Baseball Will Share 'Guardians' Name With Roller Derby Team

Source: New York Times

Cleveland Baseball Will Share ‘Guardians’ Name With Roller Derby Team

The settlement of a federal lawsuit will allow the Major League Baseball franchise to move forward with renaming its team, amid a reckoning over symbols of racism.

By Neil Vigdor
Nov. 16, 2021, 4:45 p.m. ET

Call it a shared guardianship.

Cleveland’s Major League Baseball franchise and a local roller derby team announced on Tuesday that they had reached a settlement in a naming dispute that had escalated to a federal lawsuit. They will both be called the Guardians.

The roller derby Cleveland Guardians sued the baseball team last month in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, accusing it of infringing on its trademark rights and identity as part of a renaming effort that made headlines.

The lawsuit contended that the roller derby team had called itself the Cleveland Guardians since 2013 and had registered the name with the Ohio secretary of state in 2017, well before the baseball franchise’s longstanding name, the Indians, was thrust into the middle of a nationwide reckoning over symbols of racism.

In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, the two sides said that they were pleased to announce an “amicable resolution” of the lawsuit.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/sports/cleveland-guardians-baseball-roller-derby.html

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