A roller derby business owns the name Cleveland Guardians.
Whatever the name is in 2022, the Cleveland Major League Baseball franchise now known as the Indians and soon to be Guardians, if a deal with a Roller Derby business is worked out, will be in town through at least 2036. The Dolan family, which owns the team, and Ohio politicians have cut a deal that will see about $435 million spent on renovating the stadium. Ohio taxpayers will put up $285 million of that expenditure. The Dolans never threatened to leave Cleveland but Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who owns a minor league baseball team in Asheville, North Carolina, got involved with the negotiations because Cleveland lost its National Football League team in 1995 and he didn’t want a repeat situation. “We know the reality of the business, and the reality is that Cleveland is a small market,” DeWine said “Our goal is to make sure that a world-class city like Cleveland continues to have professional sports, professional baseball. It’s very, very important. So, I felt the longer this lease was, frankly, for the fans, the better it would be.”
Meanwhile, will the baseball team be called the Guardians in 2022? The baseball business thought it had nailed down the name after deciding the Indians name had to go. The Cleveland Guardians roller derby team has the name. Cleveland Guardians roller derby team launched a website and is selling T-shirts for the Cleveland Guardians roller derby team. The Cleveland Guardians roller derby team registered as a business in January 2017. It seems very hard to believe that the Dolans or MLB could not find that there was a Cleveland Guardians roller derby business. The roller derby team applied for trademarks on July 27th. The application included bumper stickers, koozies, jerseys, tank tops, shorts, socks, T-shirts, clothing, footwear and headwear. The trademark battle is on.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191