Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Merchandise with Bagley III’s likeness shows up for sale online

Duke University v University of Texas

PORTLAND, OR - NOVEMBER 24: Marvin Bagley III #35 of the Duke Blue Devils reacts after scoring late in the second half of the game against the Texas Longhorns during the PK80-Phil Knight Invitational presented by State Farm at the Moda Center on November 24, 2017 in Portland, Oregon. Duke won the game 85-78. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

Getty Images

What started off as a father’s attempt to promote and support his son may have morphed into an NCAA issue for Duke.

The father of Blue Devils star freshman Marvin Bagley III designed shirts with the younger Bagley’s likeness on them and distributed them to Duke students last week, but the design has subsequently shown up online for sale on all sorts of different merchandise, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Apparently, it was without the consent or knowledge of the Bagley family.

“THESE CROOKS on this website tried to copy my shirt and ILLEGALLY profit on my son’s name, image and likeness!” Bagley, Jr., the father of the star forward, wrote on Facebook on Jan. 14, according to the News & Observer.

It is, of course, impermissible under NCAA rules for a player or his family to profit of his likeness.

Duke “will take whatever action is necessary for NCAA, intellectual property and trademark purposes,” spokesperson Jon Jackson told the News & Observer. “This is not the first time we’ve had to address this kind of issue with one of our student-athletes and we are taking the necessary steps through our compliance office and legal counsel to address it.

“In all other instances such as this, the eligibility of the student-athletes was not in question.”

Given that both the Bagley family and Duke appear to be pushing back on the monetization of his likeness - and not profiting from it themselves - there would seem to be little concern that Bagley III would be in any sort of jeopardy with the NCAA. It does, though, highlight the problematic nature of the NCAA’s amateurism rules.

By apparently no fault of their own, the Bagley family is having to deal with this situation instead of simply being in the position to better control Bagley III’s name and likeness themselves if NCAA rules didn’t keep them from making money off it while Duke and the NCAA can use it in their own promotional material.

Bagley will likely cash in as a top-five pick in June’s NBA Draft, but this episode just shows there’s a market for his celebrity that he’s banned from participating in, leaving the door open for the more unscrupulous.