LeBron James sports media company, UNINTERRUPTED, as well as several other partners involved with the brand, have bee named in a lawsuit by a Maryland-based youth group alleging that UNINTERRUPTED stole the slogan “More Than An Athlete,” from their organization.
News broke about the lawsuit on Friday from Game Plan Inc., who alleged that LeBron stole the slogan when he saw it on a t-shirt at a Cavaliers-Wizards game in 2017, according to an ESPN.com report.
Game Plan Inc., a youth development nonprofit, says it applied to trademark the phrase “I Am More Than An Athlete” in June 2016 and first used it on T-shirts at a Washington Wizards game on Oct. 8, 2017, when they played James’ former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. A group of players wearing the T-shirts had their photograph taken with Wizards star John Wall before the game, according to the complaint.
Uninterrupted released its own statement as well.
Uninterrupted dismissed the allegations in a statement, saying, “The complaint filed by Game Plan today is meritless and contains numerous factual inaccuracies. Uninterrupted owns prior rights in and to the More Than An Athlete trademark.”
Without splitting too many hairs here about the lawsuit, it is going to be interesting how this plays out. The “More Than” construct is not at all new to the LeBron James universe, being used by him far before Uninterrupted even existed, long before they put it on any merchandise. The documentary film “More Than A Game,” which covered LeBron and his teammates during his senior season trying to win a state championship, was released in 2009.
