This past Friday, Fanatics refiled its May lawsuit against Arizona Cardinals rookie Marvin Harrison Jr., adding two new counts and naming his father as a new defendant. As Fanatics wrote in the amended complaint, the involvement of multiple Marvins Harrison helped facilitate and further their alleged defrauding of one of the most loathed companies in sports.
At issue in the initial suit was a contract dispute between Harrison Jr. and Fanatics over a name, image, and likeness (NIL) term sheet the two parties agreed to in 2023, before Harrison Jr. got to the NFL. Fanatics claims that this document is legally binding—in the suit, the company repeatedly refers to it in headline case as a Binding Term Sheet, though traditionally what differentiates a term sheet from a contract is that the former is not legally binding—and that Harrison Jr. has not fulfilled his obligations under it. Harrisons Jr. and Sr. posit, in return, that as they only signed a term sheet and not a contract, they do not in fact have a binding deal with Fanatics.
Shortly after the Cardinals selected Harrison Jr. with the fourth overall pick in the 2024 draft, news broke that he'd refused to sign the NFL Players Association's standard group licensing agreement (GLA), which grants the NFLPA permission to market his NIL to various partners such as licensed apparel companies and video-game makers. This, Fanatics alleges, was a ploy to leverage his GLA signature for more money from the apparel company. Fanatics claims that by publicly denying his deal with the company, and by refusing to participate in promotional activities as part of the deal, Harrison Jr. has effectively breached a contract.
The Harrisons filed two motions to dismiss the case in July. These motions allege that Harrison Sr.—not Harrison Jr.—was the Marvin Harrison who signed the term sheet. Hilariously, this allegation is what spurred the new lawsuit. "Defendants have perpetrated a fraud on Fanatics," claims the new suit, "through a corporate shell game that they disclosed for the first time in sworn affirmations submitted in this litigation."
What Fanatics means by that is that Harrison Sr. lied about having signed the term sheet, in an attempt to add an indemnifying layer between his son and the company: "Harrison Jr. further claimed that he did not sign the Binding Term Sheet, was never asked to personally sign the Binding Term Sheet, never intended to be personally bound by the Binding Term Sheet, and does not believe the Binding Term Sheet is binding on anyone—not even the Harrison Collection LLC." The Harrisons' claim, that Harrison Sr. signed the term sheet merely as a representative of their LLC, shields the family from personal liability. Fanatics' claim is that's a post facto lie, and that Harrison Jr. signed the documents himself. The company submitted some forensic signature evidence to make its case.
Even if you believe the Harrisons' argument that Sr. signed Jr.'s name on the term sheet, and that the term sheet is a legal fiction, Jr. apparently did perform under the contract for a year before trying this alleged leverage play. One week before the amended complaint, lawyers for both parties wrote a letter to the judge announcing that they had "reached an agreement on potential mediators, outside of the Commercial Division’s ADR roster," so a settlement is likely forthcoming.
