| It’s that time of year where, for two weeks in late August and early September, tens of thousands of people descend upon Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York for the U.S. Open tennis tournament. The biggest stars in the world of tennis are there, from veteran players to up-and-comers hoping for an upset win. Fans pack the grounds, including Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis-specific stadium in the world, named after the legendary tennis star who passed away in 1993. |
Photograph by the author, featuring the trademarked US OPEN design mark. |
Anyone who goes into Arthur Ashe Stadium or the other courts at the tournament, or who watches on TV, will likely see the tournament logo: the words “US Open” with what appears to be a speeding yellow tennis ball above it. Keen observers may even note the ® symbol in the logo. It will not surprise most folks to learn that the United States Tennis Association (USTA) owns trademark registrations for that mark (such as U.S. Registration Nos. 5,934,944 and 5,929,884), as well as the UNITED STATES OPEN TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS word mark (U.S. Registration No. 1,140,105). The USTA even has a registration and a pending application for HONEY DEUCE, the name of the signature beverage of the tournament (U.S. Registration No. 7,782,775 for alcoholic beverages; U.S. Serial No. 99,266,182 for clothing).
The phrase “US Open” is used by a wide variety of sporting events, however, so there a number of other trademark registrations for the phrase, unrelated to the tennis tournament or the USTA. Sports ranging from golf (U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP, U.S. Registration No. 1,151,944) to bowling (U.S. OPEN, U.S. Registration No. 6,777,297) to Muay Thai (US OPEN, U.S. Registration No. 7,077,363) use the phrase or variations thereon. It is a crowded field, but the tennis tournament has carved out a unique identity among users of the phrase.
That made me wonder: have any top tennis players obtained U.S. trademark registrations relating to their names or brands? I was surprised to find that of the top five ranked women’s players, only one had registered trademarks that I could definitively determine were owned by the player: the Polish player Iga Swiatek. She has registered or applied to register, through a foundation, 1GA (U.S. Registration No. 7,691,163); JAZDA (Polish for “let’s go”) (U.S. Registration No. 7,873,751); IGA SWIATEK (U.S. Serial No. 79,374,697); and TEAM SWIATEK (U.S. Serial No. 79,374,695).
On the men’s side, there are similarly few trademarks among the top five. Italian Jannik Sinner appears to have registered a logo (U.S. Registration No. 7,089,046) and JANNIK SINNER (U.S. Registration No. 7,088,922). Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz has registered CARLOS ALCARAZ (U.S. Registration No. 7,646,319). That appears to be it for the top five players.
With name, image, and likeness (or NIL) rights exploding in college sports, and athletes and other celebrities increasingly acting like entrepreneurs, it may not be long before tennis players see the value of filing an application as essential as stringing a racquet. As we’ve described in prior posts, athletes like Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, Breanna Stewart, and Flau’jae Johnson, and celebrities like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, and SZA, have been building their trademark portfolios to protect their personal brands. In today’s sports economy, failing to register a mark might be the real unforced error. Will we see start to see more tennis players serving up trademark applications? Only time will tell.
