Yahoo Drops NFL Players Assn. Suit Over Fantasy Game Rights

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 8, 2009 - 10:32am.

Los Angeles - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) has settled a lawsuit it filed against the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), over the payment of licensing fees for use of players' names and statistics in online fantasy football games.

"We did reach a settlement and we are going to explore other opportunities with the NFL players union to work together," Yahoo Sports spokeswoman Nicol Addison told Reuters.

Yahoo sued the NFLPA in federal court in June, as a preemptive move to get a court to rule that it does not have to pay license publicly available information.

The company said in March that it would not seek to renew a previous license agreement that had expired.

A federal court ruled in 2006 that Major League Baseball players' data was in the public domain and not subject to licensing fees, and that ruling was upheld on appeal in June 2008.

Last September, CBS and the NFLPA also sued one another over the issue of players' statistics in fantasy sports games.

In April, the court ruled in favor of CBS, but that ruling is under appeal.

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