?Pierre Garcon’s FanDuel Lawsuit Claims Online Fantasy Football Games Need To Pay Real NFL Players

Pierre Garcon apparently thinks that making millions of dollars a year by playing football is not enough. The Washington Redskins receiver’s FanDuel lawsuit claims that online fantasy football games are profiting off of the success of NFL players yet failing to give the players a cut of the wealth. As such, Garcon has launched his class action lawsuit in order grab hold of some of FanDuel’s revenue stream in 2015, which has exploded in growth.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, the Redskins name was actually banned for a sports team for the first time ever in October, although it did not happen at the level you might expect.

The FanDuel lawsuit may have some NFL fans wondering how much is enough. Pierre Garcon’s net worth is nothing to sneeze at in 2015, and Spotrac claims his five year contract with the Washington Redskins includes a $11 million signing bonus, $20.5 million guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $8.5 million. All in all, Garcon’s net worth is estimated to be around $16 million.

But those big numbers are still missing a digit in comparison to FanDuel’s income growth. According to Forbes, we were given an insight into how much money the online fantasy football game websites can make per year based upon documents filed back in April of 2015. FanDuel has been raising hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital, but their documents also “provided a 2015 revenue estimate of $170 million for FanDuel versus a total of $57,261,642 in 2014.” To put this number in perspective, the company beat their early 2014 revenue predictions back in 2014. In addition, the amount of FanDuel money passing hands per month is multiple times the revenue since they have to subtract the many millions in FanDuel prize pool offerings.

Since FanDuel profits are increasing at a dramatic rate largely due to the popularity of online fantasy football games, Pierre Garcon believes the company should be offering NFL players a piece of the multi-million dollar pie. Garcon’s FanDuel lawsuit alleges that the fantasy football website uses the names and likenesses of NFL players without their permission, which is the only reason the business is growing so rapidly.

“This case is about FanDuel trying to profit on plaintiff Garcon’s success, and that of other NFL athletes, without compensating them,” the FanDuel lawsuit states.

FanDuel has already responded to Pierre Garcon’s lawsuit, claiming it does not have any merit.

“There is established law that fantasy operators may use player names and statistics for fantasy contests,” the statement said. “FanDuel looks forward to continuing to operate our contests which sports fans everywhere have come to love.”

Interestingly enough, Garcon used to promote the FanDuel fantasy football website last year, but this business relationship was terminated. In addition, Garcon is only targeting FanDuel, while their main rival, DraftKings, is not included as part of the class action lawsuit.

According to WTSP, attorney Daniel Wallach believes it is possible that DraftKings was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit since the company has a marketing and licensing agreement with the NFL Players Association. FanDuel has neglected to create a similar agreement, which might explain why DraftKings dodged the lawsuit bullet in this case.

“Otherwise they (DraftKings) would have been sued, too,” said the attorney. “I see this as an attorney sensing an opportunity and taking advantage of the absence of a licensing agreement.”

In suing FanDuel, Pierre Garcon’s lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages. He claims that the online fantasy football game website is operating its business “on the backs of NFL players, whose popularity and performance make the Defendant’s commercial daily fantasy football product possible.”

A class action lawsuit filed by attorneys for Redskins WR Pierre Garçon (on behalf of all NFL players) vs FanDuel. pic.twitter.com/mUVXLANGve

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) October 30, 2015

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[Image via Fancy Hooey]