The Associated Press is reporting that Yahoo! settled the suit it filed against the NFL Players Association over licensing fees for player stats for fantasy football purposes last month.
A previous licensing agreement had expired in March of this year, and the NFLPA has argued in the past that such information is proprietary–but a similar suit brought last year was decided in favor of CBS Interactive, although the NFLPA is appealing that decision.
In the mean time, Yahoo! apparently has decided that the licensing fees would cost less than the legal fees–and the NFLPA apparently has decided that they should take what they can get now, rather than possibly miss out on it all down the road.
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The NFLPA settled because they know their argument is BS. If they let it go to court they would lose, and there would be a public knowledge that statistics (even for NFL players) are not proprietary.
This way they have a confidential agreement so nobody will know the terms and they can keep trying to strong arm others (who the NFLPA hopes do not have deep pockets for legal fees).
I agree 100%. I also wonder what will happen if/when the appeal of the CBS Interactive lawsuit is denied–will the Yahoo! agreement still be in effect, meaning Yahoo continues (for the time being) to pay for information that is free?
I do also wonder if using player pictures and additional profile information might throw a bit of a wrench into a case like this–but in the end, if my choices are use the stats for free without profiles/pictures, or pay for those, the decision is an easy one…and one that, given their track record, Yahoo would probably fail on…