Sep 10, 2008 5:36 pm US/Mountain
Reggie Rivers: Chad Ochocinco Is Right, NFL Wrong
Written By Reggie Rivers
DENVER (CBS4) ―
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Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco (formerly Johnson)
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
I'm not a big fan of Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco (formerly Johnson), but I'm on his side in the battle that he's having with the NFL over his new name.
This started in October of 2006 when, in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Johnson announced that he would prefer to be called "Ocho Cinco," which is 8-5 in Spanish, a reference to his jersey number 85.
That week he had an "Ocho Cinco" name plate created for his jersey and wore it during pre-game warm-ups. Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer ripped it off before kickoff, but Johnson was still fined $5,000 by the league for illegally altering his jersey. Nicknames are not allowed to adorn jerseys in the NFL.
Now we fast forward to Aug. 29 of this year when Johnson went to court and legally changed his name to Chad Javon Ochocinco. Now he wants to have Ochocinco printed on the back of his jersey because it's actually his last name and not a nickname, but the NFL has refused his request, stating that he has to stick with C. Johnson even though that his no longer his name.
This name change is one of the more ridiculous stunts that Ochocinco has pulled and I don't blame the league for being frustrated by his antics, however, in this case, the NFL is absolutely in the wrong, and has adopted an indefensible position.
The NFL has stated that it is denying Ochocinco's request, because the receiver missed a deadline for the name change. Therefore, if he wishes to alter the name on the back of his jersey's he will have to reimburse Reebok for all of the unsold jerseys that the company has printed with the name C. Johnson on the back.
It's hard to understand why Ocho Cinco has to assume financial responsibility for a business decision that Reebok made. And it's not clear why the NFL has the power to be a collection agent for Reebok to help pay for business decisions.
Reebok prints and sells the jerseys of all of the league's most popular players, and the league knows that the NFL is a very unpredictable landscape. There's no guarantee that any particular player is going to keep playing, stay healthy, stay with the same team, etc.
Reebok is the only company that has the legal right to print NFL jerseys using players names, so I'm sure that Reebok had hundreds, possibly thousands of Denver Bronco John Lynch jersey's in its inventory when Lynch chose to leave the Broncos of his own free will.
Lynch did not have to pay for those jerseys. After Lynch signed with New England, Reebok probably printed a few Lynch Patriots jerseys, but New England didn't have to reimburse Reebok for those jerseys when the team cut Lynch at the end of training camp.
This is the world in which Reebok operates. Players get cut, traded, placed on injured reserve or retire and the company is stuck trying to get rid of their jerseys. That's a business cost, and the high price of jerseys is reflective of that. On top of football transactions, there's also the behavior of the players off the field. When a player gets in trouble and is suspended for a protracted period, he does not have to repay Reebok for the jerseys that the company printed.
Former Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick did not have to repay Reebok for all of the #7 Falcons jerseys that were unsold at the time of his conviction for dog fighting.
Reebok takes a gamble every time it print a jersey, and no player, coach or team is responsible for paying for that gamble if circumstances change and a particular player's jerseys are no longer salable. Ochocinco isn't getting a direct percentage all of the jerseys that are sold with C. Johnson on it, so why should he be on the hook to pay for them if he decides to change his name? And he won't get any of the money that Reebok will make selling the new Ochocinco jerseys to all the people who previously owned C. Johnson Jerseys.
[Note: Through the collective bargaining agreement, the NFL Players Association sells the right for jersey makers, trading card companies, etc. to print items that use player's names. The NFLPA then divides that revenue among every player in the league. So the star players will have many more jersey's made with their names on them, but they're not receiving any more payment from that than an undrafted rookie who doesn't have any jerseys printed with his name on it. So in that sense, Ochocinco does not profit directly from the sale of his jerseys.]
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