Typically when a player is selected among the top-five picks in the NFL Draft, fans rush to purchase their jersey from the team shop immediately when it becomes available. But that hasn’t been the case for new Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. because he is still refusing to sign the licensing deal that would make jersey sales possible.
Marvin Harrison Jr. has refused to sign the NFLPA’s joint licensing agreement which would allow for the sale of his jersey and for his likeness to appear in the upcoming Madden video game. If he does not sign the deal, that means his jersey cannot be sold and he cannot appear in the video game.
For this reason, most players sign the agreement. But as Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk points out, Harrison is in a unique situation.
“That agreement is what allows players’ names, images and likenesses to be used in merchandise from jerseys to the Madden video game. Almost every player signs it because there’s no way to make money off jersey sales without it, but Harrison is in a unique situation because he signed an NIL deal with Fanatics while he was still at Ohio State, and now that he’s in the NFL and Fanatics has the opportunity to make more money off selling his Cardinals jersey, he wants Fanatics to agree to renegotiate before he gives them that right,” Smith wrote for Pro Football Talk.
We’ll have to see whether or not Harrison is successful in his negotiations.
