Indians spokesman Bart Swain said in an email that the team remains 'confident in our position to become the Guardians. It wants an injunction and damages for the alleged confusion and loss of goodwill. The co-ed roller derby team said it has used the Guardians name since 2013, and registered it with Ohio in 2017.
'There cannot be two 'Cleveland Guardians' teams in Cleveland, and, to be blunt, plaintiff was here first.' 'Two sports teams in the same city cannot have identical names,' the roller derby team's lawyers said in the complaint filed in Cleveland federal court. The lawsuit was filed three months after the Indians announced it would change its name following the 2021 season in response to years of pressure from Native American groups and human rights activists that viewed the Indians name used since 1915 as racist and degrading. Major League Baseball's Cleveland Indians, which is changing its name to the Guardians, was sued for trademark infringement on Wednesday by a local roller derby team also named the Guardians.
