Before the opening of a court case scheduled for next month, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the organizers of all Grand Slam tournaments have come to an agreement with Adidas about the use of the brand’s three stripes on the garments of their endorsees at international tournaments.
Adidas had filed suit against the ITF and the Grand Slam Committee earlier this year after the organizations drew up fresh regulations to downsize authorized logos, firmly rejecting the notion that the Three Stripes should be exempted. On the other hand, Adidas argued that it had not been given fair notice, and that the Three Stripes should continue to be treated separately because they were a design element instead of a logo.
Under the new compromise, all the brands will be allowed to use a logo of up to 51 square centimeters on shirt sleeves and 26 square centimeters on other parts of the clothing. Allowing Adidas to use the Three Stripes in a rather prominent way, the surface permitted for logos on the sleeves is twice the size that the ITF wanted to impose under its new regulations,
Each sports federation has adopted its own rules toward the Three Stripes, but the only international sports body that prohibited them outright is the International Olympic Committee, which stopped tolerating the Three Stripes on shirt sleeves from the Turin Olympics.
