{"id":640860,"date":"2026-03-24T15:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640860\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T15:18:24","slug":"frank-thomas-sues-white-sox-retailers-over-jersey-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640860\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Thomas sues White Sox, retailers over jersey sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">CHICAGO &#8211; Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas has filed a lawsuit accusing several companies, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox32chicago.com\/tag\/mlb\/white-sox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Chicago White Sox<\/a>, of using his name without permission to sell merchandise.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WFLD\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Thomas filed the lawsuit March 19 in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging violations of the Illinois Right of Publicity Act.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The complaint claimed companies including Nike, Fanatics and the White Sox sold &#8220;City Connect 2.0&#8221; jerseys featuring Thomas\u2019 name and his No. 35 beginning in April 2025 without his consent or compensation.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">According to the filing, the jerseys were marketed and sold with team branding while using Thomas\u2019 identity for commercial gain.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Thomas argued he has not had a contract with the companies allowing use of his name and likeness and has not received payment tied to the merchandise sales.<\/p>\n<p>Image from complaint filed in Circuit Court of Cook County <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WFLD\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;The complaint we filed alleges violations of the Illinois Right to Publicity Act. Companies may not profit from anyone\u2019s identity without their permission. We believe our filing speaks for itself,&#8221; William T. Gibbs, partner at Corboy &amp; Demetrio, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WFLD\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">It\u2019s unclear how much revenue the companies generated from the jerseys or how much Thomas is seeking in damages beyond the minimum threshold listed in the complaint.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">None of the defendants have publicly responded to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WFLD\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Thomas is seeking damages, including profits tied to the merchandise and other financial losses, along with a jury trial.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/static.fox32chicago.com\/www.fox32chicago.com\/content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/filestamped-frank-thomas-lawsuit-for-media.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tap here<\/a> to read the full complaint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this report came from a criminal complaint filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County and Corboy &amp; Demetrio.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox32chicago.com\/tag\/mlb\/white-sox\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">White Sox<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox32chicago.com\/tag\/news\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox32chicago.com\/tag\/mlb\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MLB<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox32chicago.com\/tag\/sports\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sports<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO &#8211; Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas has filed a lawsuit accusing several companies, including the Chicago&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,4,169,185,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-640860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-white-sox","16":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116284824414145063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}