Responding to widespread complaints from its consuming public, including some articles on this blog as well as a consumer gripe site, DC United has withdrawn a demand that its season ticket holders sign away the right to talk about the team or post photos of video clips. Its newly revised proposed contact for season ticketholders is a model of simplicity with no objectionable provisions.
Credit to the team for responding in this way, but credit also to the many fans who contacted the team to let it know that they were reason to drop their season tickets if need be.
One of the arguments DC United originally made was that its language with respect to posting on social media was standard language borrowed from other sports teams. I argued in a recent blog post that, to the extent that other teams are maintaining such language in their standard ticket agreements, they risk violating the new federal statute barring agreements in form contracts that forbid consumers from providing "a written, oral, or pictorial review, performance assessment of, or other similar analysis of . . . the goods, services, or conduct of a person by an individual who is party to a form contract.” Section 2(a)(2). It won't be DC United that will have to litigate that issue in an appropriate case.
