(CNN) — Basketball star Michael Jordan prevailed in his lawsuit concerning an advertisement that used his likeness without his permission. A federal jury ordered the owners of the supermarket chain Dominick’s to pay him $8.9 million for using his identity without permission in an advertisement.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Jordan announced moments after the verdict he would be giving the award to charities in Chicago.
Lawyers for Dominick’s owner, Safeway, had argued that it should pay just $126,900 for using Jordan’s identity without permission in a 2009 ad for its Rancher’s Reserve steaks in a special issue of Sports Illustrated commemorating Jordan’s elevation to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The verdict comes at the end of a hard-fought, five-year court battle that provided fresh insights into how Jordan built his name into a marketing juggernaut and saw a judge previously assigned to the case describe Jordan’s demands as “greedy.”
