A longtime graphic designer for Deion Sanders claims the coach’s brand manager persuaded the designer to sign away the rights to Sanders’ personal brand logo in exchange for career advancement opportunities that Sanders has since failed to deliver.
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Alan Tipp, a graphic designer who created Sanders’ personal brand logos in 2011, gave up his rights to the creations in December 2022 as part of a deal in which Sanders’ brand manager, Sam Morini, promised to advance Tipp’s career in numerous ways, including hiring him to create a line of branded sunglasses, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska in January 2025.
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Sanders has since failed to meet those obligations and his representatives began avoiding Tipp soon after the agreement was signed, Tipp alleged in the complaint. Sanders released a line of branded sunglasses in September 2023 without Tipp’s involvement, according to the lawsuit. The graphic designer alleged that the sunglasses generated $5 million in sales in the first three days.
An attorney for Sanders and his team, Michael Kump, declined to comment Friday. Sanders is entering his fourth season coaching the University of Colorado’s football team.
The complaint alleges that Sanders and Morini never intended to fulfill the bargain with Tipp but instead made false promises in order to convince Tipp to sign away the rights to the logos the graphic designer created. Tipp claimed he has never been compensated “in any way” for the logos, which read, “PRIME,” and “TRUTH” with Sanders’ No. 21 embedded in the text — though he acknowledged that Sanders has at times tagged the designer’s account in social media posts, according to the complaint.
In addition to the sunglasses, Morini also promised to bring Tipp into the coach’s marketing and branding team, allow Tipp to educate football players at the University of Colorado Boulder on personal branding and to connect Tipp to Nike to help develop Sanders’ branded clothing and shoes, according to the lawsuit.
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The lawsuit names Sanders as a defendant, along with two related companies, Prime Time Enterprises and SMAC Entertainment. Morini made the promises for career advancements verbally and those terms were not included in the signed work-for-hire agreement, said Heather Voegele, an attorney for Tipp.
She said Tipp believes he owns the logos.
“He fully believes that he has rights and that he should be given credit for those (logos),” she said.
The case is ongoing and in the discovery process, Voegele said. Sanders was scheduled to sit for a deposition on July 31, and a case status conference is scheduled for October.
Sanders this month is also being subpoenaed to testify in his son Shilo’s bankruptcy trial, which is a separate legal proceeding. Sanders’ attorney, Harvey Steinberg, filed a motion on Thursday to quash a subpoena that would require Sanders to testify at his son’s bankruptcy trial, which begins Aug. 31 — the same week as the Buffs’ season opener at Georgia Tech.
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Read more Deion Sanders moves to quash subpoena in son’s bankruptcy trial
