Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos. That’s a Problem for Video Game Developers. - The New York Times (via archive link)

Doesn't seem right to me. The tattoo becomes part of a person's likeness, and that person doesn't have a right to market and give permission for that likeness to be used?

This could be applied to any picture of an athlete. Does the team need to pay a royalty for any promotional material featuring a player, are trading card makers paying these royalties?

If this continues to be an issue, I see the athletes requiring the tattoo artists to sign waverers giving away any right to their ink.

Randy Orton had this issue:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2018/04/18/new-tattoo-copyright-infringement-case-filed-by-artist-who-inked-wwe-wrestler-randy-orton/#4850a43d4edb

Also I believe Brock Lesnar did as well.

For me the copyright issue boils down to who created the original image. If the tattoo artist created an original design they should hold the copyright (just as and artist holds rights to prints/reproduction of their original creations). However if the customer presents a design to the tattoo artist, or the design is significantly generic (like letters/numbers in common font styles) then I see no legal claim as it is not their original work. In my opinion Lebron's child's face was a piece that took significant artistic undertaking by the artist to create that image so it can be copyrighted, however his mother's name is in a generic script which was not created by the artist so there should be no copyright there.