Offensive Tradmarking, 15 Yard Penalty

A week or so before the Super Bowl, I read an article about the quiet shift in marketing around the game. Seems no one beats the NFL at cease-and-desist letters aimed at unauthorized, well, anyone, using the term "Super Bowl" to advertise products if they aren't licensed to do so. Instead, there's just been a subtle shift to buying x, y, or z goods in time for the "big game."

Savvy players that they are, the NFL marketers want 'Big Game' trademarked too.

Sigh.

This has Cal and Stanford hot and bothered because since 1902 their yearly match up has been called the Big Game.

The NFL swears it doesn't mean to go after those sorts of usages:

"This filing was done in regard to companies that have attempted an end-run around the term 'Super Bowl,' " said Brian McCarthy, the NFL's director of corporate communications. "So this would not affect the college game that's played in the fall.

"It would affect somebody who was trying to intimate a relationship with the NFL or the Super Bowl. They're trying to draft off the goodwill we've built up over the years.''

Oh wouldn't it?

Pro sports kinda suck.