I had a long drive today and I kept the radio on my usual favorite station the whole time. I kept hearing the DJ say something along the lines of “Call in and you could win tickets to a black and gold hockey game in Boston, legally I can’t say the team name.”
However, I often hear this same DJ talk about the previous night’s game, and when he does this he refers to the Bruins by their name. Why does he need to call it a “black and gold” game when he is giving away tickets?
Wild-ass guess, but probably for the same reason stations can’t use the name of the Super Bowl in connection with an advertisement or promotion without permission of the NFL because the name is copyrighted. The giveaway might be a promotion by the station’s sponsors, but not necessarily with the participation of the Bruins or the NHL.
He can use the team’s trademarks to report about sports.
But he can’t use the trademarks to promote the radio station, which is what a ticket contest is, without the permission of the trademark holder.
In fact, even saying “It’s a hockey team in Boston—you know which one I mean—wink, wink,” might be enough for a false sponsorship or false association claim, in which you don’t necessarily need to use the actual trademark.
Most likely because it’s not an authorized promotion by the team. Let’s say the Bruins have a deal with 98.5 The Hub that includes not just play-by-play, but all the team’s radio promotions. If you’re every other radio station in Boston, do you just pretend the Bruins don’t exist, or do you go out, buy a pair of tickets to give away and try to get the Bruins fans to listen to your station?
Note that many times people like to tweak the noses of trademark lawyers about such things.
E.g., years ago, AT&T used to send out warning letters to everyone who used the term “Unix” without the accompany verbiage stating it’s a trademark of AT&T, etc.
To make fun of this, people started to use things like “U**x” in their articles.
Perhaps the radio station got one too many such letters and is just goofing on the concept. Sure you can say “Bruins” in most contexts without worrying. Even in the context of merely giving away tickets … up to a point. But what’s the fun in that?
The name of the team isn’t copyrighted; it’s trademarked.