If you haven’t paid the NFL to use that other name for the NFL championship. 
The Super Sportballing?
That would be “feetball’” right? Are they still doing that?
Exquisite Hawk?
Marvelous Eagle?
Darn it, I know it’s something like that.
Glorious Kestrel?
It’ll come to me…
The Soup Bowl?
Campbell’s is good football.
Look. I’d had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was, “That piece of halibut was good enough for the Super Bowl.”
Superb Owl
What happened to that person who called it “egg hand ball” or whatever?
Y’all mean the Stupor Boll?
NFL has threatened to sue bars who use Super Bowl in ads so that’s why most now say the party is for the Big Game
That’s the crux of this – using the name “Super Bowl” in advertising or marketing, when you haven’t paid the NFL for the rights to use it, isn’t allowed.
One might think that the NFL theatening to sue a local sports bar is silly, but the issue is that the NFL has registered the term “Super Bowl” as a trademark, and if they don’t enforce their trademark rights, and defend against unauthorized usage of it, they could lose their ownership of the trademark.
There’s absolutely nothing preventing sports fans from using the term “Super Bowl” in conversation, in posts on message boards :D, etc., though fans do like to lampoon the NFL’s zealous protection of their rights to the term.
Post reported (to the NFL (but only as a joke (because if I really did threaten legal action against the board, that’d be an auto-ban (so obviously I’m joking (just to be clear (as if I wasn’t already)))))).
:D:D:D
You didn’t threaten legal action, you notified some other entity that might take legal action. Not quite insta-ban worthy. Maybe insta-suspension worthy, though. :o
I honestly don’t understand this. I thought the idea of trademark and trademark infringement was to protect against a likelihood of confusion between two things. So, the NFL trademarks “Super Bowl” so therefore I cannot call the church league tag football game the “Super Bowl” and nobody else can call their game that.
But if I advertise to come to my sports bar to watch the Super Bowl, how am I violating their trademark? I’m not calling anything of my own a “Super Bowl”; I am saying to come to my bar to watch the trademarked Super Bowl.
How is that a violation? It would be like saying I cannot put a Bud Light sign in the window because that is a registered trademark of Anheuser Busch. Well, yes it is, but I’m selling it, not advertising my shitty beer as Bud Light.
If you read the article to which I linked, the primary issue (from the NFL’s standpoint) is that they make a crap-ton of money from authorizing advertisers/sponsors to officially use the term, and their advertisers/sponsors, in turn, make a crap-ton of money from being able to officially tie in their beers, their pizzas, etc., to the Super Bowl. If, for example, Coors pays the NFL a bunch of money to be able to use the words “Super Bowl” in their ads, but then Budweiser uses the name in their ads, too, Coors would (rightfully) question why they were paying to use the term.
If the NFL doesn’t defend its trademark on the term, they will lose its trademark status, and anyone could use the term for anything, for their own purposes.
I did read the article, but I honestly don’t understand their legal stance and that position seems to implicate free speech concerns.
I mean, let’s stick with Bud Light. That is a trademark so that when the public sees “Bud Light” they know that they are getting the beer brewed by Anheuser Busch, and whether you love it or hate it, that is what you are getting. If I brew beer in my basement, I cannot call my beer (assuming I am advertising or marketing it) Bud Light or use the logo because that may cause confusion for customers. Some people might buy my beer thinking that they are getting the Anheuser Busch stuff and further, if I make really bad beer, then that may reflect poorly on the real Bud Light. In short, Anheuser Busch has the right that anything sold in the country that is called Bud Light should be only their product.
I get all of that; I understand it and agree with it. But if I advertise for my bar and say “Saturday Special. Two Bud Lights for $4” I am simply stating a true fact. You can come to my bar on Saturday and get two Bud Lights for $4. The real Bud Light. Or you can come to my bar and watch the Super Bowl. I haven’t said anything misleading, nor have I tried to pass off inferior or different items as those trademarked things.
I could see if I made a statement like “Your local source for Bud Light/ the Super Bowl” as that implies some sort of official connection with those items. But if all I do is say that those things, the real things, are available here, then I cannot possibly see the rationale for not allowing it, and as I said above, it seems like a free speech issue.
It’ll be interesting next year when Warner/DC’s naming rights expire and the game starts being called by its new name, the Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 Bowl.
As the article also notes, it’s not likely that the NFL is going to come down on some local bar that runs ads that say “come watch the Super Bowl here,” but it’s not impossible that they might. The league might be overstepping their legal rights in pursuing such legal action, but the specter of having a massive corporation sue you is enough to get small companies to quickly acquiesce.
My personal opinion: the NFL (not unlike some other companies, such as Disney) has a legal department which is particularly, agressively zealous about protecting their intellecutal property, and that this is entirely because they have figured out how to monetize every single aspect of watching an NFL game, or being a fan of the game. Anything that might potentially lead to a situation that would jeopardize or decrease those cash flows is going to be attacked by their legal team.