Super Bowled Over

See the picture of the above bowl?

It may be a Stupendous Bowl, it may be a Superb Bowl, it may even be a Stupid Bowl.

But it can never be a Super Bowl.

The National Football League won't allow it. In fact, they won't allow pretty much anything to be associated with the Super Bowl unless they give their OK (i.e. figure out a way to make money from it.) Super Bowl is trademarked by the NFL and you pretty much can't use the phrase in any kind of business or moneymaking setting without the NFL's OK.

And it may get worse. But before we get into that, let's talk about what it means when you can't say Super Bowl to promote your product.

Because of this, radio stations cannot host Super Bowl parties hosted by their radio station. Well, they can but they have to call it by a different name. They can call it the big game party, the football championship party or some other innocuous sounding name. Just not Super Bowl Party.

If an electronics store wanted to announce that they had a sale on television sets on Super Bowl Sunday, they could not call it a Super Bowl Sale. It would have to be a "football sale" or "big game" sale.

Everyone who is selling or wants to sell a product on Super Bowl Sunday has to be careful because without the consent of the NFL, they could be sued if they include Super Bowl in any of their advertisements or marketing. It is for this reason that the NFL actually stopped a church from having a Super Bowl party. Or as the clever lead for the newspaper reads: "NFL 1, God 0."
You can read about that here:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/16612138.htm

I am not totally opposed to the NFL's stance on not allowing radio stations and television stores to use the "Super Bowl" name to sell their product. But suing a church seems to be going too far.

But going too far seems to be what the NFL does best because it is now looking to trademark the name "Big Game." Yes, not only has the NFL restricted the name of "Super Bowl" the league is attempting to limit the use of "Big Game" as a description.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/la-sp-nfl2mar02,1,2311217.story?coll=la-headlines-sports-nfl

Apparently the NFL thinks that too many people and places are using the phrase "Big Game" on Super Bowl Sunday to promote their product or event, hence the trademark effort for "Big Game."

So if the NFL succeeds, no more "Big Game Parties" and no more "Big Game Sales."

At this rate, you or I won't be able to utter the phrase "Super Bowl" without the NFL asking you for a dollar.

I don't believe the NFL will win this trademark argument. While I understand the league's stance, I think that the trademark courts will rule against the NFL. The phrase "big game" is a generic way of saying the Super Bowl and if companies aren't allowed to say "Super Bowl" then they should at least be allowed to call it something. I think "big game" is along the lines of generic names like aspirin and cola and thus should be left alone.

My main beef with all of this is that the more we constrict and limit what is said and how we say it, the less we will be able to communicate with one another. Already we live in a society where in a restaurant, if you ask for a Coke, they have to say Pepsi and inform you what beverage you are receiving and vice versa.

Same thing for some other products; you can't write about throwing something out in a Dumpster unless you capitalize Dumpster. You can throw something out in a trash bin if you want to be generic. Same thing with making a copy; you can't write Xerox with a lower case "x" otherwise Xerox lawyers will Xerox some copies of some legal documents for you to look at.

And when your're done reading those Xeroxes, don't throw them in a Dumpster on Super Bowl Sunday.