During Moby this morning, I heard a promo that South 107 was giving away tickets to "The Super Bowl" - no, not "The Big Game" but "The Super Bowl"! The promo even asked listeners to text the word "super" to a number to enter the contest! I guess this station is able to get around the usual rules that warrant many stations to call the NFL championship game "the big game"?
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South 107 "Super Bowl" Promotion
- Thread starter DToTheJ
- Start date
I'm not a lawyer nor have I ever pretended to be one, but this raises a "legal" question.
If the tickets have "Superbowl" printed on them, you almost have to say Superbowl under fair advertising rules. If the NFL sold the tickets to a broadcaster, and the NFL received money, they might have given up rights to enforce the trademark on those particular tickets. If the tickets were bought from a resale company, the NFL might be able to sue.
IIRC Moby is now distributed by Cumulus. I would hope the Cumulus lawyers have checked this out.
If the tickets have "Superbowl" printed on them, you almost have to say Superbowl under fair advertising rules. If the NFL sold the tickets to a broadcaster, and the NFL received money, they might have given up rights to enforce the trademark on those particular tickets. If the tickets were bought from a resale company, the NFL might be able to sue.
IIRC Moby is now distributed by Cumulus. I would hope the Cumulus lawyers have checked this out.
I am also not an attorney. But here is the rough explanation I have gathered over the years on the topic. The issue is not so much about the term "Super Bowl" and it never being uttered by any soul under any circumstance. The issue is more about brand confusion and/or trademark dilution. If Budweiser spends a billion dollars on various Super Bowl promotions, it would be a problem for Brand X Beer to create a promotion called the "Brand X Beer Super Bowl Giveaway", basically creating a link to the Super Bowl without spending a dime via the "proper" avenues.
Using the Super Bowl name to promote a business, like "it's the Super Bowl Furniture Sale at Sofas R Us" becomes an issue since the Super Bowl franchise would not be able to maintain quality control over what their name is linked to. Trademark dilution. The goal is for the brand to represent a high quality sporting event and supporting products, not some crappy furniture at a mom and pop furniture store.
But you are right, secondchoice, the Super Bowl is an event. If you have tickets to give away to it, then there is really no two ways about it, you have "Super Bowl tickets". On the air, there is nothing wrong with saying... "who do you like for the Super Bowl" or "the Super Bowl is coming soon". For a giveaway, if there are sponsors involved, it get tricky pretty fast. Manufacturing an implied partnership between the Super Bowl franchise and some unrelated business could quickly draw the attention of the team of attorneys with the job of protecting the brand.
Using the Super Bowl name to promote a business, like "it's the Super Bowl Furniture Sale at Sofas R Us" becomes an issue since the Super Bowl franchise would not be able to maintain quality control over what their name is linked to. Trademark dilution. The goal is for the brand to represent a high quality sporting event and supporting products, not some crappy furniture at a mom and pop furniture store.
But you are right, secondchoice, the Super Bowl is an event. If you have tickets to give away to it, then there is really no two ways about it, you have "Super Bowl tickets". On the air, there is nothing wrong with saying... "who do you like for the Super Bowl" or "the Super Bowl is coming soon". For a giveaway, if there are sponsors involved, it get tricky pretty fast. Manufacturing an implied partnership between the Super Bowl franchise and some unrelated business could quickly draw the attention of the team of attorneys with the job of protecting the brand.
I'm not a lawyer, and I've never played one on TV. I'm not even a professional football authority, though I have played one at drunken brawls on Sunday nights in late January …
Forget the legalities, what the heck do you have to do to win the tickets?
Forget the legalities, what the heck do you have to do to win the tickets?
The ownership of South 107 (which would be responsible since it is a local commercial) is not stupid. They have taken a former (Rockmart GA IIRC) class A FM and slipped it into the Atlanta market. It took a long time but they did it. I doubt they would risk getting into any kind of legal, hassles.
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