Nerve Endings Firing Away

The Super Bowl XLI is only hours away although the tailgate parties are in full swing. Most of the focus is as always on the Superbowl commercials which carry at least $2.6 million tag. I hear that the grocery store, H.E.B Foods will have its first Superbowl commercial this year. Even a stupid dude tried buying a slot to propose.

But among all this ‘commercial-ization’, NFL’s strong hold on its trademarks and copyright is largely ignored. In the past few weeks, couple of case popped up which put in perspective NFL’s control of their copyrighted material. Churches in Indiana (God apart, they still are Colts fans) and elsewhere had to scrap Super Bowl parties as NFL contended that mass viewings of the game on screens larger than 55 inches would be illegal. Even if the attendees paid no charge to attend such parties. Go figure! In the age of big screen TVs in every other person’s home, how would NFL enforce this so-called law at private Super Bowl parties is beyond comprehension. Or are homes exempt?

Anyway, viewership copyright apart, I stumbled upon an interesting article that shed light on another NFL copyright – championship merchandise. If you have observed, seconds after the final whistle, the winning team is handed the championship jersey proclaiming their team as Super Bowl Champions. In your off-moment, you may have wondered how did they print the tshirts so quick? Well, of course they print two sets of tshirts – for both teams. But that begs the question, why don’t we ever see the losing team’s winning jersey? Definitely someone must steal one and put it on eBay or hawk it as a quirky souvenir, right?

The other set of championship gear — the 288 T-shirts and caps made for the team that did not win — will be hidden behind a locked door at Dolphin Stadium. By order of the National Football League, those items are never to appear on television or on eBay. They are never even to be seen on American soil.They will be shipped Monday morning to a warehouse in Sewickley, Pa., near Pittsburgh, where they will become property of World Vision, a relief organization that will package the clothing in wooden boxes and send it to a developing nation, usually in Africa [source].

Interesting! You may be in the middle of nowhere in the African heartland and you confront a dude wearing a Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl LX Champions. Reminds you of Fashion Street, Mumbai where you get branded fakes at dirt cheap prices. At least in some parts of the world, losers are indeed winners.