NFL’s real Super Bowl to be played in Manhattan
MONDAY, 10 JANUARY 2011 13:01
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/nfls-real-super-bowl-to-be-played-in-manhattan
NEW ORLEANS, LA — Driving from Louis Armstrong Airport into New Orleans isn't a very far drive but when there is traffic there is time to study billboards. There are a lot of billboards praising the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints with the sentiment being "Bless You Boys" or some similar phrase. The local newspaper has Saints stories on the cover and to some, the NFL team has provided hope in a city that was left in ruins by flooding after the August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Saints television games produce monster local ratings (New York Giants/Jets games are among the lowest rated TV fare in the NFL week after week in terms of percentage of TV households watching games.)
New Orleans appears to be slowly rising. Interstate 10 leads you right into the Lower Nine Ward once you get off on the North Claiborne Avenue exit. Life seems to be returning to an area of almost complete destruction. There are Saints banners there too. East of New Orleans, out towards Slidell on I-10, zombie malls, housing and the ruins of Six Flags amusement park remain. There is huge swath of land extending for miles and miles on Route 90 into Mississippi to Biloxi that still has extensive damage from the storm that happened 5 ½ years ago.
New Orleans natives (and some outsiders) rightly or wrongly credited the Saints football team in some of the Katrina healing process. But what happens if there is no NFL in 2011 because of labor strife? The National Football League is an entity, which pledged to help New Orleans rebound (and in the process to help further fill Saints owners Tom Benson's pockets).
That question may be answered sometime in the next few weeks. On Tuesday, Special Master Stephen Burbank will be in Manhattan holding a hearing which may go a long way in deciding what strategy the owners will take in the upcoming labor dispute with the players.
Burbank, who was appointed by a Federal judge to over see owners and players disputes, will listen to a number of witnesses and determine whether or not the owners can collect 2011 television rights fees from Rupert Murdoch's FOX, General Electric's NBC, Disney's ESPN, Sumner Redstone's CBS and DirecTV if there are no games because of a labor action. The owners TV partners are going to underwrite a lockout and the players are fighting back and are asking that the TV dollars, which is about $4 billion, are put into an escrow account and keep that money out of an owners' war chest. The players are contending that the NFL structured the TV deals so it would be guaranteed money even if there were a lockout in 2011 — while not maximizing revenue from other seasons when the league would have to share that income with players. The Players Association claims the TV deals violates a 17-year-old agreement between the sides that stipulates the league must make good-faith efforts to maximize revenue for players. The NFL will say that the TV contracts routinely "have protected the league against the possibility that games might be lost.'' It should be an interesting hearing in Manhattan and there should be a subsequent Congressional hearing because the TV deals only help the owners and bring up two questions that need to be answered.
The Burbank hearing is quite narrow. It only involves the league and the TV monies. What it doesn't include is whether or not FOX's Rupert Murdoch, CBS' Sumner Redstone Jeffrey Immelt's General Electric's NBC network should be the proceeds from advertising by using public TV licenses to give NFL owners cash to underwrite lockout. The Federal Communications Commission should be monitoring Burbank's hearing. The FCC should also hold a hearing and invite Murdoch, Redstone and Immelt along with NFL officials to discuss the NFL TV agreements.
Congress, which rewrote cable TV rules in 1984 which helped fuel revenues for sports organizations, should look into Disney's ESPN-NFL deal as money is coming from both football fans and those who never watch a football game. Is it far for cable TV subscribers to pay for missed games? There is a strong possibility that ESPN will lose NFL games in 2011.
The NFL-players dispute is all about money. NFL owners want to reduce salaries by 18 percent. There is a reason that Congress and possibly local municipal cable TV boards should be get involved in the NFL labor talks. The 1961 Sports Broadcast Act passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed into law by President John F. Kennedy allowed the NFL to sell all of the league's 14 teams as one entity and that allowed NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to play CBS and NBC to bid against one, which violated antitrust laws, and that put more money into NFL owners pockets. The local cable boards can ask a significant question. Should subscribers be putting up money through their cable TV bill to support NFL owners?
Burbank's hearing, while important, does not answer the question. Should TV networks and their affiliates use their public licenses and the ability to raise funding through advertising to aid NFL owners? The other question is whether the entire cable/satellite TV universe should be contributing to an owners' lockout of NFL players. Burbank's ruling may change NFL owners lockout strategy if the 31 owners plus Green Bay cannot get a hold of the 2011 TV funds without the guarantee of games. Burbank's hearing is more important than the Super Bowl, if he rules against the NFL, the lockout scenario could change. If he says the TV money can go to the owners, it is a great victory for the owners and a big blow to the players and keeps the momentum towards a lockout going. Burbank's Manhattan hearing is more important than this year's Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas. It is the biggest game of the season.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label New Orleans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Orleans. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Who Dat Who is Protecting Dat Saints Logo?
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d4-Who-Dat-who-is-protecting-Dat-Saints-logo
Who Dat Who is Protecting Dat Saints Logo?
By Evan Weiner
February 4, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 22 or 23 years ago, then Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth held court one spring day at the Helmsley Palace in midtown Manhattan. Ueberroth’s marketing department had just struck a multimillion dollar partnership agreement with a Japanese film company and Ueberroth was talking as we was waiting for everyone who was going to be involved in the formal announcement to arrive for the news conference.
Ueberroth posed a question and the answer to that question is the reason the National Football League decided to go after Who Dat t-shirts and other products with the words Who Dat accompanied by the New Orleans Saints fleur-de-lis logo within the last week.
Ueberroth asked a very simple question. What is the most valuable possession that a league or a franchise has? The answer was not players, coaches, managers, TV-radio contracts or fans. Ueberroth quickly answered the question.
It is the logo and Ueberroth added that a league or a franchise has to do everything in the league or franchise’s power to protect the logo.
Under Ueberroth, Major League Baseball became very protective of not only the then 26 active franchises logos but also logos of defunct businesses like the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Walter O’Malley took his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles after the 1957 season but that didn’t mean the Brooklyn Dodgers name or logo disappeared. More than three decades after the O’Malley move Major League Baseball was in court suing the owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Sports Bar and Restaurant over the name Brooklyn Dodger. Major League Baseball lost the suit after a Manhattan judge ruled that O’Malley gave up exclusive rights to the name when he moved the team to Los Angeles.
One of the more interesting things that was brought up in that trial which took place in 1993 was just how valuable Major League Baseball logos became starting with the Ueberroth’s tenure. In 1986, Ueberroth’s second year as Major League Baseball Commissioner, MLB took in about $200 million licensing various Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball team logos. In 1991, that number rose to $2 billion.
Ueberroth certainly knew his business. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost the case because no one bothered to trademark the Brooklyn Dodger name. Sports executives followed the case and likely vowed never to allow anything that could be trademarked to not be trademarked.
There are certain trademarks that were never registered. The American Basketball Association’s red, white and blue basketball is probably sports most prominent symbol that was not trademarked. The National Hockey League did not buy the World Hockey Association’s logo in the 1979 “expansion” which was absorption of four WHA teams. The NHL probably felt there was no real money in keeping those logos around.
The NFL went after New Orleans vendors who were selling Who Dat t-shirts and alike with the New Orleans Saints logo after New Orleans won the National Football Conference championship. The NFL absorbed a lot of criticism for going after the vendors but the league was well within it right to tell the vendors cease and desist.
The t-shirts had the Saints logo which is a fleur-de-lis.
The NFL cannot stop anyone from printing up a t-shirt which has the words Who Dat on it. Who Dat is an old expression which may have had roots in 19th century minstrel shows. There was a Who Dat skit in the Marx Brothers 1937 movie A Day at the Races and one the Warner Brothers censored 11 cartoons, the 1943 Tin Alley Cats, features a Fats Waller-type cat who answers a question using a variation of who dat, wid dat. (The Cartoon is widely available on the net in decent quality.) The NFL is not going to sue Time Warner, the owners of Tin Alley Cats or whoever now owns the MGM A Day at the Races release.
The Saints logo was the problem for the vendors not the Who Dat phrase. It would be the same problem in New York if someone put out a blue shirt or a green shirt with the word fuggeddabotit with a Giants or Jets logo. The logo makes the difference.
The NFL Who Dat issue reached the governor’s office in Baton Rouge forcing Governor Bobby Jindal to ask Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to look into whether or not the NFL was looking to declare that they owned the Who Dat phrase. The NFL has no claims on the fleur-de-lis either except for the Saints logo
The vendors can sell the Who Dat shirts and other items as long as the Saints and NFL trademarks are not on them.
The fleur-de-lis has been around for centuries on various coats of arms for kings and other royalty. The NFL would also have to sue Quebec if they were serious about claiming the fleur-de-lis. The Quebec blue and white flag has a fleur-de-lis. The Quebec Nordiques hockey team had a fleur-de-lis symbol on the bottom of a players shurt during the team’s years in the National Hockey League. The New Orleans Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo is gold with black trim.
The fleur-de-lis is Louisiana’s state symbol since 2008. The state colors are blue, white and gold. The Saints official colors are black and gold. There are no official Who Dat colors.
The NFL was correct in protecting the Saints logo. You see that little piece of art connected to a team or a league is worth a lot of money.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Who Dat Who is Protecting Dat Saints Logo?
By Evan Weiner
February 4, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- About 22 or 23 years ago, then Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth held court one spring day at the Helmsley Palace in midtown Manhattan. Ueberroth’s marketing department had just struck a multimillion dollar partnership agreement with a Japanese film company and Ueberroth was talking as we was waiting for everyone who was going to be involved in the formal announcement to arrive for the news conference.
Ueberroth posed a question and the answer to that question is the reason the National Football League decided to go after Who Dat t-shirts and other products with the words Who Dat accompanied by the New Orleans Saints fleur-de-lis logo within the last week.
Ueberroth asked a very simple question. What is the most valuable possession that a league or a franchise has? The answer was not players, coaches, managers, TV-radio contracts or fans. Ueberroth quickly answered the question.
It is the logo and Ueberroth added that a league or a franchise has to do everything in the league or franchise’s power to protect the logo.
Under Ueberroth, Major League Baseball became very protective of not only the then 26 active franchises logos but also logos of defunct businesses like the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Walter O’Malley took his Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles after the 1957 season but that didn’t mean the Brooklyn Dodgers name or logo disappeared. More than three decades after the O’Malley move Major League Baseball was in court suing the owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Sports Bar and Restaurant over the name Brooklyn Dodger. Major League Baseball lost the suit after a Manhattan judge ruled that O’Malley gave up exclusive rights to the name when he moved the team to Los Angeles.
One of the more interesting things that was brought up in that trial which took place in 1993 was just how valuable Major League Baseball logos became starting with the Ueberroth’s tenure. In 1986, Ueberroth’s second year as Major League Baseball Commissioner, MLB took in about $200 million licensing various Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball team logos. In 1991, that number rose to $2 billion.
Ueberroth certainly knew his business. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost the case because no one bothered to trademark the Brooklyn Dodger name. Sports executives followed the case and likely vowed never to allow anything that could be trademarked to not be trademarked.
There are certain trademarks that were never registered. The American Basketball Association’s red, white and blue basketball is probably sports most prominent symbol that was not trademarked. The National Hockey League did not buy the World Hockey Association’s logo in the 1979 “expansion” which was absorption of four WHA teams. The NHL probably felt there was no real money in keeping those logos around.
The NFL went after New Orleans vendors who were selling Who Dat t-shirts and alike with the New Orleans Saints logo after New Orleans won the National Football Conference championship. The NFL absorbed a lot of criticism for going after the vendors but the league was well within it right to tell the vendors cease and desist.
The t-shirts had the Saints logo which is a fleur-de-lis.
The NFL cannot stop anyone from printing up a t-shirt which has the words Who Dat on it. Who Dat is an old expression which may have had roots in 19th century minstrel shows. There was a Who Dat skit in the Marx Brothers 1937 movie A Day at the Races and one the Warner Brothers censored 11 cartoons, the 1943 Tin Alley Cats, features a Fats Waller-type cat who answers a question using a variation of who dat, wid dat. (The Cartoon is widely available on the net in decent quality.) The NFL is not going to sue Time Warner, the owners of Tin Alley Cats or whoever now owns the MGM A Day at the Races release.
The Saints logo was the problem for the vendors not the Who Dat phrase. It would be the same problem in New York if someone put out a blue shirt or a green shirt with the word fuggeddabotit with a Giants or Jets logo. The logo makes the difference.
The NFL Who Dat issue reached the governor’s office in Baton Rouge forcing Governor Bobby Jindal to ask Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to look into whether or not the NFL was looking to declare that they owned the Who Dat phrase. The NFL has no claims on the fleur-de-lis either except for the Saints logo
The vendors can sell the Who Dat shirts and other items as long as the Saints and NFL trademarks are not on them.
The fleur-de-lis has been around for centuries on various coats of arms for kings and other royalty. The NFL would also have to sue Quebec if they were serious about claiming the fleur-de-lis. The Quebec blue and white flag has a fleur-de-lis. The Quebec Nordiques hockey team had a fleur-de-lis symbol on the bottom of a players shurt during the team’s years in the National Hockey League. The New Orleans Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo is gold with black trim.
The fleur-de-lis is Louisiana’s state symbol since 2008. The state colors are blue, white and gold. The Saints official colors are black and gold. There are no official Who Dat colors.
The NFL was correct in protecting the Saints logo. You see that little piece of art connected to a team or a league is worth a lot of money.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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