Great article by Paul Farhi in today’s Washington Post about sports teams and even leagues trying to control the message. Farhi gives examples of the control-freakishness from across the country, but locals will be most enthralled, if not surprised, by Farhi’s lengthy passages on Dan Snyder.
Turns out Snyder’s team, apparently in the interest of maintaining control of all uses of the word “Redskins,” has gotten the Post to stop calling its popular sports blog “Redskins Insider.” It will now be called “Football Insider.”
What makes the Redskins’ aggression here—if we can use the name without paying for the privilege—so interesting to longtime Snyderophiles is his predilection for trading on the goodwill of others without permission. The team miffed the Kennedys at the beginning of last season when it renamed a section of FedExField the “RFK Standing Stomping Club” and sold standing room only tickets there for $152.50 plus “convenience” charges, all without ever asking for permission from either the Kennedy family or the folks who run RFK Stadium.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database also contains info showing how much Snyder-owned businesses adore owning words. In 2007, Snyder’s Six Flags tried to trademark “You Are Here.” And, that year, Six Flags also applied for ownership of “Daycation.”
Both efforts were abandoned, but still.
“You Are Here,” Dan?
You gotta be kidding me.
Better yet: You Gotta Be Kidding Me.™