How Stay butted heads with the NFL and lived to play another day
The National Football League’s clubs had combined revenues north of $15 billion in 2019. Stay Apparel Co.’s revenues were considerably south of $1 billion.
Yet for several days that July, the world’s richest sports league felt threatened by a Stay design that paid homage to the league’s decades-long connection to our hometown, Hershey, Pa.
On July 22, 2019, via email and certified mail, the NFL’s intellectual property counsel dispatched a two-page letter to Stay. The subject: Unauthorized use of NFL trademarks.
Being honest with the Eagles
I’ve shared this story in conversations with friends and customers but never committed it to writing. It seemed appropriate to document it here now, with another NFL season (the league survived!) and Stay’s fifth anniversary (Stay survived!) upon us.
So at long last, here’s the story of how underdog Stay lined up opposite the mighty NFL and lived to play another day.
Of course, our design never threatened the NFL in any real way. We made an honest mistake; it was our forthrightness that got us into trouble.
We’ve already shared much of the story of our Hershey Football Training Camp Tee, which you can read here. The design has sold modestly (as I write this, we have a lone size medium left), and we haven’t decided whether to reprint it. No doubt, the customer response would have been greater had we been able to use our original design.
That we couldn’t, and the resulting legal snafu, stemmed from my openness with a member of the Philadelphia Eagles communications staff.
Dear Brett:
We are introducing a T-shirt that commemorates the years that the Eagles held training camp in Hershey (please see attached photo).
I am writing a blog post to explain that history, and I wonder whether you have an old black-and-white photo or two from the Hershey training camp that you would be willing to share. Of course, we would include any necessary photo credit(s).
Thank you for considering this request.
Our original design said, “Eagles Training Camp,” in kelly green ink on a gray tee. I thought we were safe if it didn’t say “Philadelphia Eagles.”
I hit “send” on my email at 3:29 p.m. Sunday, July 21.
On Monday, July 22 in New York City, the temperature reached a high of 88; humidity was rising throughout the day.
There’s no telling how hot things got inside the NFL offices, but exactly 23 hours after I reached out to the Eagles, a letter from an attorney for NFL Properties (“the authorized representative of the National Football League … and its thirty-two member clubs”) landed in my inbox.
“Absent permission from NFLP or the appropriate Member Club, NFL Marks (which include, among other things, team names, nicknames, slogans, uniforms, and helmet designs) may not be used commercially or in any other manner that may confuse the public into believing that your company or its products and services are authorized, endorsed by, or have a sponsorship or other affiliation with the NFL or an NFL Member Club,” according to the letter.
After a brief consultation with my attorney, I recognized that there wasn’t even a Hail Mary pass of a chance that I could get the NFL to change its position. So we simply removed “Eagles” from the tee and submitted a revised design to the NFL.
Neither the league nor the Eagles “has any objection to” the revised design, was the response I got on Day 3.
We never printed any of the offending tees and removed images of it from our website and social media. With that, the matter was resolved.
Honoring hometown history
In hindsight, I should have known that the NFL would respond the way it did once I presented the design to the Eagles. Still, I have no regrets about being forthright.
As I noted to the NFL attorney, “Please understand that we created this tee to honor a rich part of our hometown's history, with no intent to infringe on NFL and/or team intellectual property.”
But I learned my lesson. I tread just a little more carefully, the NFL smackdown always in the back of my mind.
This spring, for instance, we came out with our first baseball-themed tee. While it indirectly pays homage to the Philadelphia Phillies, we steered well clear of poking the bear that is Major League Baseball.
We did the safest thing. We made up our own team, the Hershey Sweet Spots, with its own logo.
We love the concept behind the Sweet Spots tee and the design. And we are prepared to play hardball to protect the Sweet Spots trademark.
Anyone attempting to infringe on it can expect to receive a certified letter from us.