Je Suis Super Bowl: Why People Are Afraid To Say Super Bowl On TV

With all of the attention being paid to the New England Patriots “Deflategate” cheating scandal, it’s easy to forget that there’s a Big Game next week, and that Big Game is called Super Bowl XLIX (pronounced, “Super Bowl ZLICKS!”), but if you rely solely on certain television personalities for information, you might never know the name of the big game. Former Comedy Central Fun-dit Stephen Colbert drew attention to the phenomenon of an overly-litigious National Football League last year when he promoted his big game coverage of “Superb Owl XLVIII,” and read from an internal Viacom memo warning of the NFL’s “intimidation” of anyone who messes with their trademark game.

Now, Colbert’s examples were mainly of businesses advertising “Big Game” sales, and Colbert himself said he thought better of calling his show “official Super Bowl” coverage, which are arguably legitimate examples of trademark infringement. Advertising a “Super Bowl Sale” could reasonably be seen as inferring an official relationship with, and endorsement by, the NFL, as could Colbert’s hypothetical “official Super Bowl” coverage. Recently, though, the effort to avoid naming the Big Game has gone from ridiculous to insane.

For example, an entire episode of Food Network’s The Kitchen devoted to Super Bowl eats completely and absurdly avoided the phrase by using the “Big Game” euphemism, which at least makes some logical sense when you’re telling people to make their “Super Bowl nachos,” because the NFL could argue this implies a relationship, and your shitty nachos could injure their brand. What possible reason, though, could there be to say “Big Game” in this context…READ MORE 

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