General Sports Water Cooler

real and spectacular

For those who forget, the MGN tried to use "12th Man" for their upper donor level. Got a letter from A&M and changed it to "MGN Gold". Good times.

F$U sued a school in High School for using it's logo (ended up costing the high school 200K I think) and don't forget NC State suing Nevada for calling themselves 'Wolfpack'

I was a trademark examiner for two years at the PTO in the early 00s, and when I was there there were a ton of lazy unfireable OWGs who had been there for 30 years and just registered everything that came across their desks. It wouldn't surprise me if the guy who registered this to A&M was one of those. Even in 1990, when A&M got the registration, "12th Man" or "Xth Man" was about as generic a term for sports fans and fanbases as there was.

The problem is that now that A&M has their trademark, they can send out the C&Ds all day and they have the weight of the government behind them. An organization with money to burn and a point to prove could challenge the trademark in court and probably win, but who would want to spend time and money on something so stupid? It's easier to just use a different term.

Trademarking a generic reference to fans is by nature douchy. I did like the stereotypical Texan comments in Steinberg's blog.

It's more like VT with a classier fan base.

You'll have to be more specific

If all college football fans were like A&M fans, the world would be a much better place.

After reading this much, I know as an undeniable fact that you have never met an A&M fan.

So everywhere would be like living in Alabama? Awesome.

At some point people have to put their pants on, back away from the computer, and go eat food and drink beer with real life people. A&M fans don't even need my or anyone else's defense. If you look down on them it's a you issue

Alabama isn't. LSU isn't. Texas isn't.

Texas A&M is. Those people are weirdos.