Tampa Bay Rowdies No Longer Rowdies
FC Tampa Bay released a press statement yesterday announcing that for now they will cease to call themselves the Rowdies. The team will now be referred to only as FC Tampa Bay.
The team has been involved in a law suit for nearly two years with Classic Ink, a Dallas-based apparel company who owns the rights to many old team logos. Those logos are then sold on t-shirts, jerseys and other sports memorabilia. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Classic Ink filed a trademark infringement suit against the Rowdies and its parent company, Citrus Ventures, in Texas Northern District Court in April 2009 claiming that the team was using a trademark it owned.
The FC Tampa Bay press statement said:
As part of a settlement agreement, Citrus Sports Group, LLC, has agreed to cease usage of the Rowdies name until further notice and will continue on as FC Tampa Bay.
“Our organization has seen positive developments in this process and we look forward to a quick resolution,” said FC Tampa Bay President and Owner Andrew Nestor.
In August, a jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of Classic Ink after a seven day trial against American Needle claiming trademark infringements on both the “Tampa Bay Rowdies” and “Chicago Sting” logos. Classic Ink also has a parallel trademark infringement complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. That complaint is against the Citrus Sports Group and Citrus Ventures, who own FC Tampa Bay.
Last spring Nestor talked with IMS and stated: Our ownership group acquired the rights to operate a soccer team as the Tampa Bay Rowdies. We did that over a year and a half ago, that has not been challenged. There’s a lawsuit regarding rights to sell merchandise with the wordmark Tampa Bay Rowdies and the vintage logo. The new shield that we’ve used, obviously designed by us, those are new and we have those protected as well. So we’re just going through this process now trying to straighten out the situation regarding merchandise and that’s just an ongoing situation right now. I honestly don’t know, I couldn’t tell you a date or a target date for resolution on that.
Team spokesperson Megan Danner told the St. Petersburg Times yesterday that all references to the Rowdies name will be removed from the team’s Web site, Facebook page and Twitter account, but added the team hopes it will be able to retain the name by the beginning of the 2011 season.
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You know Ralph’s Mob will still call them the Rowdies!
No one can stop you from doing that. I would as well. I have a friend here in the Twin Cities that have had a run in with Classic Ink. It was a simple misunderstanding and quite frankly they were jerks and wanted ridiculous amounts of money to use the logos on products. But hey, if they own the rights it’s there right to do so.
It’ll make marketing have to do things a bit differently, but that’s about it, I think. It’s not like the fans or the press or much of anyone except the office’s official press releases will stop using the nickname. They’re just being brought into the European model where nicknames, like “Gunners” for Arsenal, normally aren’t part of the team name. And while I’m not the type to push for Euro-style names, having one show up due to club history is kind of awesome.
The thing is…the “history” is completely tied to the name in this particular instance. There is no history except what they make going forward. Which may or may not be worth celebrating.
Did they get Rodney Marsh’s permission? I’m sure he would have something to comment about regarding this.
My favorite RM quote, “I wasn’t the white Pelé, he was the black Rodney Marsh”
I actually kind of like having a nickname to go by, it creates an identity, and perhaps adds to the aspect of local tradition. I think that’s valuable for both teams and local fans.
Keep in mind that we may be looking at some team names from Europe and their names are simply the nickname and then the fans usually developed a secondary nickname (example: Arsenal – Gunners). Most large cities have that situation: London, Paris, Belgrade, Munich, Bucharest, etc.
Lastly, I think it’s silly that a team name is something that a team owner can control over the local fans. That’s something that you really never see in most European leagues. Like ‘teucer’ i’m not pushing for our clubs being Euro carbon copies, but anyhow…
It’s ok us fans will still call them the Rowdies, but I agree with the posts, it’s kind of a nickname now, you don’t see “Gunners” on the Arsenal merchandise.
So much for the revived Rowdies-Strikers derby, huh?
Traffic must be loving this one seeing as how they mentioned the good old school rivalry (which is kind of funny since they are not the same two clubs)…
@WSW – true which is a good thing for some of the EPL teams, isn’t that right Newcastle – Magpies
I am pumped that I bought the last known “Tampa Bay Rowdies” t-shirt. I should get that thing on E-Bay right now!
Why is it the last T-shirt. Has Classic Ink stopped making them?
http://www.classicsportslogos.com/