Lamar Jackson is building a brand around the No. 8, which he wears for the Baltimore Ravens, and isn't afraid to go head-to-head with former athletes who lay similar claim to the number. Among them is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who used the number on his famous Budweiser-sponsored car earlier in his career.
Just days after Jackson filed a notice of opposition to Earnhardt's trademark of the No. 8, the NASCAR great backed off of its attempt to trademark the Junior Motorsports No. 8. In a statement released Friday, Earnhardt explained that his team had secured the trademark rights to the stylized "Budweiser No. 8" after it was not renewed by his stepmother Teresa Earnhardt, and would be dropping its application for the other mark.
Earnhardt explained how things played out on Tuesday's episode of his Dale Jr. Download podcast (discussion of the trademark begins at around the 1:19:00 mark below).
“We learned that the Budweiser No. 8 trademark is not going to be continued and renewed by Teresa,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “We were a bit surprised by that because she kept the one trademark. Haven’t talked to Teresa. Don’t know why that was her decision, but we saw an opportunity to pick up the number and see if we could get the trademark."
After successfully winning the trademark for the Budweiser No. 8 font, Earnhardt decided against engaging in a legal fight over the other font, which he called a "Plan B" if he was unable to secure the mark that he wanted.
"I learned on social media, about the same time that everybody else did, that Lamar was contesting our trademark application," Earnhardt said. "He wasn't suing me, he was just contesting it, and there's a part of trademark process where if you believe somebody's applying for a trademark and it will hurt your brand, you can oppose it. . . . When I learned about it, I thought for sure it was over the Bud 8. . .
“The next day, actually, we filed the paperwork to abandon the acquisition of that trademark for the JR Motorsports 8. We got what we wanted, and down the road, I was not gonna argue with Lamar over something that I didn’t plan on using. I wasn’t going to spend thousands of dollars with my lawyers to fight for something I didn’t need. ”
Rubbing is racing in the branding game, but in this situation both Dale Jr. and Jackson got what they wanted.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dale Earnhardt Jr. Explains Why He Gave Up Trademark to Lamar Jackson So Quickly.
