{"id":267606,"date":"2010-02-02T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T17:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerist.com,2010:\/\/1.10001363"},"modified":"2010-02-02T14:19:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T19:19:01","slug":"nfl-claims-to-own-who-dat-pisses-off-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/267606","title":{"rendered":"NFL Claims To Own &#8220;Who Dat,&#8221; Pisses Off New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/2-2-2010%2012-39-17%20PM-thumb-190x180-36592.jpg\">         <\/p>\n<p>In a stunning display of bipartisanship the entire state of Louisiana has successfully told the NFL where to stick its attempts to prevent local merchants from selling t-shirts with the phrase <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who_Dat%3F\">&#8220;Who Dat&#8221;<\/a> (a popular Saints cheer) and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fleur-de-lis\">the fleur-de-lis .<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last week the WSJ reported that the NFL had issued cease-and-desist orders against vendors in New Orleans who were selling products with the wording.<\/p>\n<p>The league claimed that using the phrase is likely to &#8220;confuse the purchasing public into believing that your items&#8221; are sponsored by the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>The phrase (and the fleur-de-lis, naturally) predates the NFL. Louisiana Senator, David Vitter (R), wrote a letter to Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, informing the organization that he intended to print up a batch of &#8220;Who Dat&#8221; shirts and invited the league to sue him.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;This letter will also serve as formal legal notice that I am having t-shirts printed that say &#8220;WHO DAT say we can&#8217;t print Who Dat!&#8221; for widespread sale in commerce. Please either drop your present ridiculous position or sue me.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The governor, the state legislature and the Louisiana AG also got into the fray, forcing the NFL to give up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People can use Who Dat all they want if it doesn&#8217;t include NFL and Saints trademarks,&#8221; said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, to the AP. &#8220;We explained that we would contact merchants only if a Who Dat item also contained NFL or Saints trademarks or if it is falsely claimed that an unauthorized item is affiliated with the Saints or NFL.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Good work, NFL. We thought that because you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wibc.com\/news\/Story.aspx?id=1191405\">stopped threatening churches who projected the game on a large screen <\/a>that we wouldn&#8217;t have anything Superbowl-themed to write this year. Phew. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748703389004575033504283711006.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\">Who Dat Owns &#8216;Who Dat&#8217;? Dat&#8217;s Us, Sez da NFL<\/a> [WSJ]<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/gameon\/post\/2010\/02\/halftime-who-dat-whos-greedy-the-nfl\/1\">Halftime: Who dat who&#8217;s greedy? The NFL<\/a> [USAToday]<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/canadianpress\/article\/ALeqM5gDJH72wd8FCpyjz4KzyN8MWRMECw\">La. attorney general says &#8216;Who Dat&#8217; spat with the NFL is cleared up<\/a> [AP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a stunning display of bipartisanship the entire state of Louisiana has successfully told the NFL where to stick its attempts to prevent local merchants from selling t-shirts with the phrase &#8220;Who Dat&#8221; (a popular Saints cheer) and the fleur-de-lis . Last week the WSJ reported that the NFL had issued cease-and-desist orders against vendors [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}