National Football League sued for defamation and trademark infringement
Santa Clara— The Northern Fowl Legion (NFL), a global non-profit organization invested in the conservation of rare birds and raptors, plans to sue the National Football League on grounds of defamation and trademark infringement. The NFL claims their annual Superb Owl festival has been overshadowed by the similarly named football championship known as the “Super Bowl.”
“We’ve been sitting on this lawsuit since 1967, when that other NFL, the National Footgame Lollygag [sic] or what have you, decided to hold their annual festivities at the same time as our grand celebration of the Superb Owl. We are a peaceful organization of bird watchers and bird feeders, and we didn’t want to meddle in their footgame. But this year, it was all too much,” said NFL spokesman Vincent Schiavelli, nicknamed Pigeon Man for his proclivity to feed pigeons on rooftops in an aviator costume.
The NFL plans to file a lawsuit against the National Football League on the bases of libel and a violation of trademark agreements. They claim the political opinions associated with the National Football League’s “Super Bowl” event held on Feb. 7 could damage the reputation of the NFL and the Superb Owl. The NFL’s slogan, #OwlLivesMatter, celebrates all owl species, including those of the snowy, barn, and northern spotted varieties. Twitter users began to use an aurally similar slogan, #AllLivesMatter, after Beyonce Knowles’ halftime performance at the National Football League’s Super Bowl made a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement. The NFL believes the #AllLivesMatter slogan is both visually and phonetically similar to their copyrighted phrase, #OwlLivesMatter.
In an interview with The Phoenix, legal representative for the NFL Annalise Beaking called the case “something worth crowing about.” Beaking said the plaintiff will be “killing two birds with one stone,” and explained the NFL’s allegations: “The NFL and the National Football League came to terms over a contractual agreement in 1967 after the sports organization infringed upon the NFL’s Superb Owl trademark. The NFL graciously agreed to allow the National Football League to use their initialism and to imitate the Superb Owl name, but their association with a slogan that is so similar to #OwlLivesMatter definitely breaches the agreement and puts our reputation at risk. The National Football League will be leading a wild goose chase if they decide to take this to court, so we’re going to try to settle. The NFL is a peaceful organization; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so we’ll take what we can get.”
The NFL is willing to drop all charges should the National Football League and their supporters choose to rescind the #AllLivesMatter slogan and revert to Knowles’ use of #BlackLivesMatter. The NFL says that #BlackLivesMatter sounds nothing like #OwlLivesMatter, and the group supports the anti-gun connotations of Knowles’ performance. “Every year at the Superb Owl, we reserve the twenty minute slot after the Trumpeters of the Swan and Flamingo Dancers perform for an informative discussion of gun violence,” said longtime NFL member and Cornell University ornithologist Dr. Hamsa Raj Bulbul. “A majority of the endangered birds in our aviary were brought in after being injured by reckless hunters who couldn’t tell a bobwhite from a blue-footed booby if their lives depended on it. Here at the NFL we fully endorse gun-control legislation. If someone could calculatedly murder an innocent and beautiful creature for sport, imagine what a police officer having a bad day could do to humans with the pull of a trigger! It’s a logical fallacy to claim that the hunter didn’t know any better, or is protecting herbivore chicks by killing an already endangered bird of prey. Do you see what can happen, ornithologically, when someone with power is given a gun?”
Marcy Whitaker, a 37-year-old zookeeper and avid birdwatcher commented on the NFL’s Facebook page, “The politics associated with #AllLivesMatter go against our beloved motto, #OwlLivesMatter. The National Football League clearly just twisted the NFL’s words. I’m disappointed in this bastardization of an old American pastime. Bird watching has been in this country for centuries, and heck if I’ll let those pigskin cronies change that!”
The NFL plans to grant Ms. Knowles a prime membership to their organization and will officially change the name of the Alcedinidae or Kingfisher species to ‘Queenfisher’ in her honour. They plan to donate proceeds from this year’s Superb Owl to the Black Lives Matter movement.
