Sparty pulls a Dave Brandon re: use of logo

Submitted by evenyoubrutus on October 24th, 2018 at 2:31 PM

Apparently MSU has contacted a small high school in Northern Michigan and asked them to change their logo. 

I can see why Sparty would be worried that their sports programs might be confused with those of a high school of 400 students. 

https://www.mlive.com/expo/sports/erry-2018/10/a4cfd817aa5394/spartans-will-and-spartans-won.html

Wolverine Devotee

October 24th, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^

They aren’t the only ones using it, believe me. I played against a team in junior high football that had identical uniforms as them and the logo. The Bemis Spartans. 

Miami has to send my high school a cease and desist because we used the U. 

Cool starry bra

Qmatic

October 24th, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^

Cooler story. I played for Warren Woods Middle School and we wore replica Michigan uniforms; including winged helmets. The cool thing was that we sent our helmets to michigan and they painted them for us. The brand wasn’t as big of a thing I guess in the late 90’s early 2000’s.

I now am the varsity coach for the high school, and the middle school just wears solid blue helmets. No idea if it was budget reasons or if they were told to stop.

Qmatic

October 24th, 2018 at 7:43 PM ^

Small world isn’t it. Good game last week. You guys came out firing early. RB ran like a man all night. Also, you guys did a number to our special teams. Most impressive special teams I’ve seen in a couple seasons. I obviously wanted the perfect regular season, but it wasn’t terrible to see how happy your kids and fans were to end the season.

QB is good to go. Have had a good practice this week. Finally healthy again on both sides of the ball. Garden City runs the inside trap real well. If we can stop that, we will be in good shape.

Surveillance Doe

October 24th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^

I have some extended family in a small town in southwest Michigan called Hamilton. The high school in that town is the Hamilton Hawkeyes, and they used the tigerhawk logo. I remember maybe about 15 years ago some of my cousins were involved in helping to design a new logo because they had received a cease and desist letter from Iowa. So correct, this is not new.

Brhino

October 24th, 2018 at 2:57 PM ^

Pinconning put up 35 points in their last game.  Maybe MSU should be asking them for some pointers instead of stressing about the logo.

FauxMo

October 24th, 2018 at 3:01 PM ^

They make cheese in Pinconning. They have a shell gas station at mile marker 183 off I-75 that has a McDonald's inside. That is all there is to know about Pinconning. 

Blue and Joe

October 24th, 2018 at 3:01 PM ^

The funny thing is their "new" logo is still a copy. They slightly tweaked Nike's proposed logo for MSU from way back in 2010. MSU ended up never using it after fans revolted.

Current MSU logo / Nike logo

spartan-logo.jpg

MSU logo / New Pinconning logo

659_oldnew.jpg

chewieblue

October 24th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^

To be fair, this happened to the school I coached at.  The university that informed us of the request was very amiable and explained that they were advised by their legal counsel that they had to request we change or it could somehow effect their trademark.  

I have no legal background... maybe an mgo atty can answer this more efficiently 

ScruffyTheJanitor

October 24th, 2018 at 3:23 PM ^

I have no idea how it would work, but it would be a total boss move If Warde could call them up and say, "If you are willing to become the Wolverines, we have some sweet branding rights y'all could borrow."

Brian Griese

October 24th, 2018 at 3:23 PM ^

I went to a small high school which sadly uses the Spartan fight song and logo. I think I will beat MSU to the hypothetical punch and write a letter to the school board advising it would be a good time to switch both in light of MSU’s actions.