ESPN Screwed Up And It Almost Cost Michigan State A Lawsuit
With Michigan State and Michigan set to square off in primetime on ESPN Saturday night promos and commercials for the game have been running almost non-stop this week, and what was written in those promos nearly cost ESPN and MSU some coin.
Michigan State was referred to in the ESPN ad as the "Mean Green" a name that is trademarked by the University of North Texas. This prompted the UNT athletic director to put the two parties on alert.
Sidenote: Somebody got to field test the longer character limit on twitter.
Michigan State has also used the "Mean Green" slogan for their own branding in the past. There is no official word on whether or not there was an agreement in place with UNT, similar to Texas A&M and the "12th Man" slogan.
Less than 24 hours after the notice via twitter ESPN reached out to North Texas and agreed to fix the situation.
So lawsuits are avoided and Michigan State gets away with just being a middle man because they had nothing to do with the ESPN spot that ran earlier this week.