AFL shows greed, retains Shock trademark

[David]

10.12.15 -

The bitter divorce between the Spokane Shock and the Arena Football League took a drastic turn on Monday. The AFL released a public statement regarding the rights to the Shock name and trademarks, stating that they would keep the name and trademarks rather than let the franchise keep its identity.

The Arena Football League has been in discussions with the Spokane Shock about allowing them to continue using the Shock name and trademarks. The rights to all Spokane Shock trademarks and logos are owned by the AFL and there have been earnest attempts to reach an agreement for the acquisition of those marks. Unfortunately, those attempts have not come to fruition and the League will retain the rights to the Spokane Shock name. The League intends to have a presence in the State of Washington again in the near future.

This has been a widely speculated topic on the ArenaFan message boards, as all teams and their trademarks are property of the Arena Football League. In an 2015 Season episode of the AFL Tonight Podcast, hosts Tim Capper and Adam Markowitz suspected if the Shock were to move to the Indoor Football League, they would have to pay a hefty price to purchase the name and trademarks.

It's worth noting that the Iowa Barnstormers were able to retain their trademarks when they departed the AFL for the IFL prior to the 2015 season. The only tweak to their logo was the removal of "Arena Football Club" in their logo to "Football Club" when they dropped to the IFL.

Another former AFL team trademark, the Colorado Crush, recently expired in 2014. At the conclusion of the 2015 IFL season, the Colorado Ice purchased the Crush trademark and have re-branded the franchise. 

The AFL's remark about "earnest attempts to reach an agreement" sounds as if the AFL is expressing sour grapes, which could be one of two things:

1. They're upset that the IFL has acquired 2 former AFL teams in addition to the trademarks to the former Crush franchise in Denver. Considering the IFL has been looking more sound in terms of an economic model and its desire for parity, the league could feel that the IFL is their biggest threat and will do anything to prevent the IFL from succeeding. 
   
   
2. The feud between Shock owner Nader Naini and the AFL. Naini has been vocal about his dissatisfaction with the league, accusing Commissioner Scott Butera and some of its teams of cheating, favoring the more established franchises and not fulfilling obligations to improve the product with national sponsorship partners. According to Naini back in August, he felt that there was "little to no progress" made. This sounds like the AFL's way of telling Naini to "shove it."

The AFL's decision, and their presumptuous idea that another AFL franchise will come to Washington State, is spineless and juvenile. They've already alienated the Spokane market, the second biggest city in the state of Washington, with unbalanced teams and the assumption that the AFL would work in Seattle is a stretch. The league may assume that the Seattle sports market was interested in the AFL, but there's no guarantee the fans would care enough about arena football.

The AFL's decision creates a real mess for Spokane and the IFL, which has been using the Shock logo in its news and for promoting the 2016 IFL schedule. The team could try and continue negotiations for the team name or simply re-brand the franchise, which could alienate Shock fans that have supported the team since its inception. 

Spokane has not issued a statement regarding this decision. Keith Osso of KXLY ABC-4 and 700 ESPN AM reported that the Shock said they are still trying to work out a deal with the AFL and will address the issue when it is final. We will update as soon as the franchise responds to the news. 

- DKH

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[DiamondThief]

The Shock were the Shock before they were in the AFL. They probably had to sell their name rights to the name in order to join it, but this is not right. Especially since Niari is correct and the AFL is the turning a huge blind eye to the established teams' paying players under the table. This is pathetic by the AFL. Just really sad.

[David]

UPDATE


Ryan Eucker, Director of Operations for the Shock, replied to a Facebook comment asking about the story from the AFL and indicated the team has made hopeful progress on retaining its trademark rights.:

We have been working with the AFL to finalize the transfer of trademark rights as we continue with some close out business operations. We are continuing those procedures and talks with confidence everything will be finalized very soon. -Ryan Eucker, Director of Operations

There's still the potential for the deal to fall through, but it appears that the Shock front office is confident that an agreement will be reached.

[DiamondThief]

Oct 13, 2015 10:25:18 GMT -8 David said:

UPDATE


Ryan Eucker, Director of Operations for the Shock, replied to a Facebook comment asking about the story from the AFL and indicated the team has made hopeful progress on retaining its trademark rights.:

We have been working with the AFL to finalize the transfer of trademark rights as we continue with some close out business operations. We are continuing those procedures and talks with confidence everything will be finalized very soon. -Ryan Eucker, Director of Operations

There's still the potential for the deal to fall through, but it appears that the Shock front office is confident that an agreement will be reached.

IMO, it should not take this long. Did the league purposely wait until the Shock brand was marketed by the IFL so they would have more leverage in the negotiations?

[Kasey]

the Shock's owner has announced today that the team has not come to an agreement with the AFL and will be rebranding the team. he said fans will have a say in the re-naming process.

[David]

Nader Naini released the following statement regarding the loss of the Shock name.

“Despite our best efforts with the AFL, they are unwilling to let us continue with the team name this franchise has used since 2006. We're sorry it didn't work out but as many of you know, this is not unprecedented in professional sports.

Nonetheless, our history will remain as a part of the community and our dedication to the city of Spokane will continue as will the excitement and passion that you have come to know over our last ten seasons.

A new era has begun in Spokane and soon we will be releasing information on possible new names for our newly branded football team. We expect it to be a fun process and we will invite our fans to be part of the decision.

The last ten years have been great. The next ten years will be even better! Thank you all for your support.”