Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Is MLB picking on the Kiwis?


When I first read this story about Major League Baseball allegedly picking on a small New Zealand company called Gameface over the use of a logo, I thought that something must have been lost in translation, because it doesn't make a lot of sense and seems to be missing some key facts.

Then I remembered that they speak English in New Zealand and chalked up my confusion to the cold medicine I'm taking. Upshot:

The powerful US baseball organisation objects to how Gameface has intertwined the two letters in its logo. The G and F are placed over each other in "athletic" style type.

Hammond says as soon as he received the letter yesterday he clicked on to the Major League Baseball website to see if any of the logos of the teams were similar. The league had about 30 teams with some using intertwined letters, but none were using the G and F.

The letter basically indicated "they don't appreciate our logo and they can somehow see it conflicting with their logo."

It appears that the background graphics on Gameface's homepage display the allegedly offending logo. I can't for the life of me figure out how that conflicts with any Major League trademarks. Unless there are secret plans afoot to move the Marlins to Grand Forks or Great Falls. I suppose stranger things have happened (the dispute, not the move to Great Falls) but like I said, there is probably more to the story.