Superbowling

An assortment of Super Bowl tidbits: Supposedly sports gambling sites are being threatened with denial of service attacks if they don't pay protection money - also a Reuters story. Infinitus writes "The NFL's legal firm has a PDF up that outlines the NFL's intellectual property rights to words like 'Super Bowl' and 'NFL'. Including a neat little chart that tells you what you can and can't say..." VeggiePossum23 writes "Panthers Upset Patriots, 29 to 21... at least in the Sony Sponsored '989 Sports Game Before the Game' played on NFL Gameday 2004 on the PS2 Console. This annual event, held Wednesday night in Houston, has a perfect 8-year track record of picking the winner of the Super Bowl. Carolina Panthers Wide Receiver Steve Smith controlled the Panthers, winning an upset victory against New England Patriots' Wide Out Troy Brown, also controlling his own team." lordbyron writes "CBS is doing a SuperBowl of commercials that will include a vote for the best commercial in history. You can watch the top 10 now and make sure that you vote at 9pm on Sunday 1/31. It includes some classics like the Apple commercial and the exploding mosquitos from Tabasco."Wing Bowl.--->

Comments

Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[OS24Ever]

Pretty potent/A. non-sex non-beer ad with only one statement in it.

Pretty effective ad no matter what you US Political viewpoint is.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[kermyt]

Quoted from moveon.org

The CBS networks still refuses to run our winning ad in the Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest during the Super Bowl. The
MoveOn.org non-partisan campaign to get CBS to air issue ads continues, but we're not going to let CBS's censorship stop us
in the mean time. That's why we're spending over $1 million to air the ad in our swing states and nation-wide on other
channels -- starting with two spots on CNN that will air during the Super Bowl half time.

This Sunday, during the Super Bowl half time show, join us in changing channels on CBS. At 8:10pm and 8:35pm EST, switch
over to CNN to watch "Child's Pay" on a channel which doesn't censor its ads. We'd like to keep a tally of the number of
people who participate -- you can sign up here:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id= 2293-33 48214-6QjmVnR6_TwkZW4t8xOELQ

The number of groups, individuals, and newspapers that have called on CBS to run our ad is remarkable. The National
Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union have asked their own members to call CBS. Senator Dick Durbin
(D-IL) gave a powerful speech about CBS on the floor of the Senate, saying, "Maybe network executives at CBS are so afraid
of political pressure from the right wing and their business advertisers who are in league with the right wing politics of
America that they are afraid to put anything on the air that might in fact make things uncomfortable. If that is the case,
it is time for CBS to announce the name of their network is the 'Conservative Broadcasting System' and come clean with
American viewers."

28 members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to CBS which stated, "The choice not to run this paid
advertisement appears to be part of a disturbing pattern on CBS's part to bow to the wishes of the Republican National
Committee. We remember well CBS's remarkable decision this fall to self-censor at the direction of GOP pressure. The network
shamefully cancelled a broadcast about former President Ronald Reagan which Republican partisans considered insufficiently
flattering." Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote a separate letter to CBS urging them to reconsider their decision.

Today, the L.A. Times printed an Op-Ed piece of ours which lays out the case against CBS's censorship. That's attached
below. But the editorial pages of the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other papers came out in our favor as
well. As the Globe wrote, "MoveOn.org's 30-second ad, which has aired on CNN, is a gentle yet powerful depiction of how hard
today's children will have to work to pay off the country's mounting deficit. That's a vital message that might get lost in
a year of campaign rhetoric, and it deserves a response from the White House in its own 30 seconds of imagery. America,
sitting on the couch, junk food in hand, just might sit up and want to know more."

Luckily, there are still some networks that do allow the free exchange of ideas. Please join the one-minute boycott: at
Super Bowl halftime, switch to CNN and watch "Child's Pay," and let us know at:
http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/boycott/?id=22 93-33 48214-6QjmVnR6_TwkZW4t8xOELQ

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[kermyt]

For the record, CBS's reason for not accepting that ad is because they don't accept any debatable political issue issue ads. They would have accepted ads from candidates because they have to, but none came forward with the money to do so.

If that was true then CBS certainly would not run the white house ad that connects marijuana users to terrorism. but that is exactly that they are doing.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[Heisenbug]

A few notes on this ... if you haven't seen the MoveOn Child's Pay ad, it's not exactly incendiary rhetoric. Even Bill O'Reilly said he was surprised they refused to play it.

CBS defends the policy by saying that if they allowed issue ads, large corporations could buy time to push their favorite issues and it would disenfranchise us folks with smaller ad budgets. Eli Pariser of MoveOn responded by pointing out that this creates an awfully friendly environment for the status quo, and those same corporations. We have oil company ads but no anti-oil ads, shoe company ads but no sweatshop ads, drug war ads but no decriminalization ads.

What we're really getting here is a one-sided agenda, and, yes, censorship, in the guise of fairness.

Re:Don't forget the ad CBS is refusing to air.

[damiam]

A corporation not playing an ad because of its political viewpoints is censorship. It's their right, and it's perfectly legal (unless you want to get into some argument about the "public" airwaves), but it's still censorship. Besides nothing in that ad is at all controversial - the deficit estimate is even a bit low, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If they're gonna air ads from the White House (containing some very shaky statements about drugs and terrorism), they should air this ad (which doesn't even promote a candidate).

Football IP?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

intellectual property rights to words like 'Super Bowl' and 'NFL'.

Funny, I never thought I'd see "intellectual", "SuperBowl" and "NFL" in the same sentence ...

Re:Being English, I have to ask...

[The I Shing]

American Football is big, big business in the USA. It represents what Americans love best, which is war. It has nearly all the elements of a war, fought during a time frame of about four hours, with sixty minutes of actual game time. It has offense, defense, gaining ground, losing ground, battle after battle, strategies, tactics, hierarchical command structures, casualties, statistics, a winner, and a loser.

The Superbowl represents the pinnacle of all this, the wheat having been separated from the chaff throughout the regular season and post-season.

It's a chance for American Football aficianados to gather over pizza, chicken wings, potato chips, shrimp cocktail, and copious beer, and cheer on one team or the other.

For the fans in the home city of a Superbowl contender, there is a level of excitement that would probably embarrass a British person to death. Scottish people, on the other hand, would quite understand.

Don't forget CBS is helping MoveOn

[toupsie]

Actually having CBS not air the commercial has allowed more people to see the ad. MoveOn should be jumping for joy that CBS denied the ad buy. It has brought more attention to their message and allowed them to air the ad for free on various news shows. You are even helping out MoveOn by publicizing the ad here on Slashdot.

CBS is making a smart business decision not to air this ad. Why should CBS want to bring in unneeded controversy into the Super Bowl that would distract from the game? Since it has a product that is in high demand for advertisers, CBS can pick and choose which advertisers it wants to fill in those 30 second gaps between plays. Also, if you are spending $2 million an ad as advertiser would you want your commercial message to be drowned out by adjacent partisan political message? Heck no! This would make it hard for CBS to sell the ad space next to the MoveOn ad.

This isn't political censorship, its smart business on the part of CBS.

That's not all...

[MisanthropicProggram]

Outside of Atlanta, in Gwinett County, the Falcons have a proactice camp. This is an important detail - with no fence around their compound. Nearby, there's a hill with a McDonald's on top wih a view of the Falcon's practice field. There's big sign on the border of their properties border with the Falcon's field that says, "No Looking!"
The Falcon's compound is also used for coporate meeting and classes. I was their for one. During my lunch break I went outside to get some fresh air and eat. I happend to be looking at the Falcons standing around talking - it was about fifty yards away, no fences or anything else to obstruct my view - when a police cruiser pulls up. The cop then told me that there's no looking. I responded with something along the lines of, if it's that important to be secret, why don't they put a fence up? The cop told me that it's "NFL RULES." and I have to move along. He says he has to tell people who are on McDonald's property the same thing.

So, I guess NFL's rules supercede our civil rights.

threatened with denial of service attacks

[stephanruby]

Supposedly sports gambling sites are being threatened with denial of service attacks if they don't pay protection money - also a Reuters story.

Finally, a viable business model for Slashdot.