University of Alabama Threatens to Sue Outkick Over Aloha, Bitches Tshirts

To whom it may concern at the University of Alabama,

Sigh.

This is gonna shock y'all, but the University of Alabama's lawyers and the people advising them aren't very smart.

So we're selling a red and white Aloha, Bitches tshirt on the Outkick website right now. I'd encourage all of you to go buy it.

It's a new version of our old Aloha, Bitches tshirts, which we started selling a couple of years ago to honor Marcus Mariota, the greatest quarterback in the NFL and if you disagree with me about that you are racist.

The moment Tua came into the game and won the national title for Alabama many Crimson Tide fans started clamoring for us to honor another Hawaiian quarterbacking legend with another Aloha, Bitches tshirt.

So we did it.

You can see that beautiful tshirt that, if you wear it will make every woman in the state of Alabama want to sleep with you, in the image above.

Last week the University of Alabama's lawyers wrote a four page letter to me threatening to sue if we didn't stop selling the tshirt. They said, and I'm not making this up, that they believed people would be confused and think Outkick's shirts were an officially licensed University of Alabama product.

Seriously, they said this.

Here's a copy of the letter we received last week from Alabama's lawyers.

Now, we all know that most University of Alabama fans are complete idiots, but even the dumbest Alabama fans alive couldn't see these shirts and think they were officially licensed by the University of Alabama. Has the University of Alabama ever officially licensed a shirt with the word bitches on it? I mean, come on. These are clear parody shirts, designed with humor in mind, which no reasonable person could remotely confuse with actual products licensed by the school.

You would also think that someone representing Alabama would have also realized that it's best not to pick a fight with the most popular writer and the most most popular sports website in the 11 state SEC football region, which would guarantee he would just sell more tshirts than he already was and make your school look stupid.

But you'd be wrong.

Why do I keep winning?

Because the people who decide to fight me keep making such dumb decisions on what to fight over.

The university said our cursive A was too close to the Alabama cursive A, which, by the way, is virtually indistinguishable from the cursive A of the Atlanta Falcons or the Arkansas Razorbacks, so I wrote back to Alabama's lawyers the following couple of paragraphs in response to their letter to me.
"The A on our shirt is definitely not the Alabama A that you have trademarked and copyrighted, it is just a cursive A.

Moreover no one thinks an Outkick shirt is licensed by Alabama. Certainly not one that was expressly made because we have been selling “Aloha, bitches,” shirts in honor of Marcus Mariota for over a year on the site.

Is it your contention that Alabama controls the use of all cursive letter A’s on all shirts? Would you like to design and email the site a cursive A that would be permissible to use? I’d be interested to see your version and would be potentially willing to change our A to one you deem more appropriate if it works on the shirt.

If you’d like us to add a disclaimer that says the shirts aren’t licensed or endorsed by Alabama — or publish your letter on Outkick saying the same — I’m happy to do that as well. 

But as a lawyer who has worked in trademark and copyright law I’m not sure what claim you guys have here. You don’t have a copyright on our cursive version of the letter A or any claim on the phrases used on the shirt.

Let me know if you’d like me to add language on the page saying Alabama isn’t involved in any way with the tshirts. Or if you’d like me to publish your letter on the site saying the same. Or if you intend to send me an acceptable cursive A for the tshirts."







which I would encourage you to buy here


which I would again encourage you to buy here







In summation, if you want to be represented by talented lawyers who won't send stupid letters and make their clients look like idiots, you can go to OutkickLaw.com, where Outkick now has a full service law firm able to represent clients in matters all over the country. Please sign up here if you require our services.

And, once more, go buy our Outkick Gear, which is in no way affiliated with the University of Alabama or the college football playoff.

In the meantime, while the University of Alabama may be able to claim as many illegitimate national titles as they would like with limited push back, I think everyone would have to agree that claiming letters of the alphabet as their own property is the very definition of intellectual property overreach.

Particularly when the vast majority of the Alabama fan base only uses one letter on a regular basis -- the letter X when they sign their parole papers.

Sincerely,

Clay Travis, esquire