Yesterday, I wrote about the history of the NCAA’s assembling of the rights to an array of trademarks associated with this month’s college basketball tournaments.  Today, I will provide some examples of the activities that can bring unwanted NCAA attention to your promotions or advertising, as well as an increasingly important development that should be considered when considering whether to accept advertising.

Activities that May Result in a Demand Letter from the NCAA

The NCAA acknowledges that media entities can sell advertising that accompanies the entity’s coverage of the NCAA championships.  However, similar to my discussion in January on the use of Super Bowl trademarks (see here) and my 2024 discussion on the use of Olympics trademarks (see here), unless authorized by the NCAA, any of the following activities may result in a cease and desist demand:

  • accepting advertising that refers to the NCAA®, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, March Madness®, The Big Dance®, Final Four®, Elite Eight® or any other NCAA trademark or logo.  (The NCAA has posted a list of its trademarks here.)
    • Example: An ad from a retailer with the headline, “Buy A New Big Screen TV in Time to Watch March Madness.”  Presumably, to avoid this issue, some advertisers have used “The Big Game” or “It’s Tournament Time!”
  • local programming that uses any NCAA trademark as part of its name.
    • Example: A locally produced program previewing the tournament called “The Big Dance: Pick a Winning Bracket.”
  • selling the right to sponsor the overall coverage by a broadcaster, website or print publication of the tournament.
    • Example: During the sports segment of the local news, introducing the section of the report on tournament developments as “March Madness, brought to you by [name of advertiser].”
  • sweepstakes or giveaways that include any NCAA trademark in its name. (see here)
    • Example: “The Final Four Giveaway.”
  • sweepstakes or giveaways that offer tickets to a tournament game as a prize.
    • Example: even if the sweepstakes name is not a problem, offering game tickets as a prize will raise an objection by the NCAA due to language on the tickets prohibiting their use for such purposes.
  • events or parties that use any NCAA trademark to attract guests.
    • Example: a radio station sponsors a happy hour where fans can watch a tournament game, with any NCAA marks that are prominently placed on signage.
  • advertising that wishes or congratulates a team, or its coach or players, on success in the tournament.
    • Example: “[Advertiser name] wishes [Name of Coach] and the 2022 [Name of Team] success in the NCAA tournament!”

There is a common pitfall that is unique to the NCAA, namely, basketball: tournament brackets used by advertisers, in newspapers or other media, or office pools where participants predict the winners of each game in advance of the tournament.  The NCAA’s position (see here) is that the unauthorized placement of advertising within an NCAA bracket and corporate sponsorship of a tournament bracket is misleading and constitutes an infringement of its intellectual property rights.   Accordingly, it says that any advertising should be outside of the bracket space and should clearly indicate that the advertiser or its goods or services are not sponsored by, approved by, or otherwise associated with the NCAA or its championship tournament.

It should be noted that the NCAA also imposes strict rules about the authorized uses of its trademarks.  The NCAA’s most recent Advertising and Promotional Guidelines for authorized use of its marks are posted online (see here).

Again, importantly, none of these restrictions prevents media companies from using any of the marks in providing customary news coverage of or commentary on the tournament. Trademark law allows you to make references to trademarked terms in news or informational programming where you convey information about those trademarked activities.  But these references should not imply any association between the station (or any sponsor who does not in fact have the rights to state that they are a sponsor) and the NCAA or the tournament (e.g., don’t say that you are the March Madness station in Anytown unless you in fact have the rights from the NCAA to say that). Continue Reading The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same:  Risks of Using or Accepting or Engaging in Advertising or Promotions that Use FINAL FOUR or Other NCAA Trademarks:  2025 Update – Part II

Each year, as the NCAA basketball tournaments get underway, my colleague Mitch Stabbe highlights the trademark issues that can arise from uses of the well-known words and phrases associated with the games in advertising, promotions, and other media coverage. Here is Part I of his review. Look for Part II tomorrow.

This is my tenth annual column for the Broadcast Law Blog on the subject of the potential pitfalls to broadcasters in using the NCAA’s FINAL FOUR and other trademarks or accepting advertising that use the marks.  I began last year’s post with the comment that the last few years had been filled with changes in college sports.  I also noted that the NCAA’s hard line against unauthorized uses of FINAL FOUR or its other marks had not changed.

As will be discussed below, looking back over the last ten years, it is clear that the value of the NCAA’s basketball tournament rights has, however, greatly changed, which helps explain the enduring efforts to challenge unauthorized uses of its marks.  Thus, broadcasters, publishers and other businesses need to continue to be wary about potential claims arising from their use of terms and logos associated with the tournament.

NCAA Trademarks

The NCAA owns the well-known marks March Madness®, The Big Dance®, Final Four®, Final 4®, Women’s Final Four®, Elite Eight®, Women’s Elite Eight®, Road to the Final Four® and The Read to the Final Four® (with and without the word “The”), each of which is a federally registered trademark.  The NCAA does not own “Sweet Sixteen” – someone else does.  However, the NCAA has a license to use the mark and has federal registrations for NCAA Sweet Sixteen®and NCAA Sweet 16®.Continue Reading The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same:  Risks of Using or Accepting or Engaging in Advertising or Promotions that Use FINAL FOUR or Other NCAA Trademarks:  2025 Update – Part I

  • The FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing to fine Nexstar Media Group,