MLB Planning to Contest Overwatch League Logo Trademark

Mike Sanders July 19, 2017Last Updated: July 19, 2017

1 501

MLB Overwatch

You do, every now and then, hear about some very strange legal cases. Particularly when it comes to copyright. It looks like we have have another one on the horizon. Major League Baseball are preparing a legal contesting of the logo for Overwatch League. Here we go again!

Is the Overwatch League logo that similar to MLB?

Yes and no. If you are 80 years old, have spent too much time holding your sausage hostage and possibly suffer from acute blindness, then yes, maybe.

Hyperbole aside, here are the 2 logo’s together.

Overwatch League MLB

In my personal opinion, to ever say that they are similar is a stretch and if the report from PCGamer turns out to be true, I might have to wonder what MLB’s legal team is thinking here. As far as I’m concerned the logos are massively different and at least sufficiently so to not warrant such action.

My theory on why MLB is seeking action against Overwatch League.

Usually when we’re talking about a ridiculous law case, it’s about John McAfee. Here’s his most recent by the way, just incase you missed the latest edition. So call me crazy, but I think this all boils down to popularity. Major League Baseball is an industry in decline, to my understanding viewing figures are down and in general the sport is not as popular as it was 30 years ago. Esports on the other hand represents a dangerous new brand to existing mainstream sports teams. Overwatch League, to MLB, represents a real and direct threat to its own long-term survival. Therefore, I suspect that MLB might be launching this legal attack solely as a means of a bit of promotion in what could now represent, a larger demographic.

If people find ESports more entertaining than real sports, the problem lies within the sport itself and if I hear nothing else from my friends who watch baseballs, it’s nearly always that for the vast majority of the time it is mind-numbingly boring.

How times change. You might not agree with my little theory, but I would hope that we can all at least agree that there is no substance to this claim and that it is clearly ridiculous.

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First of all Mike Sanders, I would just like to thank you for posting this article. Although I have looked at some of your other articles and was surprised that there was not a lot, if any, articles similar to this that you have posted. So I congratulate you on your willingness to step out of the box a little and post something like this. However, I don’t think that you did as good of a job as you could on this, and I would just like to voice some of my reasons on why. First off, this is not a strange case. there have been so many, most commonly in music and literature, in which these creators, feel that other “creators” are making money by releasing content that is the same or very. similar to theirs. It is not uncommon. Secondly, now I am not real familiar with this website, and I’m not quite sure how formal it is, but I have to say, the comment you made in the first, well, sentence of the first header, is completely unprofessional, offensive, and overall just inappropriate. And as I said before, I do not know if this is the kind of thing that is accepted on this website or not, but regardless, I think anybody in this world if they looked at the two logos, could find something similar about the two at least, or find the two to be VERY similar. Regardless of how old they are or whether their blind or mastrubate too much. Two background colors separated by a white silhouetted figure of what I can only assume is what a player would look like if he/she were apart of the game, and then of course the name of the sport in question, below the logo itself. If you could not see the resemblance before, I hope that me pointing it out has helped. Thirdly, to even suggest that MLB thinks that the “Overwatch League”, is and I quote, “A real and direct threat to it’s own long-term survival” is completely absurd. Baseball has been around since 1839, 179 years.
It has become a history, a culture, not just a game. It brings people together, Brings life lasting friendships, like I said, not just a game. MLB overall is also still more popular than the NBA, and at the smallest gap between the NFL in 4 years. Due to a recent survey done by Statista, YouGov, and The Economist. So you tell me, is baseball worried, by OVERWATCH? Hell no. When watching people play video games is more popular than the game of basketball, I think that is when they will find Overwatch a “real and direct threat”. But do I think baseball should be contesting about this? No. Although the logos are very similar, I hardly think that baseball should be troubling themselves with a bunch of kids playing video games. So, at least we agree with each other on something. And of course no bias to be found, that picture of what I can only assume is the Overwatch “league” just put itself on the end of my article, no idea how that got there. Oh, and would you look at that, a comment that’s longer than the article it was commenting on in the first place.

One Comment

Stephen A. Smith says:

January 29, 2018 at 7:45 am

First of all Mike Sanders, I would just like to thank you for posting this article. Although I have looked at some of your other articles and was surprised that there was not a lot, if any, articles similar to this that you have posted. So I congratulate you on your willingness to step out of the box a little and post something like this. However, I don’t think that you did as good of a job as you could on this, and I would just like to voice some of my reasons on why. First off, this is not a strange case. there have been so many, most commonly in music and literature, in which these creators, feel that other “creators” are making money by releasing content that is the same or very. similar to theirs. It is not uncommon. Secondly, now I am not real familiar with this website, and I’m not quite sure how formal it is, but I have to say, the comment you made in the first, well, sentence of the first header, is completely unprofessional, offensive, and overall just inappropriate. And as I said before, I do not know if this is the kind of thing that is accepted on this website or not, but regardless, I think anybody in this world if they looked at the two logos, could find something similar about the two at least, or find the two to be VERY similar. Regardless of how old they are or whether their blind or mastrubate too much. Two background colors separated by a white silhouetted figure of what I can only assume is what a player would look like if he/she were apart of the game, and then of course the name of the sport in question, below the logo itself. If you could not see the resemblance before, I hope that me pointing it out has helped. Thirdly, to even suggest that MLB thinks that the “Overwatch League”, is and I quote, “A real and direct threat to it’s own long-term survival” is completely absurd. Baseball has been around since 1839, 179 years.
It has become a history, a culture, not just a game. It brings people together, Brings life lasting friendships, like I said, not just a game. MLB overall is also still more popular than the NBA, and at the smallest gap between the NFL in 4 years. Due to a recent survey done by Statista, YouGov, and The Economist. So you tell me, is baseball worried, by OVERWATCH? Hell no. When watching people play video games is more popular than the game of basketball, I think that is when they will find Overwatch a “real and direct threat”. But do I think baseball should be contesting about this? No. Although the logos are very similar, I hardly think that baseball should be troubling themselves with a bunch of kids playing video games. So, at least we agree with each other on something. And of course no bias to be found, that picture of what I can only assume is the Overwatch “league” just put itself on the end of my article, no idea how that got there. Oh, and would you look at that, a comment that’s longer than the article it was commenting on in the first place.