Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch was straightforward last month when he told reporters at Super Bowl Media Day, “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” Now Lynch seeks trademark status for his phrase.
Lynch made his comments during a question period for players during Media Day last month. But what he had to say had nothing to do with the game, the team, or even football in general. “I’m just here so I won’t get fined,” he insisted. It was all to avoid a $500,000 fine, he said.
Still, Lynch almost got fined, anyway. The player had skipped much of his media obligations for the previous year’s Super Bowl and offered rote, non sequitur answers to reporter questions this season. For a time after the Super Bowl the league looked into hitting the player with fines for wearing the hats he sells during team functions and interviews because the logos were unauthorized by the league. But since the hats were made by NFL licensee New Era Cap, the league decided to pass on fining the player.
Lynch now looks to make a bit of coin off his obstinate Super Bowl appearance.
“We heard from our fans, and so many of them were saying that they wanted that phrase on the clothing,” Chris Bevans told ESPN.com. “This is just listening to the marketplace.”
Bevans, who runs Lynch’s “Beast Mode” line of merchandise, said that the phrase would appear on t-shirts, sweatshirts, and other Beast Mode merchandise
ESPN notes that Lynch, who enters into the last year of his contract with the Seahawks should he opt to play on, funded a temporary “pop up” store in Scottsdale, Arizona, during the Super Bowl that sold out of much of its merchandise.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com