Expect the official announcement of the name of Ottawa’s new Canadian Football League franchise in a couple of weeks.
To recap, a former employee of the Oregon marketing company that has been consulting with Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group on the branding of its CFL and North American Soccer League franchises posted in late March what he said were recommended logos for the two teams.
The two posted logo options for the soccer franchise were among three that Ottawa Fury FC used as finalists for online fan voting. The result of that process is to be unveiled this coming Saturday, May 25.
The former marketing company employee also posted three recommended logo options for a football team to be called Ottawa RedBlacks.
A current official of the marketing company, Downstream, said the former employee had no authority to release anything and was not credible. A spokesman for OSEG said RedBlacks had merely been one of five names that had been considered for the CFL club, and recommended logos had been worked on for all five candidates.
Here’s the thing, though:
1) One of the admitted candidates, Ottawa Rush, was registered in the Canadian Intellectual Property Office’s trade-mark database. However, the registered owner, an entity known as Capital Gridiron Limited Partnership apparently decided against it. The trademark database shows Ottawa Rush as inactive, or more specifically “abandoned – voluntary,” as of May 9, 2013. It had been filed Nov. 29, 2012.
2) Ottawa RedBlacks, Red Blacks, Les Rouges Noirs d’Ottawa and Les RougesNoirs d’Ottawa were all filed with the trademark registry by an Ottawa-area entity called Moonstar Limited on Dec. 28, 2012.
3) Moonstar Limited is also listed as owner of Ottawa Fury FC, including the three versions of logos used for the online voting process. Those trademarks were filed on April 5, slightly more than a month after the NASL franchise’s name was officially announced.
4) Three other CFL franchise names discussed during focus groups conducted in the national capital region by the now former marketing company employee — Nationals, Raftsmen and Voyageurs — do not show up in the trademark registry with any connection to Ottawa, Capital Gridiron Limited Partnership or Moonstar Limited.
5) There are no other team name trademarks yet filed by Capital Gridirong Limited Partnership or Moonstar Limited.
So, does any of this confirm that Ottawa’s new CFL franchise will be known as the Red Blacks/RedBlacks?
Well, no, but there’s definitely not any kind of rush to use Rush.
