Big League Sue
Gum Maker Sues Gum Licensee in a Bizarre Tale of Corporate Shenanigans
Ah yes, Big League Chew. A candy on every baseball kid’s wish list. It was a gum that had about ten seconds of flavor and you knew if you bought a pouch, the whole neighborhood would want a couple of strands. Sure, it was essentially simulated chewing tobacco, but chewing tobacco was cool. It was also a different time back then as candy mimicking more adult stuff was all the range. Remember candy cigarettes?
Gotta have my cigs.
In either event, the makers of Big League Chew are suing their licensee, Ford Gum for breaching of their licensing deal. Ford Gum has been making Big League Chew under license since 1979. What happened next was kind of bonkers. (I’m going to try to make sense of this as succinctly as I can.)
Big League Chew was invented in 1977 by former minor league baseball player Rob Nelson. After getting the gum made by Wrigley for two years, Nelson shifted to the Ford Gum company in 1979 to make Big League Chew. Ford had been making the chewing tobacco substitute ever since with an agreement going on to the year 2045. Ford, tried to file a trademark for its own type of fakey-tobacky gum this past April, and with that Big League Chew brought the lawyers out. The Athletic reports:
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, comes in response to Ford Gum filing a trademark application in April to register a shredded gum configuration as its own trademark and alleges Ford Gum “blatantly breached its agreements” with Big League Chew and “threatens the existence” of the company. In addition to seeking an injunction to halt Ford Gum’s trademark application, Big League Chew’s complaint alleges that Ford Gum has violated the licensing terms between the two companies. Ford Gum was granted a limited license to manufacture and distribute Big League Chew products in 2010 and was prohibited from claiming ownership of the product’s unique shredded gum dress, according to the lawsuit.
When I was a kid, I thought we would have flying cars by the year 2000, not witnessing companies fighting over gum.
By the way, that above ad is so weird. Did the kid never come home? Is he a sentient pack of gum now? Can sliding gum be safe in a regulation game?
In seriousness, that must be an odd thing for the folks over at Big League Chew. You’re asking a company to help you make you something and then you just so happen to find the people you hired to help you out, “formulating their own” version of your product. Ford Gum says “Hey, we’ve been making this since 1979, it’s kinda sorta ours, right? RIGHT?!” The quote:
Ford Gum began selling its shredded gum product in or about 1979. Since that time, and through the present, Ford Gum has been, and is, the only company to offer and sell gum in a shredded shape.”
The trademark application also states: “From 1979 to the present, Ford Gum has sold over one billion pouches of the Product.”
Okay, so I get why Big League Chew is suing. But I’m not sure if Ford Gum could make a new shape to avoid everything. You know, like if Big League Chew is spaghetti, make yourself a bubblegum penne and you should be in the clear. I think I just grossed myself out a little.
I do feel though, it’s the branding that’s better than the product. Nobody is at home asking for “shoestring gum,” but Big League Chew is what you get when you want to pretend you are a superstar playing in front of a sold-out crowd. It’s the “feel” you get when chewing the product, not the product itself.
So I don’t know about you guys, but I’m rooting for the Big Leaguers.