Lamar Jackson vs. Troy Aikmen sue over use of “Eight”

Lamar Jackson vs. Troy Aikmen sue over use of “Eight”, whos in the right? Caleb Williams wants to get paid as a LLC to avoid paying taxes. And to nobodys suprise Derrick Henry spends 250k a year on his body. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So I am a historian. Ihave somebody who has enjoyed keeping up with
college football history, baseball history.It's the Hall of Fame weekend this weekend
here at cooper in Cooperstown. JoeMauer, Todd Helton, they both going
in there. But I'm also ahistory when it comes to the NFL.
I love the old NFL history,I love the AFL NFL merger, and

(00:24):
well, the big thing for meis how quickly things have changed for NFL
players how it used to be inthe sixties and seventies. There's guys who
are having to work as autumn mechanics. There's guys working at security details,
and then in the fall playing forthe Oakland Raiders, the Pittsburgh Steelers,
the Baltimore Colts. But now,thanks to the advent of television, TV

(00:46):
contracts, rights deals and everything elselike that, the worst NFL player is
seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars ayear right on a contract. No again,
taxes, everything else gets taken outof that. We'll get to that
here. In a moment, youknow you've reached a different level of fame
and notoriety when the headline starts circlingaround, you're trying to trademark a number.

(01:08):
Now, Cole, do you rememberwhen Prince changed his name from Prince
to then the artist that was formerlyknown as Prince. I vaguely remember it.
Yeah, And he changed into asymbol so he could get out of
a record deal contract. Now,I'm all about sticking it to the man,
right, I totally get that.And when Prince did you know,

(01:29):
a little wacky yaw, maybe alittle bit off the reservation, but I
get it. I understand raigning atFL MVP Lamar Jackson is challenging Pro Football
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman.And look when I say that sentence,
you think to yourself, Oh,are they gonna have a throw off or
they gonna see who's better at throwingthe ball to receivers. You know he

(01:52):
could be. I think what he'salmost like fifty something sixty something now,
I think he could probably throw abetter deep ball than Lamar Jackson if that
game is played in January. No, they're not fighting over who's the better
quarterback. They're fighting over who hasthe patent trademark to the number eight?
Coal. Can you believe this story? This is absolutely mind boggling to me.

(02:15):
So Jackson, who owns or hasapplied for several trademarks using the number
in various phrases, says Aikman,attempts to use the number eight now spelled
out e I g HD in caseyou don't know how to spell it on
apparel in bags and quote likely causesconfusion, or causes mistakes or to be

(02:36):
deceived the purchase in public. Nowwhy does this story matter? Well,
first off, I think it's insanethat you can trademark a number, let
alone the spelling of the number.And you know, Lamar Jackson has a
couple of other trademarks Era eight byLamar Jackson, Era eight you ate yet?
And then a logo styled as awild dog over the shield. Right,

(02:59):
So he has other logos, buthe thinks that Troy Aikman is infringing
on his trademark of the spelling outof the number eight. Now, I
don't quite understand why this is sucha big deal. I do find it
funny because as athletes grow a notoriety. As Lamar Jackson wins his second MVP

(03:22):
award, you remember famously that TroyAkman on Twitter was saying that he had.
You know, Patrick Mahomes might havemore touchdown passes than him, but
Troy Aikman has more Super Bowl rings. And now patri Mahomes is knocking on
the door to get his third thisseason, potentially a three peat for Patty
so he or actually, no,Patrick Mahomes already has three. I'm sorry

(03:42):
he's going for a three peat tryingto get his fourth ring. But it
rais isn't actually an interesting question tobe cole when you think of the number
eight in professional sports as a WestCoast sports fan, who do you think
of when you think of the numbereight? Huh, let's go with a

(04:04):
he was a quarterback at one point. Oh huh Steve Young? Yeah,
yeah, I would I would sayI would say Steve Young has a pretty
good case to be remembered as thequarterback who won number eight. Now Cowboys
fans would argue the trademan. Youknow, he won super Bowls, he
was on America's team. He mademore, maybe of an impact as a
broadcaster than Steve Young. Other notablenumber eights Yogi Berra, Carl u Strimps,

(04:29):
he built in baseball, Washington Capitals, Alex Ovechkin. I think that
we as a society have gotten tothe point where, look, I'm all
about, like I said, withPrince changing his name from Prince to the
odist artist formerly noticed Prince to getour record, I'm all forced sticking it
to the man. We are ata point now where we might need to
downsize when it comes to how muchmoney athletes are making coal, when we're

(04:53):
going to patent court over trademarking numbers, this is insane. This is a
bridge too far for me. Yeah, well it doesn't really make sense to
me anyway. When you called me, when I called you this morning and
you told me this story, Iwas like, there's no way it's a
prank. But also, Troy hasthat beer called eight, the light beer
made right, So I don't knowhow this is going to progress. I

(05:15):
mean, Troy owns it's spelled eig h T. It's a light beer
based in Austin. Actually, soI don't know what the workaround is for
Lamar. I mean, Troy hashis own beer company called eight. You
can't trademark a number like you can'town that number like that. It doesn't
make any sense to me. It'sjust kind of childish and stupid. It

(05:36):
is crazy. To me, andthis adds on to Caleb Williams earlier this
week. Who Look, there's abunch of different ways that you can report
on this story. I'm going tobe as charitable as possible and say that
he's a very unique individual. Now, I don't care about the pinning of
nails or the phone caser crying.I don't care about any of that.
But I do care about is guystrying to not pay their taxes. This

(06:00):
is what Caleb Williams is doing.Allegedly, according to Mike Fourio at Pro
Football Reference, he requested that hiscontract be paid in the form of an
LLC or to make his contract aforgivable loan. What both of these would
accomplish they would make him from payingIt would prevent him from paying taxes in
the state of Illinois, and IllinoisLLCs have zero income tax finaling requirements,

(06:25):
and make his dealing forgivable loan.He wouldn't have to pay taxes on his
deal until the loan was forgiven upto ten years in the future. So
essentially, while every other player inthe league is trying to find ways for
their agents, their management team,you know, there's loop bowls in the
US tax code to all of US. I understand that, but for Caleb

(06:46):
Williams, the number one overall pick, and I understand you go to USC,
great education. This again is abridge too far. Now. The
Bears took both requests of the NFLbecause there's nothing in the rules that says
a dog can't play basketball. There'snothing in the rules to say is the
NFL can't pay an LLC. Well, the NFL disagreed. They said that

(07:06):
Williams' money cannot go to a businessentity other than the player. And there's
no reason given why the league actsthe idea of is a forgivable bunk.
I can tell you why, Colethat they act the idea because they are
in an anti trust They are amonopoly, right, they have anti trust

(07:27):
laws, and the NFL can kindof skirt around that right. That's why
the NFL doesn't play games on Fridaybecause of high school football. That's why
the NFL has very strict rules andwhen they can play their games right,
because they know that if they startbecause if Kitleb Williams can do this,
then the next group of quarterbacks andplayers can do this, and the next
contracts can do this and all ofa sudden, NFL players aren't paying taxes,

(07:48):
and the same would go for NBAand NHL and MLB, and then
it would just be a slippery slope. I am shocked that more people haven't
tried to do this already. AndI did look it up Cole and know,
I don't think Caleb Williams has patentCaleb Williams LLC just yet, so
you know, maybe there's money tobe made there too. He can trademark

(08:11):
Caleb Williams LLC. Absolutely insane story. These are the stories that I read
and I think to myself, youknow, the celebrities, they're just like
us. Lastly, I do wantto mention it was reported this week Derek
Henry Space pays up to two hundredand fifty thousand dollars a year on fitness
and training, and he is theonly athlete that I look at and I

(08:31):
say, yeah, that makes sense. That checks out. We come back.
More of The Craigway Show coming upin a moment on sports Radio AM
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