So, tomorrow is the big day, the big game, or whatever else other intimidated advertisers might call it. I just want to find the best deal on a flat screen television today!

But, more to Mike Masnick’s point on Techdirt about the NFL’s reputation as a “trademark bully,” and his challenge to advertisers — “It’s the Super Bowl. Call it the Super Bowl” — just today, Robert Channick of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes how “football ads tiptoe around trademarks.”

As Channick points out, significant sums of money are at stake for the NFL, and when that is the case, I suspect it won’t be difficult for the NFL to continue to convince others that their trademark rights in the SUPER BOWL mark are far more important to them than it ever could be to any individual advertiser to defend a trademark infringement case to conclusion, at least on their own dime.

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