As the world, if the hype is true, gears up for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis on Sunday, the NFL announced its haul from the annual crackdown on those trying to sell non-licensed Super Bowl merchandise.
Federal agents, NFL investigators and Indianapolis police, executing “Operation Fake Sweep,” seized nearly $5 million worth of counterfeit items, including jerseys, caps, hats, T-shirts, cell phone covers and air fresheners, the NFL reported. (It’s unclear what a licensed, or unlicensed, Super Bowl air freshener would smell like. Or if it’s somehow related to Old Spice’s current marketing claim that “Smell is Power”…)
Authorities put the total take at more than $4.8 million, up from $3.7 million last year.
“For local businesses, when you see this type of competition and people are paying to be able to sell licensed merchandise in their stores, its hurts our local economy,” Indianapolis Public Safety Director Frank Straub told the local Fox News affiliate.
The unlicensed merchandise is definitely unfair competition. But its removal doesn’t guarantee more sales for those carrying the licensed goods, because the sanctioned NFL stuff is expensive, which gives rise to the tons of unlicensed stuff. (An NFL licensed replica jersey, Super Bowl or otherwise, runs anywhere from $60 to $100.)
Arrests have also been made in New England and New York for the sale of counterfeit Super Bowl game tickets, which these days look so authentic people don’t know they’ve been duped until they show up for the game.
“We can tell you from year to year we see up to and more than hundreds of fans come to the gate with counterfeit tickets, stolen tickets, who have no other recourse because they’ve gotten those bad tickets,” said Anastasia Danias, NFL vice president of Legal Affairs. Ouch. There’s a reason to only buy from sanctioned outlets.
Operation Fake Sweep also shut down more than 300 websites offering bogus items and illegal live video streams, authorities reported. Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, many of those websites originate in China, which is the king of “counterfeit” everything, including entire fake Apple stores. U.S. officials said they have limited success with China in their investigations, Fox reported. Which is too frustrating to be ironic, since Chinese authorities keep complete control over what appears on the internet in their country.
The Super Bowl is a victim of its own success. The NFL has to protect its property, of course, but it might find that its iron, expensive grip on all football merchandise is largely responsible for the tons of fake, cheaper competition against it.
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