In 2012, Las Vegas sportsbook, Westgate SuperBook, registered the phrase, “Good Teams Win, Great Teams Cover.”
Then upstart sportsbook Barstool Sports used the phrase in its promotions, triggering a trademark battle. Westgate sent a cease-and-desist letter to Barstool in June 2020. As if to mock the veteran Westgate, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy tweeted the letter, and Westgate’s law firm, Greenspoon Marder, sent a second letter.
Westgate cites Barstool’s usage of the trademarked phrase on the company’s Twitter feed.
“This is the second time we have had to contact you, which is evidence that your conduct is willful,” the letter read. “This use of ‘Good teams win, great teams cover,’ after a priori warning is an intentional effort to trade on the goodwill associated with Westgate’s ‘Good teams win, great teams cover,’ mark.”
When contacted by Legal Sports Report, Penn National senior vice president of public affairs Eric Schippers said the tweet “speaks for itself.”
Tweeted Portnoy, “Nothing makes me more confident when other gambling companies like @WestgateVegas start sending us cease and desists for tweeting ‘good teams win, great teams cover.’ By the way, there is literally no chance they invented that. That’s like saying you invented the question mark.”
Westgate filed for a trademark in 2008 and that trademark was registered in 2012. Westgate registered the phrase before it became common, said Mike Schuster, a professor of legal studies at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.
“The U.S. Trademark Office apparently did not believe this was a common phrase when it was registered in 2012 in the field of wagering services,” Schuster said. “Further, due to the registration’s age, the mark is now incontestable—meaning that it is immune from allegations that the trademark is invalid, except in fairly limited circumstances.
