A non-issue.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., of course, drove the now-iconic #8 Budweiser car early in his career when he first started driving for his dad’s Cup Series team, DEI. But longtime NASCAR fans know how the story ends: With the sport’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., leaving the team his father built after a bitter (and public) battle with his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, over ownership in the company, and the team folding just a few years later (after Teresa said they would just “make another Dale Jr.” if he left the team).
After Earnhardt’s death, Teresa controlled all things DEI, even after the race team folded after merging with Chip Ganassi Racing. And she still tightly polices the use of the intellectual property owned by the former race team, which now serves as basically a merchandise company.
The result was that after Junior left DEI, he was forced to defer to Teresa when it came to using the stylized #8 that he ran while at DEI – and she wasn’t giving it up. But things changed last year, when Teresa apparently decided to let the trademark for the DEI style #8 expire, allowing Junior to step in and register it for himself. Since then, Junior has run the #8 car in a race for the CARS Tour, a late model short track series in which Dale Jr. is a co-owner. And he’s also released merch featuring his #8 car that many fans associate with the Hall of Fame driver.
Since 2019, Junior’s NASCAR Xfinity Series team JR Motorsports has also run the #8, though the style of number was different since he didn’t own the trademark to the DEI-style #8.
But over the weekend, social media was lit up after Lamar Jackson filed a counter claim, saying that he believes that Junior’s use of the #8 causes confusion with his own trademark – and might lead fans to think that Junior’s products are somehow affiliated with Jackson?
The Baltimore Ravens quarterback filed an opposition to Junior’s registration for the stylized #8 that he’s used in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for over half a decade, claiming that Jackson is “well-known by that number due to his notoriety and fame” and that Junior’s trademark “falsely suggests a connection with persons, living or dead, namely, Lamar Jackson, who is well known by the number 8.”
Jackson uses the #8 on his “Era 8” apparel brand, and somehow believes that people will get Junior’s merch confused with his own:
“Purchasers and prospective purchasers are likely to mistakenly believe that the products Applicant offers under the mark are related to the products and services provided by Opposer under the number 8 and his application and registration.”
But the issue was that many fans thought Jackson was filing for the classic Bud #8, when in reality, he took issue with the font on a different #8 trademark that Jr. Motorsports had filed as a backup, since they were already going through this process for the Bud #8.
Jr. addressed it on his Dale Jr. Download podcast this week, saying that there is no issue between the two of, explaining that he thought the same things as some fans at first in terms of confusing the trademarks:
“The #8 trademark situation with Lamar Jackson. To kind of give a timeline if you will, so we learned that the Budweiser #8 trademark is not gonna be continued and renewed by Teresa. Haven’t talked to Teresa, don’t know why that was her decision, but we saw an opportunity to pick up the number, to see if we can get the trademark.
Without the trademark, we can run the number, anyone can, we can use the number, no problem. Did we have a trademark for the current #8 Jr. Motorsports number that we’ve been running since 2019? No. There was no trademark for that number. So we filed for the Bud eight trademark, we have succeeded in that process, and as a back up plan, filed for the trademark on the Jr. Motorsports #8 that Josh Barry and all those guys been running for the last couple years.
Well, I learned on social media about the same time everybody else did, that Lamar was contesting our trademark application. He wasn’t suing me. He’s just contesting it, and there’s a part of the trademark process where, if you believe somebody’s applying for a trademark and it’s gonna hurt your brand, you can oppose it, right? And say, I need y’all to look at this first.”
His sister Kelley, who is in charge of business operations at Jr. Motorsports, decided they didn’t need to fight for this secondary #8 trademark, and Dale Jr. assured all the fans that there is “no issue” with any of the trademarks, and everyone got what they wanted:
“Well when I learned about it I thought for sure it was over the Bud #8, but when I dug into it, I learned that it was that Jr. Motorsports font, and we weren’t ever gonna use that again, ever. And so after some conversations with Kelley and our team, they’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna abandon that.’
And so yeah, it’s not an issue. It’s a non-issue. A lot of people thought it was the Bud #8, and I did too, initially, so social media got all riled up and pissed off for a bit. I didn’t want to see this get nasty for no reason. All that got sorted out.”
There is no legal battle brewing between Dale Jr. and Lamar Jackson, and Junior still gets to bring back the DEI #8 that so many fans still love and recognize, and Lamar Jackson gets to continue to think that he’s well-known for the #8.
