Will the Real Tom Terrific Please Sign In?
A thought occurred to me last week during the ridiculous skirmish between Tom Brady and supporters of Tom Seaver (who participated in absentia in this disagreement since he had been diagnosed with dementia in March of this year). Which Tom Terrific is the real one? Can there be two Tom Terrifics?
Isn’t there room for a Tom Terrific in baseball and one in football? Certainly, both Toms were terrific, right?
The New York Mets’ Tom Terrific
The New York Mets seem to have conveniently forgotten that on one humid June day in 1977 they betrayed Tom Terrific (that’s Seaver) when they swapped him for four minor league talents languishing (with good reason) in Cincinnati’s minor leagues. Why the Mets wanted these players was anybody’s guess since every one of them contributed in his own way to the diminishing fortunes of the New York Mets’ over the coming seasons, either by lackluster efforts at the major league level, or a failure to even perform well enough to make minimal contributions at the major league level.
After the announcement some weeks ago that Tom Brady’s TEB Capital Management had made an application to trademark the name Tom Terrific, the New York Mets’ tweeted a note from their official Twitter account to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, disagreeing. With all due respect to Tom Brady, there’s only one Tom Terrific to us.
Really?
As definitive as that assertion sounds, that’s not what M. Donald Grant, the Chairman of the Mets’ in 1977, thought about Seaver when he banished him from New York after a very public and contentious contract negotiation led to cross accusations in the newspapers. No one ever heard Grant say Seaver was Tom Terrific. “Goodbye, and good riddance!” might have been more accurate.
Either way, this fiasco led to Grant’s forced resignation from the Mets organization two years later when it was clear the Tom Terrific deal was more embarrassing than the Nolan Ryan trade in 1971.
Ironically, as the New York Post reported, The nickname Tom Terrific originated in a 1950s animated series, [but] was never trademarked by Seaver [or the Mets] because while Tom Terrific was a great nickname it was not perceived as a marketing opportunity by either the Mets or Tom Seaver.
Taking Advantage of Your Opportunities
Clearly, the Mets did not see an opportunity when it stared them in the face. To be fair, merchandising had not yet become a money maker, and the Mets saw the 33-year-old Tom Seaver as a drain on profits seeking millions. Not a money maker.
Mistake.
Tom Brady is a different animal.
He not only is a player but an entrepreneur when he stands back of center to take a snap. He sees not only the football field as he goes through his reads but the business world when he drops back to pass and tosses a dart.
The Boston Globe reported that the Washington Post wrote that Brady’s company filed two patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. One covered collectible trading cards, sports trading cards, posters, and printed photographs. The other [was for] for T-shirts and shirts.
Are figurines to follow?
The Washington Post further explained that Brady’s patents were. . . made on a 1B or ‘‘intent-to-use’’ basis, which means that the company is planning a line of products bearing the nickname. . .
So Brady, if he goes through with his Tom Terrific business plan, will saturate the market with merchandise bearing his nickname.
Once he does, could there be a movie far behind?
The George Lucas Idea
Remember, before George Lucas made Star Wars in the mid-1970s, 20th Century Fox did not believe in the Star Wars project. They funded it, much in the way one throws spaghetti against the wall. Hoping it would stick.
Syfywire reported that Lucas believed so much in the project that he negotiated an arrangement with the studio to defer half a million dollars of his directorial compensation if the studio allowed him to retain the merchandising rights to his franchise.
Done deal.
Billions of dollars later, Lucas continues to smile. And smile. 20th Century Fox may still be crying.
There’s nothing to indicate a movie franchise based on Tom Brady’s life as a football great may be created, but content would enhance the value of his merchandise. And in a multimedia universe, the content could be a website, a blog, YouTube movies, podcasts, anything to enhance the value of Brady’s Tom Terrific. Perhaps even the purchase of an independent film production company?
If one believes this scenario above, then this quote in USA Today may be a bit disingenuous. It’s unfortunate. I was actually trying to do something because I didn’t like the nickname and I wanted to make sure no one used it because some people wanted to use it. I was trying to keep people from using it and then it got spun around to something different than what it was. Good lesson learned…try to do things a little different in the future.”
Hmmm . . .
Is that Bradyspeak? Or bulls*@t?
Tom Terrific will always mean Tom Seaver to me. Sorry, Tom Brady.
But, that doesn’t mean Tom Brady can’t create an entirely new narrative around his name. His career. His model wife. The sky’s the limit. Since he owns his career, he can position himself however he prefers. And that makes Brady’s Tom Terrific a brand new story.
While the original Tom Terrific, Tom Seaver, can rest assured his fans will never forget who their Tom Terrific was and what made him so great. And Tom Terrific Seaver was great.
There might be other Tom Terrifics in the future succeeding these two. That’s life. Whether or not the next Tom Terrific fiasco is as zany as this one, no one knows. But if there is a successor, that Tom Terrific promises to add a whole new realm of history and legend to the sports world. So why carp over which Tom Terrific is the real one?
They all are.
