Founded in 1959, the Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennesse. Often referred to as the “Titans”, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division.
Bud Adams was the team’s owner from their foundation until his death in 2013. The Titans were originally called the “Houston Oilers” and played in Houston, Texas as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). They joined the NFL as part of the ALF-NLF merger in 1970.
The Oilers relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 1997, playing at Nashville’s Vanderbilt Stadium. For the first two seasons, they were known as the Tennessee Oilers before changing their name to the Tennessee Titans in 1999 when they moved to the Adelphia Coliseum (now known as Nissan Stadium).
The Tennessee Titans have played in the Super Bowl once (2000), where they lost to the St. Louis Rams. They experienced good postseason success in the early 2000s when led by Steve McNair and Eddie George, making the playoffs in all but one season. However, from 2003, they only made the playoffs twice in the next thirteen years. The team has had better success since 2016 when they had six consecutive winning seasons and made four playoff appearances. The Titans are also the only team in the NFL to have two players rush for the 2,000 yards in a season (Chris Johnson, 2009 and Derrick Henry, 2020).
The Titans have rivals with their three AFC South competitors – Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans, and Indianapolis Colts.
Famous Tennessee Titans trademarks
As a team that’s been established since 1959, and with location and name changes, the Tennessee Titans have a lot they can trademark. Despite being a very successful football team as the Houston Oilers, they didn’t start trademarking their assets until the late ’90s. Let’s take a look at the most famous Tennessee Titans Trademarks, registered by Tennessee Football, Inc.
Tennessee Titans
Despite the “Houston Oilers” team name only being trademarked in 1996, the new team name – the “Tennessee Titans” was trademarked soon after in 1998 and granted in 2001. As the name stuck, and their success grew, Tennessee Football, Inc has continued to update this trademark over the years and now applies to:
- Entertainment services in the nature of professional football games and exhibitions, musical and dance performances provided during intervals at sports events, fan club services, and educational services
- Toys, namely, plush toys, play figures, board games relating to the sport of football, and sporting goods
- Men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, namely, fleece tops and bottoms, headwear, T-shirts, sweatshirts, pants, jackets, jerseys, sleepwear, gloves, scarves, underwear, footwear, and football helmets
- Posters, calendars, trading cards, books and magazines relating to football, stickers, stationery, collectible cards, and periodically issued souvenir programs
- Jewelry, watches, pins, collectible coins, and key chains made of precious metal
- Handbags, luggage, all-purpose sports bags, wallets, backpacks, and umbrellas
- Marketing services, namely, promoting the goods and services of others
Tennessee Titans logo
The Titans logo has changed significantly since its establishment in 1959. It’s had three distinct changes over time, but since being renamed the Tennessee Titans, they’ve stuck with one logo. The original Houston Oilers logo lasted from 1960 until 1968 and featured a man in football uniform wearing a hard hat with oil rigs in the background. The next logo changed a little over time but largely remained the same from 1969 to 1998 and featured a standalone oil derrick.
The logo that the Tennessee Titans have used since being renamed in 1999 features a circle with a “T” in the center and three stars surrounding it. The circle has flames coming out the side of it. This logo was filed in 1998 and registered in 2000 and applies to:
- Entertainment services in the nature of professional football games and exhibitions, musical and dance performances provided during intervals at sports events, fan club services, educational services, exhibitions, competitions, and musical performances
- Toys, namely, plush toys, play figures, board games relating to the sport of football, and sporting goods
- Men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, namely, fleece tops and bottoms, headwear, T-shirts, sweatshirts, pants, jackets, jerseys, sleepwear, gloves, scarves, underwear, footwear, football helmets
- Posters, calendars, trading cards, books and magazines relating to football, stickers, stationery, collectible cards, and periodically issued souvenir programs
- Pre-recorded DVDs featuring the sport of football, computer game software, and disks
- Jewelry, watches, pins, collectible coins, and key chains made of precious metal
- Handbags, luggage, all-purpose sports bags, wallets, backpacks, and umbrellas
- Marketing services, namely, promoting the goods and services of others
Read more: Trademarking your logo
“Titan Up”
The Tennessee Titans trademarked the phrase “Titan Up” in 2000, which is used as a supportive slogan for the team. Based in the “Music City” of Nashville, this slogan was also made into a song and music video in the same year which has garnered a lot of popularity. The “Titan Up” trademark applies to:
- Providing online sports and entertainment information, namely information about a professional football team and related fan and community events, fan clubs; educational services, namely, physical education programs; live shows featuring football games, exhibitions, competitions, and musical, comedy, and dance performances; arranging and conducting festivals and celebrations for supporters of a professional football team
- T-shirts
“Exotic Smashmouth”
The “exotic smashmouth” is the name of the Titans’ offensive run, which has been rated as one of the best NFL offensive schemes. The run-heavy offense was named by head coach, Mike Mularkey and was rated fourth in Bleacher Report’s Top 10 Offensive Schemes in the NFL. The “exotic smashmouth” was trademarked in 2017 and despite being an incredibly popular offensive strategy only applies to:
- Notepads, posters
- Sporting goods, namely, footballs
- Entertainment services in the nature of professional football games and exhibitions
Music City Miracle
Based in Tennessee, known as the “Music City”, Music City Miracle was an American football play that was performed during the NFL’s 1999-2000 playoffs between the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo Bills in January 2000. Tennessee Football, Inc filed for the trademark in 2000, which was registered in 2004 and applies to:
- Providing online sports and entertainment information
- Men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, namely, caps, headwear, and T-shirts
- Posters, notepads, note pads, note paper, pictorial prints, and art pictures
“Take Everything”
“Take everything” is a promotional video campaign that the Tennessee Titans ran in 2020. It features narration from former Titan Brian Orakpo telling the story of the 2019 Titans’ playoff – of a team overcoming the voices of non-believers to go on to “ignore the noise” and “take everything”. It’s one of the Titans’ most recent trademarks, filed in 2020, and applies to:
- Clothing, namely, shirts and T-shirts
- Entertainment services in the nature of professional football games and exhibitions; providing sports and entertainment information via a global computer network or a commercial online computer service or by cable, satellite, television, and radio
Wrapping up
Despite being founded in 1959, the Tennessee Titans (originally known as the Houston Oilers) didn’t start trademarking their assets until 1999 when they changed their team name. They’ve registered over 30 trademarks for their team, including the team name, logos, team slogans, and campaign catchphrases.
However, there is still a lot more the team can protect. For example, the Titans have a cheerleading squad called the Tennessee Titans Cheerleaders who perform at every home game. The team also has an official mascot – a raccoon called “T-Rac”. The Titans also have a number of slogans including “the pain train’s coming” referring to the catchphrase shouted during every home game’s 4th quarter. And the end zone sections have become known as the “Flame Pit”, with fans calling themselves “Flameheads” and wearing headwear resembling flames. All of which could be trademarked.
With a franchise worth around $3.5 billion, it’s definitely worth the team protecting as many of their assets as they can by having them trademarked. This could save them a lot of money further down the line in legal disputes if someone else decides to trademark any of these names or slogans.
