Since 1967, NFL fans have battled to bolster their renown via Super Bowl duels, with some match-ups producing classic contests and others yielding yawners. No matter the quality of the clashes, the winning teams always anticipate receiving not only the Lombardi Trophy and an inevitable parade, but also their championship rings. The jewelry has become a ballyhooed memento of a squad’s victorious postseason march, and, after 52 such playoff slates, fans, especially ones whose clubs have attained legendary status and whose heroes have recently joined the victorious fraternity, are constantly yearning to share in the glory by purchasing rings.
Promo Marketing’s own Philadelphia Eagles fit the latter description mentioned above, having claimed Super Bowl LII on February 4, and the city has seen the accomplishment as a perennial point of pride, with many social media users looking past personal woes by noting that whatever they are experiencing, at least the Eagles are still Super Bowl champions. The Birds and the other winning franchises are big draws for supporters, but they also attract the attention of counterfeiters, with some attempting to pass off phony rings via a Hong Kong shipment.
On June 29, Philadelphia’s division of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confiscated 108 such bogus commemoratives, with the would-be products representing many winners of the Big Game:
#ICYMI: Philadelphia winning continues; CBP officers intercept fake Super Bowl rings. MSRP, if authentic, is nearly $1 Million, Read https://t.co/1xsxS0GPEW pic.twitter.com/ORqjp7XGkY
— CBP Mid-Atlantic (@CBPMidAtlantic) July 6, 2018
The City of Brotherly Love has not shown any affection to shoddy items lately, and since Philadelphians definitely will continue to clamor for all things related to their gridiron conquerors, last month’s bust marks a commendable achievement in CBP officers’ efforts to protect consumers’ best interests. Yes, it could have been very tempting, had these rings somehow slipped past their watchful eyes, for end-users to snatch up inexpensive keepsakes, but the confiscated products, manifest as alloy rings, certainly do more harm than good.
“We will remain vigilant and we will continue to advance our detection capabilities in order to secure our homeland and keep our communities safe and our economy prosperous,” Casey Durst, CBP Director of Field Operations in Baltimore, said of the seizure that occurred not far from his covered territory.
Had the items that his peers inspected been real, they would have had a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $1,080,000, or $10,000 per ring. Instead, they are junk and additional reminders that Durst and his contemporaries, who last year seized a daily average of $3.3 million in products that violated Intellectual Property Rights, will not soon be done with the likes of those who wish to dupe the public.
With respect to this matter, the NFL is a very lucrative business, to say the least, so any attempt to limit its financial breadth is sure to meet legal objection, and while that is the case here, what appears more important than the suppression of a blow to the league is the protection of consumers’ rights. End-users love their teams and will go to great lengths to support them, but they should never have to settle for pseudo merchandise or the like in pledging their allegiance.
