‘March Madness’ branding missing from women’s tournament

For all you sports fans:

I was just reading about this interesting trademark issue concerning NCAA basketball. In essence, the fact that “March Madness” branding does not appear anywhere in relation to the women’s basketball version of the event is raising some eyebrows.

I thought this was a clear example of the broader social impact of trademark, an area principally thought of as serving commercial purposes. We are all well aware of the gender pay gap in sports (among many industries) and this got me thinking about how the trademarking of popular marks might limit brand recognition, viewership, etc. in a way that affects this issue.

For some background, I also found this article on the NCAA’s increasingly “aggressive” protection of the March Madness mark.