Big 12 conference is “concerned” over logo used for Ted Cruz campaign

Once again, a Republican Presidential Candidate has gotten in trouble with one of college sports’ power conferences. Jeb Bush recently caught the ire of the Southeastern Conference when he was selling merchandise with a logo that looked just like the SEC’s logo.

Yeah, the images speak for themselves there. Now, another candidate is catching flack from college sports, and this time it’s Ted Cruz. He’s getting grief from the Big 12, who believe that a logo he’s using for a Snapchat filter is paramount to “passive endorsement” of Cruz’s campaign.

The Cruz campaign has developed logos modeled on those used, respectively, by the SEC and the Big 12 Conference, and was planning to deploy them through a Snapchat filter it had bought and scheduled to be available to users at seven games involving those conference’s schools on Friday and Saturday.
However, on Saturday morning, Big 12 spokesman Bob Burda said the conference’s legal counsel, Kevin Sweeney, had sent a letter to Cruz campaign chief strategist Jason Johnson saying the campaign’s Big 12-style logo causes the conference “serious legal concerns.”
The use “also implies a passive endorsement,” said Burda, who added that the conference’s non-profit charter prevents it from making any political endorsements.

Here’s what the snapchat filter in question would’ve looked like:

Now, here are the two logos in comparison:

So, it’s pretty easy to see why the Big 12 would be a bit concerned here. Additionally, the SEC is also “monitoring” a situation with Cruz using their logo as a base for another snapchat filter. So basically, Ted Cruz has managed to draw the ire of the two biggest college sports conferences under the Mason-Dixon line. Way to go, Cruz!

It’s understandable for politicians to try to relate to their constituency through football, but you can’t just lift logo design like that. Either way, it should be interesting to see if these candidates will continue to use college sports logos in order to help get their name out there, or if they’ll stop once the conferences decide to get serious and lawyer up.