Cleveland Browns/YouTube
Over the past few years, marketing departments for NFL teams have gone to great lengths to hype up the release of the annual schedule, but the team that whipped up the bowling video the Cleveland Browns released on Thursday has been accused of ripping it off.
The reveal of the schedules for the NFL season hasn’t always been an elaborate affair, but that changed courtesy of the franchises that realized they could harness the announcements for some free publicity by figuring out how to go viral during a sleepy portion of the offseason.
As a result, it’s now become standard practice for teams to put together some fairly elaborate videos to hype up their slate of games. I’d argue the Chargers once again reigned supreme this year by abandoning the anime format they embraced for a couple of seasons by using The Sims to fire shots at other teams, but that was far from the only highlight.
I can’t say I was blown away by the bowling video the Cleveland Browns decided to go with, but I did appreciate the decision to recruit the man, myth, and bowling legend who is Pete Weber to make an appearance toward the end.
However, it looks like the Browns may have been beaten to the punch.
On Thursday, a company called Mugsy Jeans strongly implied the Browns ripped off an ad they released last year that not only starred Weber but saw him strike an identical pose while lying in front of a lane at the same bowling alley where the brand’s spot was filmed.
Did the @Browns just steal our commercial?! 🧐That's not very nice. We knew you were bad at football, but you're bad at marketing too?! Yikes.
In order to settle this, we request the @NFL buys 1 million pairs of Mugsy Jeans.
Your move, @nflcommish. pic.twitter.com/E0OtheWXhH
— Mugsy (@mugsyjeans) May 16, 2024
Weber also delivered his iconic “Who do you think you are? I am!” catchphrase in both of the videos, although it’s a bit hard to argue there was any plagiarism involved in that case when you consider that sort of comes with the territory when you tap him to film something.
At the end of the day, neither the Browns nor Mugsy Jeans were really pushing the envelope, so while I’d err on the side of coincidence, I can see why the latter has a problem with the former.