The NFL ban on Beats by Dre headphones is fine with Beats by Dre co-founder Jimmy Iovine, who is loving the free publicity his company has received in recent weeks.
Jimmy Iovine thrilled NFL banned Beats headphones
Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine has no problem with the NFL’s ban on non-Bose headphones.
USA TODAY Sports
The NFL signed a deal with Bose in the spring to be the league's "official headphones," meaning that players could not wear headphones by any other company while on camera during the game, and in the pregame and postgame interviews. Beats employs numerous pro athletes as endorsers, including San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman.
Kaepernick was fined $10,000 last week for wearing Beats headphones at a post-game press conference, and then responded by putting tape over the Beats logo on his headphones when addressing reporters after the team's win on Monday night.
Iovine was thrilled about the exposure and even joked that he should supply the tape to the players, via BusinessInsider.com:
“We didn’t do anything, and now the players are going out and putting black tape on our logo,” Iovine said during a talk at University of Southern California’s Global Conversation. “It’s like, I can’t believe I’m this lucky,” he said, laughing. “I feel like sending them the tape.”
Iovine went on to criticize Sony and Bose as being out of touch with pop culture, and was clearly glad for the increased brand exposure resulting from his competitors’ lack of cultural awareness.
Given the buzz that Kaepernick’s fine and his subsequent masking of the logo have generated over the last few weeks, this appears to be a win-win situation for Beats, which has built a reputation as the cool headphone in this niche market.
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