The new owners of the XFL – Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson, RedBird Capital – collectively known as Alpha Acquico (Alpha Opco), have filed to trademark the phrase made famous by the first iteration of the league, He Hate Me.
Rod Smart was the player who decided he wanted to put that on his jersey, per the rules at the time, and it immediately caught fire. Even when Smart made the transition to the NFL, it followed him.
Per trademark attorney Josh Gerben, Vince McMahon’s second try at the league had also filed for the trademark, but it was set to be abandoned after the bankruptcy.
The mission – it seems – is to have a clothing line with the phrase, taking full advantage of something that helped the original XFL become so well-known.
In 2004, Smart himself had filed for a mark of the phrase, but it became abandoned in 2007.
According to the USPTO the XFL, under the WWE assignor name, applied for the mark in 2016, and had it assigned to Alpha Entertainment in 2018.
In August of 2020, the original Alpha Ent transferred the assignment to the new owners. Since no Statement of Use was ever filed, and Alpha had reached their limit (5) of extensions to file, a new filing for the mark was made on 2/10/2021.
Whether they will use it is not known, but it is still a relevant “brand”, and since it’s associated with the XFL, it would make sense to continue to have the ability to do so if the opportunity presented itself.
