An apology to the San Diego Seals

This post has absolutely nothing to do with lacrosse.

About a year ago, I was trying to come up with a good and original name for a new San Diego sports media company. An acquaintance that was familiar with my predicament called me one morning and excitedly told me about what he thought was an incredible opportunity.

“You should call your company LFGSD. What San Diego sports fan wouldn’t absolutely love that? Not to mention, it doesn’t have to be limited to just sports. Let’s fucking go, San Diego! It’s perfect!”

But wait, I said, I thought I remembered hearing a story about this. Didn’t the San Diego Seals get the LFGSD trademark? Surely, I wasn’t trying to piss off any billionaires with my choice of names.

“That’s the best part! If you look up the trademark, it is listed as DEAD/ABANDONED! I don’t think anyone else knows about this! I’m guessing the Seals gave it up, either on purpose or by accidentally forgetting about it. I have a trademark lawyer I can put you in touch with that can help you acquire the name and then you’re off and running. Imagine the merch!”

Well, things went a different way. First off, I don’t have what one might call “trademark lawyer money”. I also didn’t feel like sticking my thumb into the eye of the San Diego Seals (and their aforementioned billionaire owner) while attempting to glom onto something that still feels spiritually like it belongs to the 2022 San Diego Padres.

And that was the whole story, until I told this story to a friend of mine recently for no good reason. He decided to do some digging, probably out of boredom/curiosity. Here’s what he found:

The LFGSD trademark is still, in fact, listed with a status of “DEAD/ABANDONED”. That has not changed since December of 2024.

Also, there is a response from the trademark office that is publicly available, showing that the San Diego Seals actually applied to have their trademark renewed (after one year of use) and had their application denied. And the trademark office even gives a reason! I love government transparency.

But wait….what the hell is THAT?

At first, I was worried about what the heck it could mean. Why was the name of my Substack also the name of image files being sent to the Seals along with the denial of their trademark application?

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Well, it turns out they were denied on the basis of LFGSD being a “widely-used commonplace message”. The same response I imagine I would get if I tried to trademark the word “beach”, although a bit less obvious.

Here’s a screenshot of a portion of the denial (here’s the full thing if you’re curious):

Okay, but how does Bandwagon Beach factor into this?

Ohhhhhhhh, right. I wrote about the phrase “Let’s fucking go, San Diego” back in 2022 when the Padres players were squeezing it into celebratory postgame interviews and wearing LFGSD on t-shirts. And, like a butterfly flapping its wings, that was used as evidence by a government agency two years later in their denial of the Seals’ renewal application.

So, to the Seals, I am sorry. I promise I wasn’t trying to get involved in your legal affairs, nor was I try to yuck your yum.

The good news is, since it is apparently a widely-used commonplace message, you and me and everyone else can feel free to use it whenever the moment feels right. Not even the Padres can stop us.

I’m gonna let one off right now just to make sure that masked gunmen from the trademark office don’t come rappelling down my chimney to punish me for it:

LET’S FUCKING GO, SAN DIEGO!

Yeah, that feels good.