Florida Gators force Fort Myers Miracle to alter promotion
By Jeremy Fowler
The Orlando Sentinel
Initials aren’t nearly as fun.
Just ask the Fort Myers Miracle baseball club, which changed Wednesday night’s “What Would Tim Tebow Do?” promotion to “What Would T.T. Do?” because of the big, bad University of Florida.
Florida sent the Minnesota Twins’ minor-league affiliate a cease-and-desist letter for using the name of a student-athlete.
The Miracle still gave out “Promise” rings at the gate and scheduled a man named Timothy Tebow to walk on water on top of the dugout, according to a Miracle operator. Media-relations director Gary Sharp was unavailable Wednesday night while serving as the public-address announcer.
“The University of Florida knows who we are now,” Sharp told the Naples News. “Jeremy Foley and Urban Meyer were copied on the e-mail.”
Florida recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Web site Teebows.com, which used Tebow’s name and the school’s trademark to promote women’s underwear.
Tebow doesn’t mind others using his name for a good cause.
“If it brings a negative connotation, obviously I don’t like it too much,” Tebow said. “So far, different things that have been sold have been OK.”