Call Em (OPINION)

Stacy Lewis could barely fall out of bed without hearing the Hog Call during her recent appearance at the LPGA Tour event at Pinnacle Country Club.

Impromptu Hog Calls, we are told, have erupted during concerts at the new Walmart AMP.

Farmers throughout the land are calling their pigs.

Aren’t those trademark infringements? Are royalties owed to the University of Arkansas?

The questions are in jest, of course, but it is said in light of news that the chant associated with the Arkansas Razorbacks since the 1920s — “Wooo Pig Sooie” — is now sound trademarked with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Little Rock-based attorney Harold Evans, the university’s outside counsel, registered the cheer with the trademark office. Rest assured, he says, in these particular cases, and no doubt many others, there was no unauthorized use of the Hog Call.

 “The University of Arkansas encourages fans to call the Hogs as often and anywhere as possible,” he joked.

What the trademark boils down to is unauthorized commercial use. One example being a barbecue restaurant running a television commercial featuring the Hog Call as part of the advertising for its products.

The rub (pun intended) being there may be another barbecue restaurant that is an official corporate sponsor of the UA. A competitor’s use of the Hog Call may lessen the corporate tie-in to the university the other barbecue restaurant has already achieved — and paid for.

Fair point. We can see where owning the sound trademark could be of use to the UA in an isolated instance. I am eagerly anticipating the UA’s first interpretation of a trademark violation.

But for conjecture, consider a theory: The act was a ploy for headlines.

It can be hard to keep the spotlight throughout the summer, but the UA devised a way: a superfluous trademark of the Hog Call.

Superfluous, but with an effective endgame. The UA says this is the first collegiate cheer to be trademarked, a claim published nationally — from The Washington Post to Forbes to Sports Illustrated — and even discussed on National Public Radio.

Let’s just hope Evans is right and there’s no crackdown on non-commercial, spontaneous Hog Calls that clearly spring from a love of all things Razorback. Frankly, we welcome as many as we can get, considering the orchestrated, in-game “fan interactions” seem to be replacing the repeated “Wooo Pig Sooies” that helped make Arkansas such a unique program in the first place.