Let’s thank Paul Zeise in his latest Q&A for resolving a story I and many others had fallen for regarding the script Pitt logo.

Q: Who owns the trademark to the Pitt script and thus gets the royalties from sales of merchandise bearing it — the University or the athletic department?

ZEISE: Well, it took me less time to read the Old Testament than this question, which I believed I paraphrased to what the fundamental issue is — to settle a long running debate between two factions of Pitt fans regarding why Pitt does not go back to the script. I forwarded this question to the marketing guru of Pitt, Chris Ferris, because I have no idea why this issue is causing such a stir. Anyway, the response I got was very thorough but also complex (which I would expect because Chris has forgotten more about the marketing industry than most people will ever know), but again doing my best to paraphrase it: (1) the Athletic Department gets the royalties from all sales of Pitt script stuff and in fact already sells the stuff online and in the university stores, so it currently is reaping the benefits from sales of it. (2) Because of that, it is an incorrect theory/ assumption that the reason Pitt won’t go back to it is because the university owns the trademark and thus the athletic department wouldn’t be able to benefit from the merchandising of it. That’s just not true. (3) (And this is the marketing guy spin, not mine, so e-mail them to argue, not me) Pitt is now ranked 37th out of 118 schools in the Collegiate Licensing Company Consortium — a few years back (presumably when script was it) Pitt was not even ranked. Apparently that’s all due to the logo changes and not because Pitt from 2000-05 had a top 15 basketball team and a very successful football program, whereas the Panthers pretty much stunk the joint up in both sports during the 1990’s.

But there you have it, hopefully this answer has settled the dispute in a peaceful manner and didn’t cause any states to secede from the union.

Fans for Script should rejoice.