Nike's New Odell Beckham Jr. Logo Sure Is Something

By Joseph Myers

No matter how many catches he makes or touchdowns he scores, Odell Beckham Jr. always figures to be a polarizing athlete, especially since he will likely play his entire professional football career for a big market team. With 313 grabs and 38 scores in four seasons, the New York Giants star wide receiver has made fans and stat geeks happy, but he has also given Schadenfreude practitioners some material, too, from his criticized coiffure to his injury woes to his mentions in trade rumors. The naysayers have a new target, as Nike recently filed to trademark a personalized logo for the 25-year-old, and let's just say it was not warmly received.

With so many athletes and businesses looking to emblems, logos and symbols to help distinguish themselves, the quest to come up with something original can be difficult. A visit to Twitter shows that Nike and Beckham have indeed teamed up to produce something unique, alright:

JUST IN: Nike has filed to trademark this new "OBJ" logo for Odell Beckham Jr. pic.twitter.com/I9MeYWT9B0

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 7, 2018

Naturally, Twitter had jokes:

Big congrats to Odell on becoming the opening letter of a fairy tale printed in a leatherbound volume 600 years ago https://t.co/UW9I5FK94k

— Drew Magary (@drewmagary) May 7, 2018

https://twitter.com/thebryaan_/status/993532392370417664

https://twitter.com/PPE_Commenter/status/993537939371122695

These reactions (and many others from a roundup by USA Today) had me laughing at the relentless snark and apt comparisons. I tried to make like the critical masses by joking to colleague Tom Higgins that the logo resembles a record adapter, the mention of which took me back a few decades and made me giddy to buy some vinyl. Music appreciation aside, Nike apparently feels the artwork will complement the skills that Beckham displays while running routes for the G-Men.

Along with the adapter, the symbol led me to recall other logos that have hidden or not-so-obvious components, as there is little chance anyone would know upon first inspecting it that it is supposed to represent Beckham. The difference is that those logos, when done well, are clever. This one is less so. However, if Beckham approves of it, I will try to curtail my condemnation. After all, the Giants are coming off a 3-13 season that saw them finish with the league’s second-worst mark while our Philadelphia Eagles, one of their division foes, will enter this campaign as the reigning Super Bowl champions. Beckham has a reputation as an eccentric performer, so perhaps the ridiculed symbol is perfect for him, even though he and Nike’s brass might be the only people who end up thinking so.