[NewsPoster]

Speaking at the University of California's "Global Conversation" conference on Wednesday, Beats co-founder and Apple executive Jimmy Iovine offered his spin on the recent NFL deal with rival Bose to make the latter's headphones the "official" brand of the football league, and the fact that many players seem to prefer the Beats brand. He told the audience that players, both under contract to endorse Beats and not, have taken to taping over the Beats logo on their own pairs rather than wear the endorsed brand.

"What happened there, you have a tech company that's culturally inept," said Iovine, speaking about Bose. "There's no one at the company that said, 'If you ban [Beats], you're going to look bad to the young people, and they're going to look like superheros ... you're going to make [Beats] look like the underdog," Iovine said. He expressed his appreciation that players considered the Beats headphones more to their taste, and added that the new tendency of players to black out the logo but keep wearing the headphones was not a move prompted by Beats.

"We didn't do anything, and now the players are going out and putting black tape on our logo," Iovine said. "It's like, I can't believe I'm this lucky. I feel like sending them the tape." He explained that Beats had gotten "millions of dollars' worth of publicity" out of the coverage and controversy, particularly after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was fined $10,000 for wearing a pink pair of Beats headphones at a post-game conference in defiance of the ban on players being seen immediately after or before games with any other brand but Bose. Kaepernick later noted that he was supporting breast cancer awareness month by wearing that particular pair.

The NFL has pointed out that the ban on all other headphone brands being seen on players was its own policy, not a move demanded by Bose. The NFL has for decades sold "exclusive" and "official" brand deals to sponsors, and Bose is just the latest in a line of such endorsements. Apple appeared to react to the ban by removing Bose headphones from its Apple Stores, undoubtedly hurting the company significantly and giving more shelf space to Beats -- though plans to do this were likely underway long before the NFL ban and Kaepernick incident because well-known.

Iovine happened to mention that Beats originally got started when he and Dr. Dre happened to run into each other on a beach. Dre mentioned that his lawyer had suggested Dre start a line of sneakers, but Iovine persuaded him that headphones and speakers would be a more natural fit, given his background in music and production. He called the Apple purchase of Beats a "smart move," comparing it to the hiring of Dame Angela Ahrendts as the Senior Vice President of Retail.

[msuper69]

"He told the audience that players both under contract to endorse Beats and not have taken to taping over the Beats logo on their own pairs rather than wear the endorsed brand."

You guys don't proof read, do you?

[Charles Martin]

We do. The sentence is grammatically fine as is, but I'll throw in some commas to help you out.

[Insaneboy]

and this one "incident because well-known" I think that should be became, not because.

[climacs]

I'm pretty sure Sony gave all World Cup players a free set of Sony headphones when a similar endorsement deal-related ban on competitors was instituted for the World Cup. Did Bose not do this? I realize that's a lot of money (roughly 2000 sets of headphones) but it costs a lot less to do that than to look foolish like this and have your expensive product endorsement deal backfire on you.

[climacs]

what Beats (and Apple) gets and their competitors don't, is that headphones can be and have become every bit as much a fashion statement as a brand of smartphone or clothing. Bose, Harmon-Kardon, etc provide superior sound quality than your typical Beats headphones (yes, we all know they are bass-heavy) but Beats knows that headphones are conspicuous consumption. This is exactly like the days when PC makers were happily churning out dull gray boxes that can't be told apart, and Apple came along with the iMac. This time the audio nerds are all about the boring black headphones that sound great, but most people are not audio nerds.

[Spheric Harlot]

The audio nerds know not to buy Bose.

"No highs, no lows - must be Bose!"

[iphonerulez]

If I were an NFL player I would certainly put black tape over my Beats headphones if they were what I had been wearing. I darn sure wouldn't change because the league wanted me to. I'd be willing to give some Bose headphones a chance of hearing if they sounded decent, but otherwise I shouldn't be forced into using any specific brand.