Jimmy Butler is trying to trademark his coffee hustle from the NBA bubble
Jimmy Butler hasn’t just been proving his worth on the court with the Miami Heat in the NBA bubble. He’s also shown he has quite the business acumen, and it’s all thanks to one French press coffee maker in his Disney World hotel room.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben revealed via Twitter on Thursday that Butler had filed three trademarks for the “Big Face Coffee” business that has made headlines in the bubble.
Jimmy Butler has filed 3 new trademarks for the coffee business that he launched from his hotel room in the NBA bubble.
The filings, all made on September 4th, cost Butler $4,125 in USPTO fees. #bigfacecoffee #jimmybutler#NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/JajhiOzT4Q— Josh Gerben (@JoshGerben) September 17, 2020
Per Gerben, the trademark applications for “Big Face Coffee” and his “ No I.O.U.’s” slogan were filed Sept. 4 and include claims for general apparel (a no-brainer), houseware including mugs and cups (even more of a no-brainer) and food and beverage categories including coffee (duh), standard coffeehouse foods, produce and other non-coffee beverages.
The total cost of the applications is apparently $4,125 in just filing fees, to say nothing of the attorneys hired to submit such applications.
Jimmy Butler’s coffee hustle is a classic NBA bubble story
With hundreds of elite professional athletes confined to just a few Disney World properties for multiple months, things were bound to get weird in the NBA bubble. Butler’s coffee business is one such story.
Once in the bubble, Butler revealed that he was selling coffee to his fellow players out of his hotel room at $20 a pop, an obscene mark-up, but also one the players can easily afford. Soon after, a picture of Butler’s set-up reached social media and soon gained Butler fame.
Per the sign, Butler can make any number of types of coffee, but don’t expect a discount for getting a small. It’s all the same price at “Big Face Coffee.”
So apparently Jimmy Butler wasn't kidding about the up-charge for the use of his French Press at Disney. (From Meyers Leonard's Twitter): pic.twitter.com/1s1em6flRG
— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) August 15, 2020
Butler’s trademark filings indicate that the Heat star is planning to leverage his little business into something even bigger once the NBA season is over. We’ll see how many takers he has in the non-bubble world.
Butler isn’t even the only NBA player trying to turn a bubble story into a trademark, as Los Angeles Clippers guard Lou Williams also filed an application for his new “Lemon Pepper Lou” nickname. Maybe there’s some room for a little cross-promotion there.
More from Yahoo Sports:
