Author Of "Buctober" Drops T-Shirt Marketing In Face Of Pirates Opposition
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's October and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in the play-offs, so somehow it seems natural to say "Buctober," a word that has become a popular signature phrase and social media hashtag.
But where did it come from?
"It kind of just hit me -- Buctober made sense," Doug Andiorio, of the South Side, told KDKA money editor Jon Delano.
Andiorio, a Massachusetts native, was a student at Point Park University in 2007 when he got the idea after going to many Pirates games.
"We would go to games lots of times and they never were successful," he recalled. "You always just imagined what would this place be like with 40,000 screaming fans in October and a rallying cry, and I just thought of it."
While writing a blog called Buctober.com and graduating from school in 2011, Andiorio filed for a trademark on his word, hoping to market t-shirts with his made-up word.
But before the trademark was approved, the Pirates organization filed an objection and Andiorio got a call from lawyers in New York City.
"I felt kind of intimidated at the time," he said.
The Pirates argued that Buctober was too close to Bucs and would make people think the t-shirts were Pirate-approved.
After a lot of back and forth, Andiorio decided to withdraw his application, but patent and trademark attorney Gwen Acker Wood thinks he might have won.
"I would say this is a strong case in favor of the applicant," Acker Wood says.
But Andiorio says he just wasn't up to dealing with lawyers.
Although he's not selling his Buctober t-shirts as planned, he will wear one of his own to the playoffs.
"I'm going to be there tonight. No doubt about it. No doubt about it," he said.
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