Forward of its Netflix premiere on Feb. 27, Mindy Kaling‘s new sports activities comedy collection Operating Level is already making waves.
On Thursday, Pepperdine College introduced a trademark infringement lawsuit in opposition to Netflix and Warner Bros., accusing the present of “misappropriation of the college’s model” with the emblem for its fictional Los Angeles-based basketball group The Waves.
In response to a assertion shared by the Malibu-based Christian college, the group emblem within the present “bears a placing resemblance in branding to Pepperdine’s longstanding and well-known Waves athletics program. The collection prominently includes a group identify, colours, and different indicia which can be similar or extremely just like Pepperdine’s, in addition to the quantity ’37’, which is carefully related to the college’s historical past and mascot.”
The varsity additionally has “deep considerations about a number of the collection’ themes, which embody express content material, substance use, nudity, and profanity—parts which can be inconsistent with Pepperdine’s Christian values and repute.”
Pepperdine claims the college has made a number of makes an attempt to resolve the problem amicably with Netflix and Warner Bros., however each “have refused to take any remediating motion.”
Created by Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen, Operating Level stars Kate Hudson as Isla Gordon, who’s appointed president of her household’s skilled basketball franchise, the Los Angeles Waves, after a scandal forces her brother to resign. Bold and infrequently neglected, Isla should show to her skeptical brothers, the board, and the bigger sports activities group that she was the proper selection for the job.
