LaVar Ball and Big Baller Brand was already accused of stealing the logo on Lonzo Ball’s ZO2 signature shoe, now a foreign company claims their whole brand was ganked.
Late Thursday night a Buenos Aires-based company called Baller Brand posted an image on its Instagram of the Ball family wearing their Big Baller Brand clothes, accusing them of stealing their brand name and calling it their own.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUQkNFXDxDm/
Here’s what the Instagram caption said, emojis included.
Attention‼️???? @Lavar @Zo @Melo @Gelo @bigballerbrand are a thief‼️
He stole our brand name a few years ago and added “Big” to his brand name.
We are an Argentinian?? Brand stablished in 2006, this guy who wasn’t creative enough to create his own brand name just took ours.?
Share it to show the world who is the original @ballerbrand ?
In Ball We Trust.
It really does seem like the company—which has 10.4k followers on Instagram — just found out about LaVar Ball, as this is their only post in English. Hours earlier they were just posting images of people wearing their gear.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUF6H4GjAzn/
Though they definitely wanted to get our attention—the caption of their Ball family photo includes a mention of many major American basketball sites. Clearly they’re upset about all the buzz LaVar Ball is getting with something they claim to be their own.
The company’s website isn’t nearly as slick as Big Baller Brand’s, and they haven’t even bothered to fill out the “about us” section of their online store platform. Their regular website is a bit more put together, though it is still running on Flash. It does include a long list of places in South America where you can buy Baller Brand apparel.
Baller Brand also appears to have a brick and mortar store in Buenos Aires, so they definitely have been around for a while in Argentina. It’s even on Yelp and their Facebook page is verified. And in case you were curious, their first Instagram post is from September of 2014.
As far as the quality of the product, it’s hard to say. The aesthetic is a bit all over the place, though I suppose that’s a good thing if you’re picky and don’t find their street-influenced or team-based gear appealing. And for the record, they do not appear to have a designated women’s section.
They also sell their own version of a Team USA jersey, just like your local Steve and Barry used to do. Here’s their LeBron James jersey.
A quick scroll through their Instagram reveals that the company has done some borrowing themselves. Here’s a “tribute” to Allen Iverson that mimics the Philadelphia 76ers logo while he was on the team.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSjjl7EjAUb/
And here’s another borrowed concept, clearly cribbing the Team USA aesthetic.
https://www.instagram.com/p/4Dc5eTTC4p/
Stolen name or not, there’s definitely reason for Baller Brand to be upset about LaVar’s takeover of the name. Searching “Baller Brand” on any search engine on multiple devices for me garnered zero results for the Argentinean company. Big Baller Brand was all that came up.
Perhaps LaVar knew about Baller Brand, or maybe he was completely unaware there was a similarly-named company lurking in Argentina. Either way, we will soon find out whether he cares or not.
