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Brooks Running is leading the charge against a controversial Olympics rule

Daniel Roberts

On Sunday night at the Rio Olympics, in the 100-meter track final, “The man, the myth, the running legend lived up to his name that we dare not mention.” That’s according to a summary of the action by the @rule40 Twitter account.

The summary is referring to Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, of course. But the account is showing faux deference to Rule 40, the US Olympic Committee’s restrictions against brands that are not official Olympics sponsors. While the account can be humorous, its overall tone is quite serious: non-official sponsors are angry about the rule, and are fighting back.

Who’s behind the account? The Berkshire Hathaway-owned sneaker company Brooks Running, based in Seattle, which sponsors 12 athletes competing at this year’s Olympics. Brooks CEO Jim Weber says Rule 40 must change.

In addition to the @rule40 Twitter handle, Brooks owns the rule40.com domain name, and is using both to wage a PR war against the USOC.

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Under Rule 40 guidelines, non-official sponsors cannot refer to the Olympics in any marketing, advertising, or social media during a blackout period that begins nine days before the opening ceremony and ends three days after the closing ceremony. During the blackout, athletes can post about their sponsors if they don’t also mention the Olympics in the same post, a catch that is new this year as part of a change to the rule. (In the past, the athletes couldn’t post about their non-Olympics sponsors at all during the blackout, and non-Olympics sponsors could not post about their Olympic athletes at all during the blackout.)

The rule is unpopular with non-Olympics sponsors and with many athletes, but it is rooted in the USOC’s special heightened trademark protection from Congress. And the USOC argues that it must police social media so vigorously because if it relaxed its rules there would be less value in its official sponsorships, which big consumer brands like Coca-Cola and Panasonic have reportedly spent $200 million on.

It was the Wall Street Journal that first outed Brooks as the company behind the anti-Rule 40 campaign, reporting in July that the domain name was registered to the director of sports marketing at Brooks. Brooks, the WSJ wrote, had gone “undercover.”

Brooks CEO Jim Weber confirmed the role Brooks has in the anti-Rule 40 campaign, and expanded on it to Yahoo Finance.

“We launched rule40.com to draw attention to the restrictions it places on athletes and their ability to market themselves during the highest profile time of their running careers,” he says.

Brooks is not alone: Oiselle, a women’s athletic apparel brand also based in Seattle (it’s pronounced “wa-ZELL”), has joined in the effort. Its CEO, Sally Bergesen, has been an outspoken opponent of Rule 40, using her Twitter account to criticize and appearing on television. (See above Yahoo Finance video for more.) Bergesen’s hope is to spur change for next time, in 2020—change such as allowing track & field athletes to display the name and logo of a sponsor on their uniform. (They currently cannot, while swimmers and golfers, for example, can, which critics see as arbitrary.)

As the LA Times reported, the rule has led to a lot of snark. For example, Oiselle on its official corporate blog began referring to the Olympics as “the big event in the southern hemisphere.”

The Rule 40 campaign, Weber cautions, is not about Brooks. It is about the athletes. “We wanted to bring forward the facts of the situation that so many athletes find themselves in and present them in a playful, tongue-in-cheek fashion… [and] highlight its negative impact. We hope it’s a good start to a bigger conversation. We believe the rules have to change in order for athletes to benefit from the years they invest in their athletic careers. We think Rule 40 should change.”

Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns Brooks, had no comment for this story; a spokesperson says that Weber, as Brooks CEO, makes the decisions at Brooks.

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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite. Sportsbook is our recurring sports business video series.

Read more Olympics coverage from Yahoo Finance:

Why the biggest business story of the Rio Olympics is a marketing rule change

Olympic golf returns after 112 years at a crucial time for the sport

“There has never been a great Olympics” says former editor of Sports Illustrated

How to follow the Rio Olympics from your smartphone

Here’s what the stock market does during the Summer Olympics