When news broke that a deal was struck between Bose and the NFL for the electronics company to become the official headphones supplier of the NFL, it was widely assumed that players were no longer allowed to use their Beats headphones.
This belief was strengthened last week when Colin Kaepernick was fined a whopping $10,000 for wearing "unauthorized equipment" aka Beats Headphones during his post-game press conference. However, when players throughout the league took the field this morning for warmups, sure enough, we saw the Beats' lowercase b logo on their headphones. So, what's going on here?
It turns out that Beats headphones are not completely banned from the NFL. The league's rule stipulates that players can wear headphones with competing logos to Bose while getting off the bus, into the stadium and on the field for warmups before they get into uniform. However, during media interviews, players can wear any brand of headphones as long as the logo is covered up, which would explain Kaepernick's fine last week. The rule further says that players a cannot wear unapproved logos up until 90 minutes after the game.
So, while Bose headphones are now the official headphones of the NFL, players like Richard Sherman, Cam Newton and Tom Brady can continue to wear their Beats headphones, as long as they are within NFL rules.
[ESPN]
