Tim Tebow Trademarks Tebowing

NFL phenom throws up a legal bomb by trademarking the famous verb that both celebrated and mocked his habit of praying on the football field

Tim Tebow is putting his stamp on "Tebowing."

The New York Jets quarterback is now the legal owner of the buzzword named after him, which gained global recognition thanks to Tebow's propensity on the football field for kneeling in prayer.

Per Deadspin, Tebow took out the trademark not because he wanted to make money off "Tebowing," but rather because he wanted to prevent others from profiting off of his good name.

Mostly, that means online T-shirt vendors like TebowingGear.com, which has made a cottage industry out of selling shirts with the neologism.

In fact, the site's owner was one of two people who filed paperwork seeking to trademark the word with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The other was Jared Kleinstein, the guy who started the "Tebowing" craze in the first place over a year ago when he uploaded pictures of people following Tim's lead by kneeling in prayer to his Facebook page. He then created Tebowing.com which, natch, ended up selling his own T-shirts.

However, according to the report, one of the two gave up trying to trademark the term while the other actually responded in court, but the application went nowhere as Tebow's lawyers filed an application through his marketing agency, XV Enterprises.

Now that Tebow controls "Tebowing," the trademark ensures he has the official right to make money using the word in all sorts of products—from T-shirts, hats, DVDs, CDs, watches, pins and cufflinks to menswear, womenswear and children's clothing.

You name it, the NFL star's got it. And we're pretty sure the Almighty would approve.