Michigan State was one of the Big Ten’s worst teams last season.
Its nightmare season— which essentially fell apart when the school fired coach Mel Tucker in late September amid sexual harassment allegations— ended with the team going 4-8 overall and 2-7 in the Big Ten.
Penn State was the last team Michigan State played, and PSU drubbed Sparty 42-0 on Black Friday at Detroit’s Ford Field.
Two of Michigan State’s many low points in 2023 came Oct. 21 in East Lansing. It was bad enough that Michigan State lost 49-0, worse that the loss dropped it to 2-5 and worse still that the loss was at the hands of rival Michigan at home.
Worse still was something that happened before the game that had nothing to do with any of the program’s players or coaches but still was something Michigan State— and everybody else— would rather forget.
In what should have been an ordinary set of trivia questions posted on the Spartan Stadium Jumbotron more than an hour and 20 minutes before kickoff, one of the questions displayed an image of Adolf Hitler which accompanied a question about where the former German Chancellor was born and ironically had the words “we never drop the ball” on the LED Board directly under the Jumbotron.
What’s up with @MSU_Football putting Hitler on the scoreboard during a pre game trivia game. Just wrong. pic.twitter.com/ZKeYIirAIL
— Jeff Kowalsky (@JeffKowalsky) October 21, 2023
This image seemed to be the same as an image displayed during an Oct. 13 episode of “The Quiz Channel” on YouTube.
This received bad publicity last fall and, now, has led to a lawsuit.
Per the Lansing State Journal, the operator of The Quiz Channel, Carsilius Media, the Netherlands-based company that designed the quiz, is suing Michigan State for “unauthorized use of the trivia.”
“In a two-count lawsuit filed Aug. 9 in federal court in Grand Rapids,” the Lansing Journal wrote, “the operator of The Quiz Channel, Carsilius Media, based in the Netherlands, and its owner, Floris van Pallandt, who lives in Colombia, claimed the university engaged in copyright infringement and invasion of privacy – false light. Van Pallandt names the university’s board of ‘regents’ as defendants.”
Van Pallandt’s lawyer, Jeremy Kennedy, claims Michigan State basically threw his client under the bus after it was caught using the content without being authorized to do so.
The Lansing State Journal reported that Michigan State knows about the lawsuit but won’t comment on it, per University spokesperson Mark Bullion.
After the image went viral last fall, Michigan State released a statement that placed blame on the company.
“This is not representative of our institutional values,” the statement read. “MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures for all videoboard content in the future.”
Per the Lansing State Journal, van Pallandt called out Michigan State for this in his lawsuit.
“Once this story became national and international news, Michigan State University’s first response was to attempt to place the blame on Plaintiffs, stating that the use of Hitler in the quiz was the fault of the company who created the quiz,” the lawsuit reads.
Van Pallandt made it clear that his company did create the quiz but said it was never meant to be displayed at a college football game, especially due to what was going on in the world last October.
“Given the timing of the football game, approximately two weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the inclusion of a question regarding Adolf Hitler during the Michigan-Michigan State football game garnered an extremely high degree of attention, most of it negative,” the suit says.
The Lansing State Journal reported that “Van Pallandt is seeking actual damages, to be determined at trial, or a civil fine of $150,000 for the “willful infringement of copyright.” He is also asking that the university be prohibited from using any of The Quiz Channel’s content in the future, that the school pay attorney’s fees, interests and costs, and all other relief to which he is entitled.”
