Grand Ole Opry - Commercialization

Commercialization

Management has been very conscious of the need to enforce its trademark on the name "Grand Ole Opry" and limit use to members of the Opry and products associated with or licensed by it. However, it lost a legal case against the owners of a small, now-defunct Nashville record label calling itself Opry Records. The record company's attorneys successfully argued that WSM's management indeed owned the rights to the words Grand Ole Opry, but only in that order and combination, but no more owned the word "opry" in isolation than they owned "grand" or "ole". It allowed a plethora of small-time country music shows to label themselves as Oprys of one sort or another; such as the Bell Witch Opry, Carolina Opry, Ozark Opry, Current River Opry and Kentucky Opry. (Much the same thing happened when the Coca-Cola Company failed to trademark the term "cola.") The Grand Ole Opry has no association with any other "Opry" establishment.

In September 2004, it was announced that the Grand Ole Opry had contracted for the first time with a "presenting sponsor" and would henceforth be known as "the Grand Ole Opry presented by Cracker Barrel." Cracker Barrel, a long-time Opry sponsor headquartered in nearby Lebanon, Tennessee, is a chain of country-themed restaurants and gift shops whose market overlaps that of the Opry to a great extent. In 2009, Humana, Inc., an insurance company headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, took over as the presenting sponsor of the Opry.