When fans tweet about the Utah Jazz, the post almost always is accompanied by the same hashtag: #TakeNote.
But for a while Tuesday it appeared a media giant had taken over the Jazz’s hashtag. Apple, maker of the ubiquitous iPhone and other such products, started the day using #TakeNote to promote its new iPad and iPad Pro.
Did Apple just steal a piece of Jazz DNA?
In a meeting with media Tuesday ahead of the start of the regular season, Jazz owner Ryan Smith was teased: “I thought you and Tim Cook were supposed to be friends.”
Smith asked rhetorically, “We’re not?” before then expressing some confusion about the #TakeNote heist.
”Yeah, I don’t know — it was weird. I saw that when you all did,” Smith said. “I’ll look into it.”
The play on words has been the NBA team’s official hashtag and slogan for several years (though the team briefly went away from it in 2019 before bringing it back a season later). When someone tweets it during the NBA season, a Jazz note emoji auto-populates at the end.
Apple’s hashtag replaced the Jazz note with the brand’s multicolored logo, turning hosts of old Donovan Mitchell hot takes and Rudy Gobert highlights into unwitting Apple advertisements.
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted Tuesday using the hashtag to which the official Utah Jazz Twitter account noted, “well, this is awkward.”
The team’s first tweet was latered deleted, however, and replaced with a more welcoming response: “Happy to have everyone taking note”.
There remains the chance this is all part of a more coordinated effort. For what it’s worth, Smith and Cook are friends who have collaborated to build houses for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Encircle.
And by the end of the day, the Jazz note was once again associated with the hashtag — adding a touch of Jazz to all of those Apple tweets.
Tribune reporter Eric Walden contributed to this report.
