Brian in Boston

I don't shill for anyone, least of all the billionaires and millionaires occupying the owners' suites and executive offices of professional sports leagues. I simply leave my emotional reactions to what occurs in the world of sports to what transpires on the court, the field, or the rink. As for the business of sports, I elect to discuss that subject from an emotional distance. To my mind, the matter of the National Hockey League's expansion or relocation of franchises to Canadian markets falls firmly within the parameters of the business of sports. Team owners are businessmen. Team owners make decisions concerning their franchises - and the leagues that said teams play in - based upon what they believe will most benefit their own individual bottom line. If that happens to sync with the interests of their fellow owners, so be it. However, it strikes me that said alignment of interests is often a happy accident. Self-interest rules all. Cynical? Sure. What of it? This is the real world... and the age of the gentleman sportsman operating a pro sports team as part of a public trust is, unfortunately, over. Here's the reality. The NHL's reluctance to return top-tier pro ice hockey to Quebec City is considered by the league's owners and executives to be a business decision. The league's owners - all of them, including those who own and operate the Canadian-based franchises - apparently aren't inclined to return NHL hockey to Quebec City. After all, when the league deferred Quebecor's expansion bid for Quebec City in 2016, the vote to do so was unanimous. Why was that last vote unanimous? I'd wager it's because each team's owner asked themselves how returning NHL hockey to Quebec City would concretely benefit their bottom line... and not just in the short-term (a share of the expansion fee), but over the long haul. I further suspect that Geoff Molson shared his concerns for how allowing an ownership group (with ties to an individual he loathed no less) to set up shop just 143 miles from his Montreal Canadiens had the potential to cut into his bottom line. Which had the knock-on effect of causing all of the other NHL owners to ponder how they would want the vote to go down if expansion or relocation to a market within what they perceived to be their team's territory was suddenly on the docket. In short, they each voted with an eye towards protecting what they perceived to be in their own best interest. Might the attitude of current NHL owners towards Quebec City as a market change? Only time will tell. What will it take to change the minds of each owner who voted against returning NHL hockey to Quebec City last go-around? Who knows? However, given that the last vote was - as noted - 30-to-0 against, it would seem there's going to have to be a profound change in owner sentiment on the subject. My take on this issue has nothing to do with shilling. And you won't find me arguing against the notion that the NHL's ownership and executive ranks are chock-full of idiots. That said, if you're waiting for a modern pro sports owner in any league - the NHL most definitely included - to muster up respect for the devoted fans of his/her particular sport... well, that's likely going to be an awfully long wait. You, I, and all of the other sports fans out there are just cogs in the machine that is the modern pro sports industry. "[T]heir disrespect for the game's most devoted fans is getting old." I don't disagree with you, but I fear that you presuming that today's pro sports owners and executives consistently give a fig for such a quaint notion is setting yourself up for disappointment.

I'm not a fan of either the upper left or upper right logos. While I understand what the upper left logo is trying to achieve, I ultimately find it to be the least visually appealing of the design solutions you've opted to try. As for the upper right logo, it strikes me as being a fussier, busier, less effective attempt at achieving what the middle left mark accomplishes. I find the middle left mark's bold simplicity preferable to the outline, gradient star, and stylized 'W' body on display in the upper right logo. That said, I'll reiterate that - in my opinion - the middle right mark is the best of these logos... and by a wide margin.

My thinking was always that it would take a Jeff Bezos/Bill Gates-like figure to pour money into an NHL-to-Winnipeg bid in order for it to come to fruition. Winnipeg local hero Mark Chipman - himself worth a mere half-billion dollars - was able to convince one of the planet's wealthiest people to do just that. Enter media and real estate mogul David Thomson to pony-up some of his $25 billion net worth to make said venture a reality. It strikes me that the primary reasons that the NHL returned to Winnipeg were Mark Chipman's passion and personality, plus David Thomson's mega-wealth. It also didn't hurt that the nearest NHL franchise to Winnipeg was located 391 miles away - as the crow flies - in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Contrast this scenario with that which currently exists in Quebec City. There, Pierre Karl Peladeau has been heading up the crusade to return NHL hockey to La Vieille Capitale. The problem is that Peladeau is a man as arrogant, brash, and confrontational as Mark Chipman is self-effacing. Further, while Peladeau's $1.7 billion worth is certainly nothing to sneeze at, it pales in comparison to the type of financial heft that the likes of David Thomson brings to the table. There's also the pesky fact that Quebec City is located a mere 143 miles from Montreal, home to the third-most-valuable franchise in the NHL, the Montreal Canadiens. Said team is owned by the Molson family and headed up by Geoff Molson. If there's an NHL owner who one could convince me wants to keep Quebec City bereft of top-tier pro hockey, it would be Geoff Molson. For starters, he and his family would like nothing better than to protect their pro sports business from an intra-provincial competitor. Further, Pierre Karl Peladeau and Geoff Molson have loathed one another ever since the former lost the 2009 bidding war to purchase Les Habitants to the latter... and subsequently elected to publicly note his regret that the Canadiens former owner George Gillett had placed financial considerations (the Molson family's money) ahead of true Québécois identity (as represented by Peladeau) when settling upon a buyer for the storied franchise. For these reasons, I'm of the opinion that comparing the NHL's return to Winnipeg with the potential return of a franchise in said circuit to Quebec City is a bit like comparing apples and carburetors. The devil is in the details and there are enough differences between the two scenarios to convince me that NHL owners could find their way to two completely different final outcomes. A final thought. The majority of modern pro sports owners make decisions for a multitude of reasons, but those reasons almost always have the same bottom-line: protecting what they perceive to be their own individual interests. What can appear from the outside to be a unified front arrived at by pragmatic consensus-building can just as easily be 30 or 32 individual owners (depending upon the league) all arriving at the same final decision for different, self-serving reasons.

The last time I checked, and I'll admit that it was probably four or five seasons ago, Delaware North only handled concessions operations management in the home venues of six National Hockey League franchises: the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, and Tampa Bay Lightning. Since then, the company has added UBS Arena and Climate Pledge Arena - respectively, homes to New York Islanders and Seattle Kraken - to their portfolio of concessions management contracts in arena's that house NHL teams. So, the company has concessions operations contracts with eight NHL arenas. That hardly represents a stranglehold on the hearts, minds, and pursestrings of the other NHL franchise-owners. The likes of companies like Aramark and Levy are probably neck-and-neck with Delaware North when it comes to the number of concessions operations contracts they hold at arenas playing host to NHL squads. Far be it from me to sing the praises of the Jacobs Family. Frankly, I think their oversight of the Bruins has bordered on the edge of benign neglect for too much of their ownership tenure in Boston. That said, I think the theory that behind-the-scenes machinations on the part of the Jacobs clan "have been, far and away, the number-one obstacle to" a return of an NHL franchise to Quebec City borders on being the textbook definition of a conspiracy theory. After all, a cursory examination would seem to indicate that at least 75% of the NHL's current ownership groups aren't actively employing Delaware North's services in the realm of concessions operations management. Short of refusing to allow their teams to take the ice against the Bruins in competitive games, I don't know how said team owners are supposed to force the Jacobs family to sell their NHL franchise. Bottom line? It's likely that multiple NHL owners/ownership groups aren't enthusiastic about the prospect of placing a franchise in Quebec City... and, quite possibly, for multiple reasons. Frankly, if a majority of NHL owners were convinced that placing a team in the market would increase the popularity and profitability of the league -and, by extension, their own financial bottom-lines - there would be an NHL franchise taking to the ice at Centre Videotron right now. The notion that a single team's ownership group has had a stooge lackey in the commissioner's office and all of the 29 other NHL ownership groups under their sway on the issue of expansion to Quebec City since May of 1995 seems far-fetched. Is it frustrating that the league has bent over backwards to preserve professional hockey in the Phoenix market while ignoring the presence of a state-of-the-art arena in a hockey-mad municipality for the past 21-plus years? Absolutely. That said, I sincerely doubt that Jeremy Jacobs et fils are orchestrating said NHL boycott of Quebec City.

I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what your Washington Federals will adopt as their primary mark in 1998. That said, the mark in the middle row of the right column strikes me as being - hands down - the best of the logos on display here. Further, I think it represents the logo that an actual Washington Federals franchise would have ultimately settled upon circa 2011 or 2019. I love the way that it pays homage to the flavor of the team's original mark, while simultaneously embracing modern design principals and evoking a timelessly classic aesthetic. The eagle head-and-wing element, as well as said element in combination with the stylized F, make for terrific secondary marks... either one of which could be used as a helmet logo. I also find your reworking of the Hartford Colonials' primary mark (lower left) to be a handsome - and far less cluttered - improvement over what the Connecticut-based United Football League team actually trotted out. Terrific work, as always!

The first of the two logos would not have been out of place in 1998. Compare it to the logos that teams such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles were using in the late 1990s. In fact, I'd argue that the second of your Washington Federals modernizations doesn't represent enough of an evolution from the real-world franchise's original early 1980s logo or your late 1980s update.

Unless your business purpose is to pay homage to the worst overall win-loss percentage in the history of the original USFL, mediocre attendance by said league's standards, and folding after a single season of play, there's really no reason to revive the Pittsburgh Maulers identity.

However, what about the name "Generals" lends itself to using the color red as the primary hue in an American sports team's palette? If the team name is meant to evoke thoughts of American military generals, the better choice would have been a darker shade of blue or green. The preponderance of full dress uniforms for general officers in the branches of the United States military are blue, with shades of green dominating the service dress uniforms of general officers in the Army and Marine Corps. Frankly, red struck me as an odd choice as the primary color for a team dubbed the Generals in the USFL's first incarnation and remains so today. The only thing about the USFL Generals identity - in either version of the league - that communicates the idea of a high-ranking U.S. military officer is the logo. Then again, I haven't seen any blue-and-silver lions or bumped into any purple-and-orange steelworkers in my life, either.

Exotic dance clubs catering to the senescent population?

At an event formally unveiling plans for a new state-of-the-art headquarters for the team, Seattle Sounders FC brass also announced that they're planning to "explore the club's identity" as part of an anniversary celebration dubbed "March to the 50th". Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer Taylor Graham will head up the process which will incorporate talent from Seattle-based creative agency DNA, Seattle-based design studio Column, and New York-based creative studio Athletics. Graham reportedly said that the initiative could result in anything from a complete retooling of the Sounders' visual identity to a logo package that is barely changed.Sounders FC Majority Owner Adrian Hanauer noted that the current Sounders brand is effectively disconnected from the historic brand and that the club's hope is to integrate the two during this process. He apparently stated, "This will ultimately be our fans deciding the look and feel of our marks going forward." https://www.sounderatheart.com/2022/2/16/22936838/seattle-sounders-new-training-facility-explore-new-brand-identity

The Seattle Sounders have unveiled plans for the development of Sounders FC Centre at Longacres, a new state-of-the-art headquarters for the club. The facility - to be built in Renton, Washington - will feature four full-size training fields and 50,000 square feet of space for business, front office, soccer operations, and sports science personnel. Sounders FC Majority Owner Adrian Hanauer, noting that also announced that Sounders FC is planning to "explore the club's identity" as part of an anniversary celebration dubbed "March to the 50th". Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer Taylor Graham will head up the process which will incorporate talent from Seattle-based creative agency DNA, Seattle-based design studio Column, and New York-based creative studio Athletics. Graham reportedly said that the initiative could result in anything from a complete retooling of the Sounders' visual identity to a logo package that is barely changed. Hanauer noted that the current Sounders brand is effectively disconnected from the historic brand and that the club's hope is to integrate the two during this process. He stated, "This will ultimately be our fans deciding the look and feel of our marks going forward."

I love LAFC bringing in Marco Antonio Garces as their Director of Football Operations . As Chief Scout and Director of Football and Sports Sciences at Pachuca, he had a hand in the club's 2016 Liga MX title, its 2017 CONCACAF Champions League crown, and their third place finish at the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup. I also like the fact that he's had stints at Liverpool, Manchester United, and Real Madrid. I can't wait to see what he can do for the further development of the Black and Gold.

To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm, "Your design team was so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." Nike headquarters has become the athletic design equivalent of Isla Nublar. Come to think of it, "Chaos Theory" would be an apropos name for a uniform system in which none of the individual unis - home, road, or alternate - exhibits any truly cohesive design uniformity with one another.

While I know you've said that Utah wasn't in your plans as a USBL market, you might want to rethink that decision. Bees would be a natural as the name for a Salt Lake City-based franchise. After all, Utah is "The Beehive State" and a hive - along with several bees - figures prominently in the state seal. Salt Lake City Bees, Salt Lake Bees, or Utah Bees (alternately, Salt Lake City Swarm, Salt Lake Swarm, or Utah Swarm) would be a great brand.

Agreed. I've long hoped that Inter Miami would wear pink jerseys, black shorts, and black or pink socks for evening matches, with either pink/white/pink or pink/white/white for day games. Either of those ensembles should provide enough contrast with a majority of the other kits in MLS. If an MLS club with a pale jersey option elected to trot out said kit against Inter Miami, then the Herons could have a black jersey at the ready as the centerpiece of their change look.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that a completely needless rebrand has resulted in an entirely soulless team identity.

Considering Rentschler Field as in "the NY market" is a stretch. A site in Fairfield County? Sure. A stadium in East Hartford, Connecticut? No.

New York City FC are the MLS Cup Champions for 2021. Will capturing the league title do anything to advance the club's efforts to get a soccer-specific stadium built in the Big Apple? Expansion side Charlotte FC - Major League Soccer's 28th side - is set to take the pitch in the new year. MLS NEXT Pro - a new professional league providing a link between MLS NEXT and MLS first teams - is set to launch. What other developments will 2022 bring to the pro soccer scene in the United States and Canada?

TOP TIER USFL 2.0 LOGO PACKAGES In my opinion, the Pittsburgh Maulers are the class visual identity of USFL 2.0. Their primary logo strikes me as the best in the league and a vast improvement over that which was sported by their USFL 1.0 counterparts. Meanwhile, their secondary is also terrific. I'd slot the New Orleans Breakers' visual identity just behind that of the Maulers. While I'd give the edge to Pittsburgh's primary mark, that's not to say that the Breakers' main logo isn't a tremendously effective update on the original design that graced USFL 1.0 teams in Boston, New Orleans, and Portland. I also love the simplicity of the Breakers' NOLA secondary mark. The logo packages for these two USFL 2.0 teams are, to my mind, clearly a cut above the rest of the league. MIDDLE TIER USFL 2.0 LOGO PACKAGES Next up, I'd rank the New Jersey Generals' visual identity as the third best in USFL 2.0. The subtle alterations that have been made to individual components of the Generals' visual identity make for a significant upgrade in its overall feel. The word mark is rendered in a manner that seems less "fussy" than in the original logo. Similarly, the laurel wreath in the mark is depicted in greater detail, imparting a certain strength to the device. The decision to place the five stars in a tighter configuration within - as opposed to overlapping - the wreath, makes for a visually cleaner and bolder mark. And the manner in which the Navy Blue has been added to the color scheme makes everything "pop" just a bit more. Trailing behind New Jersey in this middle tier of USFL 2.0 logo packages are the Michigan Panthers and the Houston Gamblers. Both teams have harkened back to their USFL 1.0 roots in putting their new logo packages together, but have traveled different paths in doing so, The Michigan Panthers - checking in fourth in my USFL 2.0 identity rankings - have opted to alter the design of their original marks to a greater extent than Houston. Their primary mark is once again a stylized depiction of a roaring panther, with said big cat once again situated beneath the team word mark within a rectangular containment shape. As in the original version of the logo, alternating horizontal Royal Plum and Champagne Silver lines provide a backdrop for the depiction of the panther. In the new version of this mark the color balance is reversed, with the panther primarily Champagne Silver in color, rather than Royal Plum. Further, the word mark within the logo is rendered in Light Blue and Champagne Silver, as opposed to Royal Plum and Champagne Silver. Finally, the containment shape is now taller than it is wide, and pitched at an angle. Frankly, there are two aspects of the new Panthers' identity package that bother me. First, in the primary mark, I'd have preferred it if the graphic designer(s) had figured out a way to render the panther primarily in Royal Plum. Other than that, I find said logo's design to be a dynamite modernization of the Panthers' original mark. Further, in the secondary mark, I'd have liked to have seen three Light Blue stripes on each side of the M, as that would have been a nod to the three Light Blue stripes that were featured in the sleeve striping on the original Michigan Panthers' uniforms. The Gamblers are the USFL 2.0 team that clearly made the decision to hew as closely to their market's original visual identity as possible. That being the case, word mark font and the slightest of deviations in the shape of the State of Texas aside, the primary mark for Gamblers 2.0 is a virtual carbon copy of the original main logo. Personally, I always thought that the original Houston mark was a bit overrated, so aping it this closely here doesn't impress me much. The secondary mark, while not necessarily pushing the envelope design-wise, is nicely rendered. All things considered, the Gamblers have turned in a safe - if unremarkable - logo package. I'd rank it fifth amongst USFL 2.0 identities. BOTTOM TIER USFL 2.0 LOGO PACKAGES In my bottom tier of USFL 2.0 visual identity systems - in a dead heat, three-way tie for eighth place - we find the Birmingham Stallions, Tampa Bay Bandits, and Philadelphia Stars. The Birmingham Stallions can celebrate little more than the the fact that the equine mascot in their primary mark is better-rendered than the candidate for the glue factory featured in the main logo of the Tampa Bay Bandits . As LogoFan opined earlier in the thread, Birmingham's primary mark looks like it could be adorning the athletic teams at a middle school. That said, Tampa's primary mark takes the school theme a step further by resembling a homework assignment that a student poured time and effort into early on, only to forget said project's due date until the night before it was to be turned in, and was then forced to slap the final third together on the morning it was to be presented in class. Tampa Bay's word mark is solid, if unremarkable. The bandit is more of the same. However, the horse just says, "I've grown tired of this... I'm not comfortable drawing horses... aaaaaaand, this is going to have to be good enough." The horse's mane, it's face, it's right foreleg... I don't know what to say beyond, "The old gray mare , she ain't what she used to be... and she needs to be put down." Now, where the Stallions could use some help is in the secondary logo department. Is that supposed to be a "B", or did the folks in Birmingham know I was going to rank them co-eighth place finishers and adopt a stylized "8" as their secondary? As for the Philadelphia Stars, their secondary mark is reasonably well-designed and would make a lovely addition to the identity system of a World Football League 2.0's Philadelphia Bell. Beyond that, the team is plagued by the fact that the original USFL franchise that bore their name played three seasons (including one in Baltimore) sporting a logo that already looked dated the minute it was rolled out in 1982. Electing to pay visual homage to said identity going on 40 years later is recipe for graphic design disaster. Speaking of recipe's their old primary mark wouldn't have looked out of place on a late-1970s-to-mid-1980s fast-food restaurant marquee. Despite being well-rendered, the same holds true for the modern update. So, the standings as I see them... NORTH DIVISION Pittsburgh Maulers 10 - 0 New Jersey Generals 6 - 4 Michigan Panthers 6 - 4 Philadelphia Stars 1 - 9 SOUTH DIVISION New Orleans Breakers 9 - 1 Houston Gamblers 4 - 6 Birmingham Stallions 3 - 7 Tampa Bay Bandits 1 - 9

Because neither of the schools' football teams represents a "get" or "must have" program at the FBS level. In ten seasons of play at the FBS level, UMass has compiled a record of 20 and 91 (.180). The program's best finishes have been a pair of 4-and-8 campaigns. As for the "better" of the two programs, UConn's 21 seasons of FBS play have resulted in an overall record of 101 and 151 (.401), including just six winning campaigns... the last occurring over a decade ago. Credit where credit is due, the Huskies' FBS portfolio includes a 3 and 2 mark in the Motor City, Meineke Car Care, International, PapaJohns.com, and Fiesta Bowls. Of course that last one ended up being a 48-20 shellacking at the hands of Oklahoma. At the end of the day, it can be argued that the goal of having UMass and UConn achieve sustained relevance - hell, any relevance - at the FBS level is a pipe dream... and one that stands to waste tax dollars that could be better spent elsewhere at the educational institutions. Instead of buying into the delusions of FBS glamour harbored by the likes of ambitious athletic department personnel and starry-eyed boosters, the state politicians and school administrators respectively responsible for financing and managing both universities should be insisting that the football teams at the schools operate at the FCS level of competition to which they're better suited.

The Midland Rockhounds unveiled their logo refresh earlier today and the Stockton Ports dropped a new alternate cap. Staten Island's identity is scheduled to be introduced at an event that gets underway at 5:30 PM local time. As for Bowling Green, one would presume that their reveal is also scheduled for late afternoon/early evening.

New Tricks: RockHounds roll out logo refresh The Midland RockHounds opted for a modernization of their mascot and logo system. Torch Creative out of Dallas did a very nice job of updating the original logos, which - if I'm not mistaken - were created by Valentine Design.

Guardians Roller Derby v. Cleveland Guardians Baseball Company LLC was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio today. The roller derby team is alleging issues with trademark and merchandising rights stemming from the rebranding of Cleveland's MLB franchise.

Without question, design A is the best of the three options... in my opinion, by a considerable margin.

Well, those all seem perfectly legitimate reasons for Pizza Rats to not make the list of Name-the-Team finalists for Staten Island's new Atlantic League team. That said, the list of seven identities that did end up as candidates is, in my opinion, none too impressive. Dragon Slayers Ferry Hawks Frontliners Greenbelters Harbor Heroes Responders Watchdogs