Brian in Boston

I’m sorry, I just don’t see anything in the Arlington Renegades’ new primary mark that strikes me as being remotely evocative of the Confederate Battle Flag. The closest I get to “an homage to the flags of rebellion flown throughout Texas’ history” is that the diagonal which serves as the stem of the A and leg of the R could be seen as a flagpole, with the curve that serves as the bowl of the R meant to represent a flowing banner. And speaking of the aforementioned “flags of rebellion”, there were many that flew during the Texas Revolution including the 1824 Flag, the Bloody Arm Flag, the Burnet Flag, Captain Scott’s Independence Flag, the Come and Take It Flag, the de Zavala Flag, Dodson’s Lone Star Flag, the San Jacinto Liberty Flag, and the Stephen F. Austin Flag amongst them. Texans had engaged in rebellion - and fashioned and carried banners as part of their uprisings - long before the Lone Star state joined the Confederacy. I think it is far more likely that the marketing team behind XFL 3.0 was hoping to evoke the spirit of dissent that fueled the Texas Revolution , rather than embrace the divisiveness of the American Civil War.

I look at the Arlington Renegades' new primary logo and I see nothing more egregious than a jumbled mess. There's a stylized A, a stylized R, a diagonal line that serves as both the stem of the A and the leg of the R, a couple of additional diagonal lines created by negative space within the logo, and a curved line that could serve to define the bowl of either a stylized R or a stylized D, the latter a nod to the team's old Dallas place name. As for an homage to the Confederate Battle Flag/"Stainless Banner", there isn't a star to be glimpsed and a diagonal line isn't the crossed diagonals of the Confederate flag's saltire. Further, I'm not about to put any stock in the Renegades' slide presentation that claims, "The diagonal line cutting through the R is an homage to the flags of rebellion flown throughout Texas' history." The members of this community are normally quick to deride such marketing-speak for the meaningless blather that it all too often is, yet we're going to accept at face value the notion that a modern professional sports franchise would base its visual identity upon one of the most divisive symbols in American history?

Good God, what a piss-poor decision on the part of the Bruins. If this isn’t reason to show Cam Neely and Don Sweeney the door, than I don’t know what is. I’d love to see the Jacobs Family shuffle off back to Buffalo, but that’s likely too much to hope for.

Los Angeles Football Club are the MLS Cup Champions for 2022! Will 2023 see the Black and Gold become the first Major League Soccer side since the Los Angeles Galaxy to capture back-to-back league titles? Can the Philadelphia Union use a gut-punch of a loss in the 2022 MLS title game as fuel to propel them to a Cup coronation next year? Expansion team Saint Louis CITY SC will become Major League Soccer's 29th franchise in 2023, but which market - Las Vegas or San Diego - will be announced as the competition's 30th club? Might the new year see Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo bringing their talents to MLS? Will either the New England Revolution or New York City FC receive approval for new, soccer-specific homes in 2023? What impact will the growth of the Leagues Cup competition and the launch of Apple TV's MLS streaming deal have on "The Beautiful Game"? Answers to those questions and more in the New Year.

I’ll be honest with you: I think you’ve already nailed a perfect “blending of the new and old” Seattle XFL marks. While this is obviously your project, I’m not of the mind that the logo you’ve unveiled requires anything in the way of “refinement”. In fact, I fear that “refinement” will result in a lesser logo. Now, I’ll concede that my trepidation is based upon the fact that I didn’t find the original Seattle XFL mark to possess any “charm” whatsoever. I thought it was over-designed to the point of fussiness, leaning more towards appearing as though lifted from an illustration or an animated cartoon cel than a sports branding package. If further honing is in this mark’s future, I’m hoping it will be minor. I would preach restraint, because - as I mentioned earlier - I find this logo to be outstanding just as it is.

I’ll be honest with you: I think you’ve nailed a “blending of the new and old” Seattle XFL marks. While this is your project, I’m not of the mind that the logo you’ve unveiled requires anything in the way of “refinement”.

While there might be, I wouldn’t bet on it. Note that while there’s a bevel on the lower left-hand corner of the DC Defenders’ logo, there is no corresponding bevel on the lower right-hand corner. The mark may have been designed to incorporate these asymmetrical flourishes.

Fair enough. Still, sporting a mediocre brand identity in the XFL rather than an abysmal brand identity in the NFL isn’t much of an achievement. You should be striving to clear a higher bar than “better than that monstrosity.” Ill-conceived and poorly-rendered branding is Ill-conceived and poorly-rendered branding… period.

I won’t attempt to speak for anyone else. I’d just say that my less than enthusiastic response to this morning’s XFL team identity rollout is based upon what I perceive to be the strengths and/or shortcomings of each XFL team’s individual branding in its own right. As such, I don’t see a need to compare the subpar brand work of this year’s XFL teams to the subpar brand work trotted out by NFL teams over the past 5 years. Middling work is middling work, regardless of team or league.

It’s funny you should bring that up, as I was just thinking that Black Adam and the branding in Dwayne Johnson’s iteration of the XFL have some things besides “The Rock” in common. Namely, while I want to like them and - in fact - find some of what they have to offer mildly interesting, both the film and the league’s branding have left me unimpressed and not at all convinced that there’s a need for either entity.

There’s simply no excuse for that type of inconsistency and lack of attention to detail in a modern professional sports branding package. You’re either the Vegas Vipers or the Las Vegas Vipers and your visual branding should consistently reflect one or the other. Further, the sleek, modern treatment of the stylized V-fangs that makes up the primary mark clash horribly with the Western-style font in which the LV secondary logo is rendered.

Arlington: The logo’s a downgrade, as is unnecessarily switching to the Arlington place name. DC: The logo is a downgrade. Houston: A slight improvement over the previous logo, which isn’t saying much. Orlando: The logo’s a downgrade and the Guardians identity doesn’t fit the Central Florida market as well as the gargoyle-driven theme fit New York City. San Antonio Brahmas: Meh. Seattle Sea Dragons: A wash to, maybe, a slight improvement. St. Louis Battlehawks: A wash. Vegas Vipers: The name fits the Las Vegas market better than it did Tampa Bay, but the logo still looks like that of a third-rate sportswear brand. Bottom line? The on-field play had better be electrifying, because the branding isn’t going to put fannies in the seats or generate much in the way of merchandising revenue.

So, with the St. Louis Knights becoming the Nashville Knights, how crazy would it be if the Memphis Showboats steamed on up the Mississippi River to Missouri and became the St. Louis Showboats, St. Louis Steamers, or St. Louis Steamwheelers?

All signs point to the Portland Thunder and St. Louis Knights relocating. Each of those market seems likely to receive a replacement team via the 4-team expansion. Other teams that strike me as being strong candidates for relocation are the Atlanta Fire (irrelevant in their market), Memphis Showboats (suboptimal stadium situation and low discretionary income in market), Oakland Invaders (city trails San Francisco and San Jose in relevance within Bay Area market), and Ohio Glory (suboptimal stadium situation). Whether Atlanta, Memphis, or Oakland would receive a replacement team would depend upon whether the problematic issues in their respective markets were resolved and/or whether a USFL franchise was likely to encroach - via relocation or expansion - on their territory. On the latter point, if the Showboats were to relocate to Nashville, I'd say that USFL leadership would be unlikely to expand/relocate back into Memphis in the near term, if at all. Ditto for Oakland getting back into the USFL if a team were to set up shop in San Francisco or San Jose. As for the Glory, I'd envision them most likely retaining their branding and relocating to either Cincinnati or Cleveland simply to escape the cavernous confines of Ohio Stadium. That said, I could see the team heavily marketing itself throughout the State of Ohio, including to Columbus-based fans. New markets entering the USFLas part of the flurry of activity you've described between 2002 and 2010 will include Boston, Dallas, and Miami. I could also foresee Charlotte, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Nashville, Salt Lake City, and San Diego being given consideration. I can't wait to see what's coming down the pike.

Columbus Crew 2 have captured the inaugural MLS NEXT Pro Cup championship via a 4-1 victory over St. Louis CITY2 at Lower.com Field in Columbus, Ohio. Isaiah Parente (45' PK), Marco Micaletto (45'+3'), Jacen Russell-Rowe (58' PK), and Ryan Telfer (83') scored for the victors, with Celio Pompeau (80') notching the lone goal for St. Louis. Micoletto was named the MLS NEXT Pro Cup MVP. Attendance for the match was reported to have been 7,446.

Option C. Tampa Bay's silver lids are too iconic to lose. Similarly, when I think of the USFL's Blitz, I can't help but visualize them in silver helmets. As for an orange or maroon helmet in Jacksonville, neither would be as attractive as the silver the Bulls currently sport. All of that said, speed blue helmets would look outstanding on the Los Angeles Express.

While I can understand why people would find that NerdWallet spot to be polarizing, there is 0% chance that the actor chose to portray the wife in that manner solely of her own volition. While the spot was being shot, she'd have been receiving feedback from the director, who - in turn - would have been discussing ideas with the advertising agency creative team responsible for writing the commercial, and representatives of the client. Frankly, I would say that it is more likely that the actor was directed to dial her performance up during the shoot.

I'd suggest rendering the tape on the blade of the hockey stick in a color other than white. As it stands now, the white tape gets lost in the white underbelly of the shark. I'd be interested in seeing how the dark teal found within the secondary logo would work for said purpose, as it would introduce a bit of that color into the primary logo.

Ah, yes. Nothing quite like the bracing salt air that greets one’s nostrils during a morning of clamming in Manchester, New Hampshire or Springfield, Massachusetts! There’s a sense of satisfaction that one derives while harvesting clams from the tidal sand flats of the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers as they flow through the respective cities, exceeded only by bringing a heaping haul of said bivalves home and whipping up a batch of the “chowdah” these communities have become famous for. Of course, one could have embraced the pejorative sense of “Chowderheads” and just dubbed the team the alliterative New England Nimrods, Nincompoops, or Numbskulls. Any way you cut - pardon, ladle - it, Chowderheads is an idiotic name.

They played in The Football League Second Division during the 1974-75 season, winning its championship and earning promotion back to the First Division. They remained there through the 1991-92 season and became an inaugural member of the Premier League in 1992-93, where they've maintained membership ever since.

Due to the issues that location would cause with regard to travel and national broadcast schedules (the time zone difference with a significant portion of the continental United States would require all manner of machinations in order to fit Hawaii-based games into a reasonable time slot for mainland USFL viewers), I don't see Honolulu realistically gaining traction as a relocation destination with the USFL's owners and executives. I also don't think the league's owners - particularly those in Oakland - would be keen on having the Thunder relocate a 38 to 40-mile drive from the Invaders home at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. So, as I see it, the most realistic scenario will see the Thunder relocate to one of the three remaining cities on your list - Dallas, Las Vegas, or Salt Lake City - for "12 to 18 years" before ultimately relocating to one of the other two. Personally, I see Dallas factoring in one way or the other. "Big D" - given its population, media market, and love of football - could be the team's initial destination, only to be found wanting due to the Cowboys' stranglehold on the hearts and minds of the region’s pigskin fans, as well as the competition for the sports dollar with the region's other major-pro teams. Or, rather, Vegas/Salt Lake City is where the Thunder land first, prior to moving to the football-mad DFW Metroplex after one of the two smaller markets underwhelms league leadership. It will, as always, be interesting to see how you opt to have things play out.

A, hands down. I was never a fan of the branding utilized by the XFL’s Las Vegas Outlaws to begin with. As the centerpiece of your option B, the horns forming a stylized O make no sense, given that neither the place name nor team nickname begin with the letter. As for option C, the dream catcher just doesn’t tie-in to the Wranglers team identity.

I was thinking Peter Stormare as Czernobog in American Gods. In any event, the Packers enter camp with either a slack-jawed yokel or dirtbag Slavic deity of evil as their signal caller.

Unless my club of choice is about to wind up on the wrong side of the score line, I’m always pulling for the “underdog” in a national knockout tournament. Here’s hoping that Sacramento Republic hoists the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup trophy this year! Meanwhile, on the soccer stadium front, the latest news seems to indicate that New York City FC is headed to Queens. The New York Post is reporting that New York City Mayor Eric Adams is prepared to announce that he supports plans for a 25,000-seat stadium for NYCFC being built on land within the 61-acre Special Willets Point District. The privately financed facility would be sited on property leased to the soccer team by Sterling Equities and Related Companies. There are still hurdles to be cleared, including successfully navigating the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, but team officials are hopeful that they could begin construction within a time frame that would see the facility completed by 2025.

There's much work to be done, but it strikes me that this bodes well for professional soccer's prospects in New Orleans. Jamie Guin is a native New Orleanian whose experience as a sports and entertainment executive has included time in the front offices of the NBA's New Orleans Hornets and Pelicans, Major League Soccer's LAFC and Sporting Kansas City, and - most recently - serving as the Senior VP of Global Partnerships at Legends. Meanwhile, Warren Smith played a key role in the launch of two USL Championship sides, Sacramento Republic FC and San Diego Loyal SC, as well as Triple A baseball's Sacramento River Cats Here's to NOLA getting the chance to embrace successful clubs in both the USL Championship and USL Super League!