neo_prankster

Commanders look great!

Yesterday, I got a new laptop. Now I'm trying to get back into my concept groove. Today, I thought I'd try something easy by doing a simple Cleveland Browns concept. I figured the Browns would be easy since they don't really have a logo other than their helmet. I didn't want to take too many liberties with their look, but I did want to sneak some orange into their numbers.

C&C Welcome.

Nice job with the Bandits. Although, I wonder if they might be a farm affiliate for the Bucs because of the color similarities.

Also, on that new Atlanta Fire logo, I think that will look great if you do an NHL series with the Flames staying in ATL.

One more thing, where do the Fire play their home games? Turner Field, Bobby Dodd Stadium or the Georgia Dome? Did Ted Turner or TimeWarner own the Fire at one point?

How about the Stars? Do they play at Franklin Field? I wonder if there would be too many scheduling conflicts with the Phillies if the Stars want to share Lincoln Financial Field with the Eagles.

38 minutes ago, WideRight said:

And the Atlanta Fire, a franchise in need of some new life.  They take a bit of inspiration from the Atlanta Flames NHL club, creating a new fiery A logo.  The flames will feature heavily on the helmet (as they always have) but the new monogram logo will also appear on the uniforms and in most media formats, replacing the older 1995 Olympic torch.  Will this new look inspire a change to one of the league's perennial also-rans?

 

Nice tribute to the NHL Flames.

Out of curiosity who supplies the uniforms to the USFL? Is it just one company for the whole league or can the individual teams partner with whoever they want?

How will three teams in New York and New Jersey be able to work from a standpoint of television and stadium availability?

1 hour ago, WideRight said:

Working on my 3 Reebok Redos for the 2002 season.  What I think we will see:

 

1. Tampa Bay:  Same main logo, a lot of uniform changes from the current 1990's look.

 

2. Philadelphia:  Updated logo, updated uniform with some "modern" touches.

 

3. Atlanta:  An new primarly logo, new helmet look but the uniforms don't change much. 

 

Looking ahead to potential changes for Seattle, Texas, LA (again), and Baltimore in the near future. 

At this point, will we see the Rhein Fire's flame in Atlanta?

I feel like when you did the WFL scenario two years ago, you could've done the Chicago Fire this:

- Chicago Fire original logo 1974 thru maybe '86?

- Birmingham Fire flame from 1986 thru maybe '94.

- Rhein Fire or MLS Chicago Fire logo starting in the mid to late 90's.

3 hours ago, WideRight said:

A good question, and one I have not really addressed on the Alt History website, not in any depth.  This is the NFL as of 2000:

 

AFC EAST:  BUF-MIA-NYJ-NE-BAL                     (Baltimore Ravens moved from Cleveland in 95)

AFC CENTRAL: CLE-CIN-PIT-IND-TEN- HOU       

(Tenn. Copperheads were 1995 Expansion Club,  Houston Oilers never moved.  This is the one 6-team division)

                                                                      

AFC WEST:  KC-DEN-SD-LA-SEA                         (Raiders never moved from LA)

 

NFC EAST:  NYG-DAL-PHI-WSH-CAR              (Carolina Panthers were 1995 Expansion Club)

NFC CENTRAL: CHI-MIN-DET-GBY-TBY

NFC WEST: SF-ARZ-STL-NOR-ATL                     (Rams relocated to STL in late 1990's)

 

The league is scheduled to add 1 more team, to expand to 32 in 2002, the two frontrunning cities are Jacksonville and San Antonio, due to the success of the USFL franchises in those cities.   When they add the 32nd team, the league will shift to 8 divisions of 4 clubs each, creating a similar format to what we see IRL.   The new format will be: 

 

AFC EAST:   BUF-MIA-NYJ-NE

AFC NORTH:  CLE-CIN-PIT-BAL

AFC SOUTH: IND-TEN-HOU-EXPANSION CLUB

AFC WEST:  KC-DEN-SD-LA

 

NFC EAST: DAL-NYG-PHI-WSH

NFC SOUTH: ATL-TBY-CAR-NOR

NFC NORTH: CHI-DET-GBY-MIN

NFC WEST: SF-STL-ARZ-SEA

 

(Seattle moves to the NFC West, expansion club joins AFC South)

So if they Raiders stayed in LA, does that mean Al Davis got the stadium he wanted?

I'm pretty sure MLFB owes @hugevolsfan some royalties for the Major League Football name.

12 hours ago, GDAWG said:

The XFL has hired Jordan Palmer to be head of QB Development.  

So I take it that Tom Brady was too overqualified for that job?

18 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

In the NFL, since there isn't really a home team radio contract, since all of the league falls under Westwood One, it's easy to have almost complete parity with revenue sharing.  But unless the other big four leagues have something similar than this would be harder to do. Art Modell is the perfect example of this. He gave up all of the radio contracts he made for Cleveland that got him much more money than the rest of the league. But this was after he basically took over Cleveland Stadium and had to take care of that rotten structure because the baseball team wasn't making enough to do it. All that money he lost ended up biting him in the back pocket, partly because he made bad financial deals with the Guardians, and partly because he was too stubborn to ask for help until the Andre Rison signing proved how broke he actually was.  Had he gone the Jerry Jones route of forcing the NFL to get greedy that much sooner, the first iteration of the Cleveland Browns would still be in Cleveland, instead of the team being placed in the league's care for three years.  Even with the revenue sharing, a draft, which now includes a cap within it as well depending on where players get picked, helps keep the league from having to bail out another owner that can't take care of himself while raising the financial status of each team in the league.  It's why the Broncos can be sold for almost $5 billion, while people are trying to say the Glazers should just take $4 billion for Manchester United and walk away. 

These are the men that as a group would not get rid of the salary caps.  Because keeping raises contained helps their bottom line. But they would limit that to everyone below them, of course. 

So basically all that justified Modell moving the Browns to Baltimore in the 90's?

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Thumbs enthusiastically up. I hate the draft.

If you want to get rid of the draft, say goodbye to the Green Bay Packers.

Also, I think the Pointless Realignment thread might be the better place if we wanted to talk about trying to fix the divisions in the team-sport leagues, right? Because I feel like there might be a way to tweak the NFL's divisions while letting Dallas stay in the NFC East with the Giants, Eagles and Commanders.

4 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

Not exactly.  NBA and NHL play all teams, so at minimum the final 2 teams have played at least twice.  MLB will be fixing this next year, as all 30 teams will play at least 1 series each season starting in 2023.  The NFL is the one where it has the least chance to occur, but you cant have a 30+ week NFL season.

Didn't the NBA have everybody face each other while they still had an odd number of teams or did that change when Hornets 2.0 came into the league as the Bobcats?

How will MLB's new scheduling format really work if the Padres for instance are gonna have one series against each from the American League? Will they rotate who plays at home every other year?

24 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

LA is Ground Zero (pun intended) for the kind of people that would flip their lid over a name like the Wildfire. If the market isn’t receptive to a name, it doesn’t matter how cool it might be, don’t use it.

Yeah, but somehow, Miami and Carolina are both perfectly fine with teams named the Hurricanes and San Jose doesn't seem to raise much objection to Earthquakes.

I guess there were enough objections to Wildfire to prompt the XFL to reconsider.

I think it might have to do with being able to reproduce on mobile app icons.

6 hours ago, WideRight said:

I don't think we will see all of the teams in NFL markets, but there are some cities which are a bit problematic stadium-wise.  I think it is safe to say that several non-NFL cities are just fine and new stadiums will be built as needed, while others maybe not.   I can tell you that the plan for the Thunder will have them eventually in a non-NFL city, but not Portland.   I am actually planning for 4 relocations between 2002-2018.  Some dramatic, some not so much. 

Where are the NFL teams right now? Same cities as real life right?

I mean, did the Rams stay in Los Angeles this whole time or did they go to St. Louis?

How about the Houston Oilers? Did the Raiders move back to Oakland? Did the Ravens ever come to existence? Will the Saints still be affected by Hurricane Katrina? Has Washington or Kansas City rebranded? Will the Chargers stay in San Diego?

If pro wrestling really counted as a sport, my interest fell off around the time Vinnie Mac absorbed WCW because I actually liked WCW during the Monday Night Wars.

12 minutes ago, Kooky01 said:

Always wondered if there are any sports here that people here don't really watch or care for.  For me it's soccer and lacrosse. Soccer is just confusing as heck, the clock goes up, the visitors are listed second and just people pretending to get hurt like 60 percent of the time. Lacrosse I've always thought was somewhat of a hockey rip-off, but outside and balls rather than on ice and it's just not very big where I'm from. 

 

Anyone else care to chime in?

I try to give equal attention to the Big Four (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL), but I haven't exactly caught on to MLS, but that might change if San Diego gets a team.

Other than that, I'm not really crazy about golf or tennis. NASCAR on the other hand I get confused if that counts as a team sport or an individual sport.

1 hour ago, ItzDrew25 said:

I really like this project, I would love to see a 32 team version like the NFL

I do too, but I'm not sure if there would be enough talent for 32 Arena teams. Maybe if you combined the IFL and NAL?

The head shape looks too much like a teardrop.

30 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

That would explain the incredibly bland logo

 

That could've been used for any nickname they picked.

While we're at it, if they wanted a cat mascot for LA, it should've been the Sabercats or Sabertooths because of the La Brea tar pits.

Plus try a copper tint for the Cards.

Bone tint works better for the Bucs. Plus the lavender tint for the Vikes.

For the Rams, I'd give them a tint that evokes Hollywood.

One thing I definitely don't miss:

The Commanders' previous names.

1 hour ago, WideRight said:

OK, more crowdsourcing.  My premise is that the Portland Thunder are never going to be able to get a bigger, better stadium in Portland.  Civic Stadium is fine for the Timbers, there is no MLB or NFL in town, and UO is not interested.  
 

This, in my mind, makes Portland one of the clubs most likely to relocate, and I am thinking early 2000's for that move.  But where?  

 

I know where they are going to end up in the late 2010's,  but I am trying to figure out where they might go in between.  Here are some contenders.  Let me know your thoughts and any suggestions.  Remember that the idea is that this will be a 12-18 year home, but that they will leave again late in the 2010's again because the conditions are not ideal for a profitable endeavor.   And I would want them to stay in the West so as not to force another team to realign or switch divisions.  So, thoughts on possible intermediary locations?

 

• Honolulu, Aloha Stadium
• Las Vegas, Sam Boyd Stadium
• San Jose, SJSU Spartan Stadium
• Dallas, Ford Stadium (SMU)
• Salt Lake City, U. of Utah Stadium

 

If they go to Salt Lake City and play at Rice-Eccles, they can be the Rocky Mountain Thunder.

Vegas and Honolulu are the only other places they can still get away with the neon green.

If they do go to Honolulu, they can rebrand as the Kaiju.

Either way, it's pretty sad to see Portland continue to play second fiddle to Seattle, even in fictional universes like this one.