Sykotyk

19 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Any reason they mimicked the Pittsburgh colors if they were going to rebrand them? That doesn't make sense to me.

Rebrand was planned before they gave up on playing in Pittsburgh. 

Was told that the league wanted to rebrand Pittsburgh but was just too late before the season after already planning the color switch. 

On 6/21/2023 at 2:45 PM, officeglenn said:

 

I hope they use the original team names and if they go with cities and not just the nicknames.

21 hours ago, Dilbert said:

FC Cincinnati with their 10th home win to start the season. A 3-0 victory over Toronto in which they were without 6 of their starters (injury or international duty), saw 3 MLS debuts with Bret Halsey (an FCC2 player signed specifically for this game to help cover the absences), Gerardo Valenzuela, and Stiven Jimenez (a 15 year old, who last weekend on the teams bye secured his learners permit). Meanwhile, Nashville falls at Montreal tonight so FCC gains back the three points Nashville picked up over their win last weekend. Also in attendance tonight were 11 Cincinnati Reds players, fresh off this afternoons 11th straight win. What a time for sports in Cincy.

Three games delayed due to weather and one postponed entirely.

Two shocks of the night were Chicago winning at Portland, and RSL won surprisingly easily at STL.  LAG had a shot at a win, but blew it late. Austin winning big was a surprise. 3-0 and it never felt like it was even that close. LAFC with the first minute goal that held up to win 1-0 over Seattle. Though they had a handball called back for a second goal late.

Cincinnati has clearly established themselves as the king of the mountain. Only a matter if they slip up later in the season, or a fluke playoff loss. But if they give up the Supporters Shield that would be a shock. The West playoffs are wide open.

13 hours ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

I can confirm that Sun Devil hockey games are rockin'. As good of atmosphere as Gopher, Bulldog, and Mavs games I went to back in MN @Burmy

Never been to a college hockey game. But have to imagine like any other collegiate game I've been to in other sports that the atmosphere is much livelier than a pro game.

3 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

Would’ve loved if Pittsburgh picked up Frederick in the whole MiLB shuffle. Could’ve reworked the identity to be treasure keys to be in-line with the parent club.

 

I believe some reasoning behind Baltimore not keep Frederick was due to “ease of travel” which is completely bogus when you realize Frederick is 40-45 minutes away from Baltimore compared to retained Delmarva which is roughly 2.5 hours away.

Think holding on to Delmarva is more important when they have Philly and Washington to contend with nearby. Meanwhile, western Maryland is either already lost to Pittsburgh or ardently 'anti DC' and sticking with Orioles anyways through state allegiance.

2 hours ago, VampyrRabbit said:

Weren't the Twins one of the two teams on the chopping block along with the Expos when contraction was being discussed due to the Metrodome falling apart?

And they were pretty well penciled into that spot, too. Seemed like such a reach given the support Minnesota had given the team since their arrival. There seemed to be far more stark failures. But the Sunshine State teams weren't going to be touched.

MLB is running out of available markets that have the finances to support a MLB team's 81 game schedule at MLB prices. They mostly have resorted to pretending that the team can be contracted to get a new stadium. Now that LV is viable as a team and actively persuing a team, they found their new boogie-man. Like LA was for the NFL for decades.

12 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

So the best record a team in the North division will finish with is 5-5. If Michigan wins, multiple tiebreakers will determine who is the division champ between them and Pittsburgh. Not like it matters since the game is in Canton. 

1 Pittsburgh 4-6

2 MIchigan 4-6

3 Philadelphia 4-6

4 New Jersey 3-7

evenly balanced trashed.

22 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

They have one more year left on their lease. so are they going to break that at the end of this season?

Raiders waited out their lease.  Or, rather, waited for their new stadium to be built. The main argument seemed to be they didn't want to unveil themselves in Las Vegas at Sam Boyd Stadium for a few years, and there was really nowhere else to go.

Chargers went to StubHub Center since staying in San Diego was basically impossible. And they were limited where they could play (not at the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl has restrictions on dates, and neither baseball stadium could/would even be considered as viable).

Plus, there's the 'aura' of the Raiders that their fans would follow them to Las Vegas, even if via television. So, sticking out two unproductive years in Oakland wasn't exactly a negative like it would've been for the Chargers.

The A's though... we saw how bad the support will be when they just THOUGHT they weren't going to play in Oakland. If they sign a deal and construction starts in Vegas... they could count attendance with three digits at some games. The fans would simply shun them. Baseball relies much more on the ticket buyer than other sports. Part of having 81 home games. They'd fare better playing at LV Ballpark for a year or two at exorbitant MLB adjusted rates in the 10k stadium than to even consider playing in Oakland another year. As for the lease having a year left. There's got to be a financial out clause, and I have to imagine they'd pay whatever fee was necessary and recoup the money in Vegas at the small stadium for two years.

8 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

  

A lot of teams got traded amongst other cities, back in those days. Most of those trends were from decades ago. There could be a variety of reasons as to why it was more advantagious to just keep the same team/look in a new city. Technology wasn't the same, compared to today.

 

The ones I remember mostly are the moves from the 90s and the 2000s. All of the NHL teams fully rebranded. The OKC Thunder spared the Sonics their identity and New Orleans got their own brand, after Charlotte got their original team back. Aside from a few odd exceptions, my expectations are full rebrands for new franchises.

 

Really, it was the 90s that saw the pushback. That 90s building boom of stadiums and arenas saw fans start to revolt. Browns and Sonics especially. Houston tried, but in a city that big with a team that had been on a downward spiral but couldn't live out to see Fisher do anything with them, couldn't get the groundswell support.

Ohio even passed a law about moving teams. Which is why the Crew got saved.

But in the 80s you saw relocations like the Colts, Cardinals, Flames, Rockies, Clippers, and Kings.

Only the Rockies changed names, and that was primarily because the New Jersey Rockies would've only worked if they played near Philly. The rest just kept their name. Some were ambiguious names, like Kings or Cardinals. Some had a regional tie like Clippers but worked for their relocated city. Flames kinda works with Calgary but could've been something else.

The 90s saw things like the North Stars move to Dallas, and then around the same time or after the Browns every team got a new name. Avalanche was an obvious as Nordiques wasn't going to translate well to Colorado. But Whalers and Jets both got rebranded. NBA didn't have any late 90s relocations, but a few in the early 00s. Vancouver still is a headscratcher that they didn't get a new name but there was apathy about a Canadian team given the economy at the time. After what happened you saw the Sonics get a new name, it seemed such a shocker that the Hornets took their name to New Orleans. Which had a huge backlash. They righted it after the Bobcats fiasco, but that was still such a bad reading of the room. It took the Sonics AFTER the Hornets to finally get the NBA to basically force it through. One of the few times a team changed their name for reasons OTHER than weaponry or bigotry.

Browns, obviously, got a new name and was one of the first 'modern' teams to get their team back with the same name (this happened much more often previous especially in baseball with things like the Senators barely missing a beat).

After the Hornets, the only real team(s) that moved without changing their name has been the Nets, Chargers, Rams, and Raiders. Two returned to a city they had already been to. Raiders moved to their third city in their third relocation after stopping at one stop twice. And the Nets have bounced around all over the NYC metro area under various location names (NY Nets, NJ Nets, Brooklyn Nets). Yeah, the NJ based fans might have an issue, but it's not like they moved to Kansas City. Hard to call that a huge issue. This is much more "Baltimore Bullets move to DC"

11 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

  

It's too bad if Oakland ever gets a team back, they won't be able to be called the Athletics, if the franchise belongs to Vegas, even though they were the Oakland Athletics since 1968.

But they did it, too. This is like someone stealing your car, and they're really sorry they stole it, but they need to drive to work so they're going to keep it. But totally feel bad for taking it.

22 minutes ago, WestCoastBias said:

 

And so that means Oakland after over 50 years can't identify with those colors and the name? Same with the Dodgers and LA? Giants and SF? Braves and Atlanta?

I think ownership of a term/name/logo/colors is really dependent on origination. You can love the Giants or Dodgers all you want, but they're not San Francisco's and Los Angeles'. They're just there currently.

It's the same as the Rams. They started in Cleveland. Cleveland essentially spoke with their support that they wanted to get behind the new team the Browns and not the defending NFL champions (if you can believe that). So, Rams are wherever. Nobody outside St. Louis cared that the Rams were leaving STL just as nobody really raised a huff over the Rams leaving LA before that. They're a vagabond now.

Now things like the Colts or Oilers, yes. Those had a bit of a harshness since they had been in their two cities since founding, and it was a lot harder for fans to accept that their old name was never returning. This isn't the 20s and 30s where teams moving and taking their name with them was a matter of finances of not replacing uniforms or equipment. Today, even the city name changing is a huge PR move that will probably be followed by a slightly changed/tweaked logo/uniform.

But once a team moves and keeps the name, the name travels with the team no matter how long it plants itself in its current city.

1 minute ago, habsfan1 said:

Vegas' MLB team should create their own identity, instead of recycling Oakland's former teams.

 

I get that the football team has been in the league for a long time. But to be completely honest, I'm not a big fan of how Las Vegas Raiders sounds as a new Vegas brand identity. If it was my team, I would want a proper identity fitting with Montreal, instead of taking another franchise and swapping city names.

Philadelphia Athletics. Kansas City Athletics. Oakland Athletics. Las Vegas Athletics.

Oakland Raiders. Los Angeles Raiders. Oakland Raiders. Las Vegas Raiders.

Yes. Oakland's identities.

4 hours ago, Digby said:

In fairness I guess to Chicago, are there any public transit systems in America that haven't fallen off a cliff since COVID?

 

Also are there any NFL markets where people DO regularly take the train in? I guess MetLife has those NJ Transit trains from Penn. I've always got the sense though that the NFL in-person clientele is even more car-dependent than the other Big Three pro leagues.

The line has been closed for repairs since Covid basically, but the RTA in Cleveland had the blue/green lines extend to the stadium on game days. Was nice parking out in Shaker Heights or Warrensville Heights, or even closer inside the city such as at E55th or and just pay a couple bucks each to ride in. But the ride after the game was abysmal. The RTA NEVER had the trains running quickly from the stadium. Why? Don't know.  They should be lining up a few or have two connected instead of one double set.

But now you get off at Terminal Tower and walk the 0.8 or so miles to the stadium. Still cheap. But not as friendly.

28 minutes ago, Glover said:

I've seen this logo making rounds on social media. I like it better. The collar has more white which adds a bit more balance to it, and it takes away one of those weird flaps/wrinkles on the right side of its face to make it look a little less awkward.

Then someone needed to submit it. 

This was a contest among fan submissions and fans voting. As a Browns fan I like it. I also like the subtleties in it. 

It would've been disingenuous to hold this and then not use the one submitted and chosen by the fans. 

6 hours ago, Cujo said:

But it's coming back next season, right? 

 

 

We don't know how much of that is startup costs, and how much were annual expenses. As well as what they were projected to lose compared to what they did lose. No business is a success year one. None. Especially since part of their expenses would be buying the league for Vince, and then sitting on it for a year before actually even playing a game.

MLS took decades for the whole league to be successful. And if you want to talk about the losses from earlier seasons funded mostly by AEG, they might still not be in the black.

24 minutes ago, RyanMcD29 said:

Eh, Rochester's in both the Sabres and Syracuse basketball spheres of influence for the winter, plus more importantly there's no real corporate support outside of Wegmans there since Kodak and Xerox went belly up 20 years ago. Given the Bills and Sabres were both on shaky ground in the past 20 years, there's probably a zero chance of the NBA of all leagues ending up in WNY

At this point, almost every major market that doesn't already have a team has big red flags. And even those with teams are probably at their breaking point.

14 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

if ABQ gets an MLS team, it probably won't be New Mexico United.  It would likely be a generic "New Mexico FC"

Land of Enchantment FC

1 hour ago, tBBP said:

 

Agreed on the MLS support; that's ABQ's (and, for that matter, New Mexico's) best bet at a top-level pro sports franchise. That said, with the expansion fees creeping ever close to that "B" mark (that'd be the "billion" mark), it's gonna take, as stated, a WHOLE LOT of money from some group of somebodies somewhere who want to see MLS—or a theoretical NBA team—in NM, and I don't know who, if anyone, in NM got loot like that. That said, ABQ may be isolated geographically, but it ain't like it's the only town around; Santa Fe is barely an hour north and I believe people from Las Cruces could be persuaded to roadtrip three hours north for the right reasons. (I base that off having spent a fair amount of time in all three locales and elsewhere in NM.)

One obvious factor is calling the team 'New Mexico' and heavily marketing the Las Cruces and Santa Fe areas, as well as peppering the other small cities like Gallup, Santa Rosa, Roswell, T&C, etc try to and garner support (some teams will have "(distant city) Day" where they'll discount tickets and paper the town with discounts to get fans from that area to come out for a game.

Another way MLS could work is to A) MLS team to Albuquerque and put the MLS2 team in Las Cruces and have the same identities to try and draw fans in to supporting the other.

Funny thing is that Las Cruces is more associated/rivalry with El Paso, which has a slightly larger market size. Clearly MLS could be supported in El Paso, but it's never seen as a big city due to its remoteness and that it's far more transient as a border town and that not a lot of money in the city to support a major league team in pretty much any league.

1 hour ago, tBBP said:

 

 

We can scratch this one right now. DSM, even as a metro, doesn't have anywhere near the population base—or dedicated wealth. And before someone brings up market size in comparison to OKC, recall that the only reason OKC has that team is because the owner who moved the team there was from OKC. College sports, though, are a big thing there. (And by the way, Ames isn't that far from DSM; it's barely 40 miles. Iowa City on the other hand is a good 120 or so—and yet even with that 80% of DSM still sports the black rather than the cardinal with their gold.)  

Yeah. DM is definitely a long shot. Iowa being a major farming nexus of the country means there's a lot of money but it's thinned out over a lot of people and you don't have a ton of 'uber-wealthy' people to consider bringing a team to town. AAA/AHL/AFL seems to be the top of the level for them.

1 hour ago, tBBP said:

Speaking of moving teams, I'm going to again advocate my case for Omaha...though, in reality, much like the OKC situation it'll take an owner[ship group] with some kind of ties to the Omaha area to move one there (or fight like a mug for a future expansion franchise, which I just can't see happening unless the money is more than right). It's about 370 miles from the next nearest current NBA team (the T-wolves—and we'll see how long they stick around, hence the "current"), which means that like the KC Chiefs they can enjoy a large swath of territorial support, and the town is practically frothing at the mouth for their own pro sports team, whatever it may be. 

 

(Wait—is this the season thread or the pointless realignment outpost? )

Chiefs definitely draw from much of the Great Plains as 'their team'. And with their success, there's a lot more KC fans all the way up in SD and Fargo/Bismarck than there ever was where it was staunchly Vikings territory. Even areas where Denver had a lot of sway (Wyoming, western NE, NE NM) you see Chiefs stuff far more often than just bandwagoners. They relate more to KC being the 'plains' team. Other than Colorado, you don't see any Denver fans around the plains like you used to. It's much more mountain states (Utah, CO, northern NM, Cheyenne/Laramie). Also thanks to Denver losing their appeal after the Manning blip in success.

Omaha could definitely support a team, but I just don't see that market supporting basketball as a whole. You can look into that as much as you want. But Omaha would probably much rather have Baseball OR hockey. Baseball with 81 games is just not going to happen. NHL could happen. Especially with KC vacant. Football is king in that area, and amazing that the Omaha Beef are in their 24th season of indoor football in the city. Their success has varied over the years bouncing from arenas at times. But that's a ridiculous longevity for a sport with as much turbulence as indoor football.

On 6/7/2023 at 2:17 AM, kimball said:

 

I'm kind of there with you as well. I feel like Seattle can be the NBA's proverbial "Location Threat" for teams that need leverage for public money, while I can see Las Vegas eventually getting a team, but not until the Commissioner's Cup is established and running for a couple years.

 

There's no rush.

 

However, as far as possible locations outside of Seattle and Vegas ...

• Tampa (seems ideal, but seems too close to Orlando)
• Louisville (untapped market, but is it too close to Indiana?)
• Pittsburgh (mentioned in the past and has a good arena, but is it too small?)
• Kansas City/St. Louis (meh)
• Anaheim (it always seems like they're mentioned as a possibility? The popularity of both the Lakers and Clippers makes this seem like a no)
• San Jose (same situation as Anaheim, just with the Warriors)
• San Diego (I believe they have ground work done for a new arena, but too close to the Lakers/Clippers?)
• Mexico City (The NBA's current infatuation, but there's too many cultural and economic issues that could make it a Grizzlies 2.0)
• Vancouver (The city's situation is much better than it was 25 years ago, but there seems to be better markets)

Possible sexy markets ...

• Albuquerque (could be a sleeper OKC location)

Problem is that New Mexico as a whole is quite poor and Albuquerque is extremely isolated inside the state. There's Rio Rancho/Bernillo and South Valley down to about Los Lunas/Peralta that has population for suburbs, but lacks a lot of the exurbs to draw from. If Albuquerque supports any team, it will be an MLS team. I can't imagine the city latching onto an NBA team and fully supporting them.

On 6/7/2023 at 2:17 AM, kimball said:

• Montreal (I've read of interest in the past, might work?)
• Chicago 2.0 (Arena in the suburbs? I remember talk back in 2001 when the Grizzlies were shopping for a home. Could work.)
• Des Moines (A less sexier Louisville? Basketball crazy state COULD possibly support a team)
• Rochester (I always thought Rochester could support at least one major league team, second shot?)

Montreal is always a possibility. Big enough city. Chicago could definitely support a team out towards Aurora/Naperville/Arlington Hts (where the Bears want to move)/around O'Hare/Hoffman Estates (smaller arena built there that hosted indoor football/minor league hockey). Rosemount area could, as well, but may be a little too close to downtown that the Bulls would go nuts fighting the prospect.

Des Moines would be another SLC/OKC/Sacramento type situation. Try to be the big fish in a small pond. Collegiate sports are big in Iowa, but at least ISU and UI are far from Des Moines. They support minor league baseball (AAA Iowa Cubs) and hockey (AHL Iowa Wild) quite well.

Rochester is an interesting idea. Buffalo owns western New York, but couldn't support a third team. They struggle to keep up with supporting the Bills and Sabres. However, a team in Rochester would siphon a lot of support from Rochester and Syracuse that would be spending sports dollars at U of Syracuse or the Buffalo pro teams. Also draw some basketball fans from Buffalo to them. And grow a new base of fans who may watch on TV Buffalo sports and be fans of them but don't actively spend money attending games might latch on to a Rochester team. And become a regionally aligned team.  There are better options out there, but it is an interesting idea.

It was somewhat the basis the Rhinos had growing soccer in western NY, but they missed the boat not believing that MLS was a viable option. Which eventually killed them. At least for NBA, it would be a known quantity.

GFY San Diego

On 5/18/2023 at 6:37 PM, BrySmalls said:

San Diego FC or FC San Diego

2 hours ago, ZapRowsdower8 said:

BYU won Hip Hop Dance!? 

This would be like UTRGV winning the Frozen Four.

2 hours ago, tBBP said:

 

Well, "CF" Miami is only about a half-degree removed from either, so...

 

...And actually, had they come right out the gate with CF Miami, I MIGHT have been cool with that. Sure it'd have been every bit as derivative,  but it would at least have been halfway unique. Instead, they went the (also predictable) try-too-hard route and tacked "Inter" onto the front for a name that doesn't even roll off the tongue well at all. Ah, whatevs...as if they care what some trucker-type in the northern plains has to say about their silly little name.   They do at least have one of the better badges in MLS, though.

 

And side note, but check it: anyone else notice the two Florida teams, if/when they play each other, will be pink vs purple? That's just hilarious to me on several different levels...

The Inter Miami name is forced, however, as the club's full name by their own badge is Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami.  Even if you abbreviate it some, Inter Miami is still overlooking a lot of the rest of the name. it would be like  team taking the name "Association Football Club" aka AFC, and a team calling themselves "Houston Association FC"...  Something about it feels so wrong. Internacional describes the type of club, rather than the name of said club.

54 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

The weird ones.