Sykotyk

The problem with Woodpeckers is you know within the first game people are just going to call them the Peckers.

Fatbacks has a lot of real estate to play with to make the name their own.

On 12/11/2017 at 10:22 AM, Waffles said:

The Tampa Yankees are now the Tampa Tarpons:

 

A great step toward making the Yankees farm system more interesting, identity-wise.

Every time I saw this logo, it looked like the Tarpon was holding a pick ax. And I couldn't fathom why I kept seeing that.

And then I realized. The bat rests on the front of his chest, slightly on his shoulder. The bat goes behind the roundel, yet his eyes/head are in front. It's clear by the length of the bat, it's nearly straight up and down. So, it shouldn't be going BEHIND the roundel if his bulging eyes are in front of it. Unless it's a ridiculously long bat. It loses the 3-D look and makes the roundel seem part of the bat, to me. And I can't unsee it. I like the logo. And think for a fish logo they did a good job and incorporated the Yankee pinstripes. Yet, that bat just keeps throwing me off.

4 hours ago, Gothamite said:

You missed the best part; a raccoon playing... golf?

 

 

The eyes on their new cap logo glow in the dark.

 

Went to a few Hudson Valley games this past year. The old logo definitely had a 'kids club' feel to it. Really like the new primary and keeping the HV with the tail.The secondary homeplate logo is a nice logo for the area.

Not liking the homeplate HV logo, though. Feels too unfinished. Like something's missing. It's blocky, and the alternating stripe effect just doesn't work across the entire background.

1 hour ago, Cardsblues02 said:

Cool Idea! I like the Hot Shots logo, very unique. 

 

Also, is this going to be a simulation league or just concepts?

It's a real league.

4 hours ago, AstroBull21 said:

 

There what is?  I'm not really one of those confrontational people on here but I'm confused as to what you mean.

He thinks the announcement of a team instantly creates thousands of diehard fans who will devote their lives and support to the team.

3 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

No, they're not.  They're just fans of other teams. 

Exactly. So they're not going to pay MLB money to see a Rays game unless their team comes to town.

However, getting in to a game for $10, even if not your team, might not be something to pass up.

The tickets are dirt cheap. So, I remember a Chargers game moving to Tempe getting a huge crowd when it was basically 'bring something to donate' to get in free. I forget Minnesota's game in Detroit, but remember it being something similar and had a huge crowd.

True baseball fans might not be able to pass up $10 lower bowl seats.

14 hours ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

While I agree that St. John's got a bum deal, unless the Blues purchase another team and move them to KC, it's not likely they get an AHL affiliate there. The Colorado Eagles seem pretty poised to jump up, and the Avs sound like they're willing to help create the necessary in-roads to get the arena up to snuff.

 

The ECHL's Mavericks also just rebranded themselves as Kansas City, likely in an attempt to undermine St. Louis' ability to introduce an AHL team. The reality is that almost no ECHL team can survive with an AHL team in their market.

And what's worse is that the USHL wants to start a team in Kansas City at a new arena that's to be built.

2 hours ago, ren69 said:

Seems quite excited stroking the star.

ESPN suffered one fatal flaw. Once they wound up with 5 channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, and ESPN Classic), they had huge rights fees to a lot of major properties.... they couldn't show more than one at a time. They couldn't put an NBA game and an MLB game on at the same time on competing channels. So, the extra channels became pointless most of the time. Other than college basketball or football, the additional channels meant a lot of dead space to fill with WSOP or Gymnastics. Or anything else.

The additional channels was more about extracting more money from cable providers than it was actually filling those channels with viable content. So, aside from airing those sports, they had to focus on them to such an extent, that the rest of the time was nothing but putrid crap and the talking-head shows. Yeah, PTI was great when it first started, but it died a quick death and it's corpse has been propped up on the network for the last decade or more.

But, that nearly $10/mo rights fees paid by cable providers for the Disney Sports Cartel package was charged to all subscribers. And it's those cord-cutters they're hemorrhaging is the problem. ESPN has nothing they can do to entice them to stay. And their carriage agreements stop the concept of 'a la carte' from ever happening. ESPN is on the basic tier, or not at all. The poison pill cable providers can't risk swallowing.

But where the network brass has failed their carriage partners, the leagues are going to really feel the brunt of it. Sports relies heavily on random, casual fans tuning into the random big game but otherwise ignore the sport, league, or team the rest of the time. The Super Bowl is the most notable relic of this idea. But, March Mardness, the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA playoffs, World Series, the All-Star games, even things like Sunday Night Baseball or MOnday Night Football rely heavily on casual channel-flippers lingering on the game long enough to register and hopefully long enough to count for most of the game.

As cord-cutting continues, and it will, the problem will be those cord-cutters will have fewer and fewer opportunities to randomly watch those sporting events. Children who may vaguely watch and one day become fans won't have access to something that may, in a true a la carte nature, be far too costly. Tightly packaged away with the 'basic cable' package, that sports tier would be the first thing axed by non-diehard fans. And that would up rights fees for everyone who IS a fan. And make their price-to-say-no that much more attainable.

It kills future viewership in exchange for milking the most money out of the fan base today. It's short-sighted. MLB saw this in the 80s and 90s where it seemed to focus so much on older, aging fans, instead of cultivating the next wave of fans.  Available viewership does that, too.

On 3/3/2017 at 7:09 PM, bosrs1 said:

 

That would be a damned shame. But it sounds like the low oil prices are hitting everyone up there if University of Alaska was considering ditching their hockey program as well. Frankly given the demise of the ECHL's western division after the AHL moved west in 2016 I'm surprised the Aces fielded a team the last two years. The ECHL is supposed to be a bus league, and travel to Alaska isn't cheap, or easy given the distances and time zone issues. Basically the Aces are a latter day Alaska version of the old Hawaii Islanders of the PCL. And are no doubt suffering many of the same problems.

 

And with eastern cities like Portland, ME waiting for replacement teams for lost AHL squads there's got to be enormous pressure to sell at a hefty profit. I hope they can work it out though. The Aces shouldn't have to fold just because the AHL gutted their former division.

Given that the AHL is much more a junior circuit than ECHL being a bus league, is there any possibility an AHL team would/could work in Alaska? Or is the market too tapped out to afford it with the added cost of travel? Traveling to San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc is probably much cheaper than ECHL travel. But, tickets/attendance probably requires a bit more than they can support. NAHL is probably the route to take for Anchorage to get a team. With two other NAHL teams in the state, it makes the most sense.

Has any minor league team utilized 'wavy' pinstripes? Not criss-cross or overlap. Evenly spaced, but just zig-zag down the uniform?

It's actually cheaper/easier for Alaska to fly to major cities than the little dots on the map that are ECHL markets traditionally. The reason NAHL teams in Alaska were in the division with Texas teams was because flying to Dallas was actually cheaper. So, sticking them with sporadically placed western teams wasn't as ideal.

Not sure if that's still the case. But, other than Seattle (the primary destination of almost all Alaskan flights), you're taking other flights to continue your trip in most cases.

There's two teams in the NAHL in Alaska. Fairbanks and in Soldotna. It would make more sense to switch over to NAHL. With three Alaskan teams, the ability to let the league favor scheduling Alaskan teams, would greatly cut down on travel. And road teams could travel to all three in one trip to get in as many games as possible.

10 hours ago, buzzcut said:

The St. Paul Saints(Independent, American Association), Have a new 25th anniversary logo. 

STD Pigs is all I get from that logo.

49 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

I was thinking less Swamp Rabbits and more Solar Bears, with respect to rebranding.

Orlando Solar Bears, Houston ThunderBears, Knoxville Ice Bears,... there's something wrong with bears according to sports marketers.

I'm definitely in the "Redbirds hit a homerun" camp.

4 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

A franchise in the new independent Southwest League of Professional Baseball has unveiled its identity. The team, which will play in a proposed multi-purpose facility in the Waco, Texas suburb of Bellmead, will be dubbed the Waco BlueCats.

The team's name pays homage to the largest species of North American catfish, a favorite of anglers fishing the Brazos River and Lake Waco. BlueCats beat out four other possible team names: Woolies, Mammoths, Peppers, and Grackles. 

Waco BlueCats Official Name Announcement

 

Waco BlueCats Uniforms and Caps

 

The BlueCats' logo package and uniforms were designed by Alan Beam of Beam Team Design in Mansfield, Texas.  

Indoor Football team in Evansville, Indiana were the "Evansville BlueCats". It's a decent name and imagery.

Though it's clear the Waco BlueCats did it much better. And I really like the hook W, nice touch.

1 hour ago, Dolphins Dynasty said:

No, I mean the words are broken up. Fond¹ Du² Lac³ Dock⁴ Spiders⁵. That's five. San¹ Francisco² 49ers³ has three. Do you see what I mean?

 

Sorry, I'm not good at this... (And I did great in English classes!) 

Salt Lake City Golden Eagles

Have at it.

12 minutes ago, Dolphins Dynasty said:

I mean "Dock Spiders" isn't a terrible name by any means, but the full name is Fond Du Lac Dock Spiders? That's FIVE syllables!

And San Fran Cis Co For Ty Nin Ers is better?

22 hours ago, dfwabel said:

So much for the raid of two ACC schools for B1G.

 

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/espn-will-launch-acc-network-by-2019-extends-acc-rights-through-2036.html

 

Poor @Bluevodreal

 

Scrambling to make Texas and OU as B1G immediate move.

If a school wanted out, I don't see how the ACC could enforce this. Especially with public universities. They wouldn't sign away their rights without some sort of out clause. Every contract has some sort of out for both parties. To not would be utterly foolish and could be argued it wasn't negotiated in good faith by both sides.

On 6/7/2016 at 11:29 AM, missouri tigers said:

I see Brandiose is recycling one of their previous identities.

Considering it was a name the team contest, I doubt they had logo mock-ups before settling on Chihuahuas. So, to slap together something simple for one game wasn't going to really have their A-game.

2 hours ago, JH42XCC said:

 

Having 2 Central Divisions in 2 different conferences does not make any sense at all.

 

 

I'd only agree because the conferences are geographically divided. MLB and NFL have both overlapped with E/W, E/C/W, and E/N/S/W. But their conferences are nationwide.

4 hours ago, rickyISking said:

0-12 seems to have hurt their chances. 

 

I know KU also went 0-12, but they're already in the Big 12! 

If I were betting, UCF gets in just to try to tap into the Florida market. Both for television and for recruits. Much easier to tell a Florida kid that if you play in Kansas you'll be in Florida once or twice in a four year career where it's easy for friends or family to see you play as a bargaining chip.

I seriously doubt Houston unless that's something Texas wants to keep an in-state rival in the league and help tap into the Houston market with their Longhorn network if there's little coverage there.

From my home, it's roughly 1 hour to the nearest NHL team. 1.5 hours to the nearest AHL team. 1.75 hours to the nearest ECHL team. 1.75 hours to the nearest OHL team. And 5 minutes to the nearest USHL team.

I have no desire to pay NHL prices (nor see the Pens) and the team in the NHL I do like (Blue Jackets) are too far away. AHL is a bit of a haul. As are the ECHL team and OHL team. Closest is USHL and worth the money and time to travel. I've seen ECHL games, and for the price, there isn't much of a step down to USHL. They're just younger trying to get to the professional ranks. Instead of seeing struggling ECHLers, I get to see a player like Kyle Connor who is now with the Winnipeg Jets.

I much prefer the lower levels of hockey. I love watching NHL on TV, but have no desire to pay the price to see it in person.

Teams reference above in order: Pittsburgh Penguins NHL, Lake Erie Monsters AHL, Wheeling Nailers ECHL, Erie Otters OHL, and Youngstown Phantoms USHL.