sky1324

This may seem like I'm trying to kick the market while it's down, given that I stand to benefit from the Rays moving, but I truly do wish that Tampa Bay had worked out. I just think that the well has been thoroughly poisoned for baseball in Florida, through the Marlins' firesale clownery and Tampa Bay's concrete disaster.  My ideal solution would be moving (or contracting!) the Marlins, moving the Rays organization to Miami, and possibly having them play several home series throughout the year in Tampa Bay.

I'm one of those people that somewhat believes in "if you build it, they will come", but it's been 20 years, and people still won't come. Maybe a new stadium fixes those issues, maybe it won't. Do the Rays and their jerk owner have enough political pull to make a new stadium happen in Tampa? I personally doubt it. If the Rays had started with a better stadium or were in a better place after the '08 run then you could certainly say that they're worth keeping, but their abysmal lease at the Trop, brought on by political ridiculousness by both the MLB and St. Pete's officials have kind of ruined it for Tampa Bay.

I'm split on keeping the name - on the one hand, it's a legacy team and the name is literally applicable to any city, but on the other hand, a Montreal baseball not named the Expos is heresy. I also generally prefer city-specific branding, but the A's, like the Raiders, are waaaaay past the point of changing the name being a consideration (with the exception of Montreal).

Very quick update: It seems like my issue has been fixed (or was never a problem and I misremembered something). Anyway, it's all good now!

3 minutes ago, Jer15 said:

I actually prefer going to the newest post. 

Usually I go to the newest post, but if I'm trying to get to the first post of a thread, it feels like the title is the most obvious place for that. Besides, the circle next to unread threads did that anyway, so there were both options.

Not sure if this is something you can adjust, but I dislike how clicking on the title of a thread brings you to the newest post instead of the first one. I preferred when clicking the circle next to it would do that.

I don't think this is right haha

I like script helmets when the script is actually a script and when it curves with the helmet. A straight wordmark isn't as good. It'd be better if the helmet included an actual jet and not a football.

If the Jets got rid of black and made sure that their pants and socks contrasted they'd have a great set. As it stands, they're good, better than their previous set, but could be much better with a couple tweaks.

16 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

So who has the territorial rights to San Antonio and Austin?

I would assume it's shared between Texas and Houston.

9 minutes ago, NormMacdonald said:

Los Angeles Athletics would be a special kind of messed up

The LA's

1 hour ago, Walk-Off said:

 

 While Charlotte has been rumored for years as a potential home of an MLB team -- thanks largely to both a metro area with steady population growth and the continued financial pull of the city's banking industry (especially the national juggernaut that is Bank of America) -- I am not aware of any serious, clearly organized movement for an MLB franchise in or near the South's Queen City.  In fact, I dare say that Raleigh has currently the most substantive and most tangible campaign for an MLB club anywhere in North Carolina (replete with a #RaleighOnDeck hashtag) ... even if most of the boosters of that project seem to be local hipsters whose individual and collective net worths are middle-class at best.

 

The real Queen City, thank you

Raleigh is much more organized right now, but they kind of have to be to combat Charlotte. The Raleigh metro isn't particularly conducive to a team, with three large, distinct populations spread out over about 113 square miles. Durham to Raleigh is about half an hour, and you can't rely on half of your population to drive half an hour or more see the team. Diehard fans sure, but you're going to be drawing mostly from the city proper. The Research Triangle, Raleigh's CSA, is about 700,000 people smaller than Charlotte's, and the TV market is also smaller, though not by much here. The corporate money is also much more prevalent here as well as we have 9 Fortune 500 companies with headquarters here while Raleigh has... 2, not to mention other companies with regional headquarters in the city. 

Both cities are held back by the fact that neither of them have a stadium. Raleigh loses to Charlotte in just about every metric - the only reasonable argument for the Triangle over the Queen City is that Raleigh only has the Hurricanes to compete with. But in the MLB Raleigh site you mentioned, while they reference the Hornets' attendance struggles, they fail to mention that the Hurricanes also don't draw well, in fact, they've draw worse than the Hornets recently. If the MLB announced real expansion or it was seriously under consideration for a franchise to move, I guarantee you somebody in Charlotte would step up, whether that's David Tepper or another one of the rich guys that make the area home.

If they do move (which they shouldn't), Portland should be their first choice (it won't be), followed by San Jose (whoops, shouldn't have given up that territory), then pretty much anything else, then Vegas. But of course, Vegas will jump the line and somehow end up with an original AL team then muck up the brand. Fun times!

Since you're doing cities with two teams, you could do CFL teams for the Canadian cities.That would give you (with MLS included):

Toronto - Blue Jays, Raptors, Maple Leafs, Argonauts, Toronto FC

Montreal - Canadiens, Alouettes, CF Montreal

Ottawa - Senators, RedBlacks

Winnipeg - Jets, Blue Bombers

Calgary - Flames, Stampeders

Edmonton - Oilers, EE Football Team

Vancouver - Canucks, BC Lions, Whitecaps

I can promise you that is not an unpopular opinion.

5 minutes ago, BengalErnst said:

I’m wondering myself on if every team name that doesn’t end with an “s” is considered singular 

I wouldn't consider it to be. For example, despite "Kraken" not ending in 's', the word itself is plural, as such, cannot be singular. Of course, the team hasn't specified if they are using the term as a singular or plural noun, but for now I assume it's plural.

Yeah, they've been using blue on social media for a while now. If it meant anything, they'd have officially changed by now.

1 hour ago, VDizzle12 said:

I don't know, I feel like the ram logo is generic and feels like clip art. 

 

Guess these hats aren't terrible. A bit meh though. I'm surprised the NFL doesn't do more to make them fit into the host cities. 

Last year they had the neon style to fit Vegas, though clearly that didn't happen as planned. 

Great logo, if they had gone by just Gotham FC it would've been perfect.

I like what you've got going on here, just one thing with the Charlotte entry: the Hurricanes play in Raleigh, not Charlotte. You could label it a "Carolina" logo, but Charlotte alone doesn't work, sadly. Everything is really nice, both Indy and Phoenix are incredible!

The team actually ended up making a t-shirt with the logo because people liked it so much. We might actually see this used on a jersey in due time.

I agree, it's a clever reference to the team's name and certainly doesn't look bad. Maybe we can get it on a shirt or as a third jersey crest.

Aaaaaaaand it's an April Fool's joke.

I actually kinda like the logo, Maybe we can get an alternate jersey for next year's April Fool's Day.

4 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

I hope they dont get rid of Chubby entirely. Id like to see him live on at least in a secondary logo

We've had Chubby since the team was reincarnated in the '90s, no way he goes away entirely. Maybe he's not in the logo, but I'm sure the mascot will remain.

6 hours ago, DustDevil61 said:

Slightly off topic, but It still astounds me that the Charlotte/Carolina affiliation did not work out, given the proximity between the two clubs.

From what I've heard (all rumors, nothing concrete) it seems as though Dundon pissed off the Checkers. I'm sad to see what was essentially our Calder Cup-winning team shipped off to the team we beat but whatever.

In other news, the Checkers posted this on Twitter:

From what I tell:

• Red and black is staying (booo)
• The logo is a roundel with "Charlotte Checkers" outside
• The Charlotte crown is right in the middle

I'm excited to see what we'll get. Sad the team isn't moving on from red, but I suppose it is our most successful look.

40 minutes ago, Wade Heidt said:

 

@QCS I see this is your hometown team so you may have more of a pulse on this than I.  Are we looking at a name change too?  I'm not a huge fan of Checkers as a team name. 

Absolutely not. The Checkers name has been the name for Charlotte hockey since 1960, when the Charlotte Clippers were renamed (the former Baltimore Clippers whose arena burned down. They moved temporarily to Charlotte then moved full-time the next year. They were the first hockey team based on the Southeast). The name came from a name-the-team contest and references both checking in hockey as well as the checkered flag of auto racing.