Klondyke

5 hours ago, steve61 said:

 

Why can't they just stick to their retro brand? 

Can someone answer this, was Ryan Smith part of the Jazz re-branding that massively failed?

I guess the bright side of that is the team realized its mistake and tried to correct the course right away

4 hours ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

That's what the Phoenix Suns did with their G League team.  Had fans submit names only to pick the Suns and be blasted for it.

This is what the Canucks farm team did. Polled season ticket holders on the name and just went with Canucks for the AHL team

Either take fan feedback genuinely, or just don't do it. Just phony PR nonsense 

 Whether it be the NBA or MLB, the jerseys that breakaway from a team's traditional color pallet are not selling that well. I don't get why they keep doubling down on this concept.

Maybe someone here will know, have the Angels worn any type of throwback since their "LA" rebrand 20 years ago?

Took a singular marketing class during my undergrad. We actually had a small section on team names from the 90's (along with general trends). The reason for all the 'wacky' names in the 90's is because a few specialty marketing/graphic design firms did market research on sports team names and almost solely focused on young, male children.  Typically, the people who were coming up with these names and designs had little interest or understanding of sports culture. Many of the names of those teams have been changed since (Bobcats, KC Wiz, Wash Wiz branding, Dallas Burn, etc)

General attitude has shifted after some backlash to some of those names. Now more specialty firms that understand the sports and more traditional names  (see the MLS trend of everyone taking the "FC" name route). 

I have zero clue to who Utah is soliciting for its branding and names, but it generally reeks of the same issue sports teams had in the 90's

I really love the script logo and the snowflake would be a great shoulder patch

When the Columbus Crew announced they were relocating to Austin,  their owner hinted they were going to do a contest for some designs and names. I threw this together. When I found out they were not going to have a contest, I abandoned the project. Wanted to refine this a bit more, but never got around to it.

Orange is a nod to the Longhorns, with the primary colour of the kits (that were never designed) being black. The guitar pick shield, with the guitar strings is a nod to the city/state's vibrant country music scene.

Really no clues from their website whatsoever.  In fact, they really don't have a website yet. The Coyotes are still listed on the NHL site and this NHL to in Utah website is just a Squarespace placeholder 

I will never get why teams don't market test different designs. Just because designers like something, does not mean the public will

3 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

The Thrashers relocation got announced almost a month later than this one, and the Jets still managed to have their logo & jerseys ready in the summer. I understand wanting to get the brand right, but being a generic NHL team for a year feels like a terrible way to make a good first impression on a new market, especially when they're already going to be playing in an arena that wasn't designed for hockey. 

The "Winnipeg Jets" name and IP was owned by the Yotes and was past along to the NHL when the Yotes went into bankrupncy. One of the reasons they took the name is they were able to just buy the IP from the league.

I am a business owner and the process of registering trademarks has become slower and more complicated in recent years.

If they wanted to get a name quickly, I think the best thing they could do would be to buy an existing IP like the "Utah Grizzlies" (ECHL team). Although it sounds like their owner wants a unique brand.

Their owner (who also owns the Jazz) hinted he wants uniformed branding with that team and something representative of the SLC market. I am going to speculate that they will go with purple. 

2 hours ago, CJR said:

 

This keeps getting repeated and isn't entirely true.

At one point, Bill Foley said that his team couldn't be the Knights because of London and everyone ran with that.  Foley said a lot of things at that time that weren't entirely true.  The London Knights explicitly said that no one from Vegas even asked them about using the name and Foley later said it was always going to be the something Knights.

 

We only have to look at the next expansion to see how it can work out.  Seattle's ownership filed a trademark application for Palm Springs Firebirds as their AHL team.  The OHL Flint Firebirds opposed it.  The two sides worked out a deal and Flint dropped their opposition (and then the Firebirds switched to "Coachella Valley" as their place name).

 

The Memphis Grizzlies (or any other trademark holder) might choose to fight harder than the Flint Firebirds did but it's not the automatic rejection that it's sometimes made out to be.

The (FKA) Denver (now Utah) "Grizzlies" were founded in 1994, a year before the (FKA) Vancouver Grizzlies played a game in 1995.

I think they would be able to use the name if they were to purchase it.

FTR, I don't even like the name, but it just might be the option that is easiest with all the copyright issues

3 hours ago, 8BW14 said:

I think Utah Coyotes has a nice ring to it. The name works for the locale. They could tweak the logo and colors, if they want something new and fresh.  I’m not an NHL fan so maybe there’s too much baggage that I'm not fully aware of with the name to keep it?

 

There’s also the issue that most of the good names are taken at this point. Grizzlies or Raptors is obviously out of the question.  Bighorns might be cool if, but maybe it’s too close to the LA Rams. Elk would be awesome too, but it’s being used in the CFL. Maybe Pronghorns or mule deer might be a direction they could go if they’re dead-set on ditching coyotes.

There is already a team in SLC called the Grizzlies and they have played in the IHL/AHL/ECHL

Getting a name through the copyright process in time for 2024/25 might be the biggest challenge. This took the Washington Commanders two years to do. The NHL Jets only got the name because the Coyotes were owned by the league and they just transferred the name to the team

Buying the naming rights to the Grizzlies might be their best option

I am a City Planner and my entire career is based around dealing with developers. While i think hockey will go back to Phoenix, this development is a half assed mess, that was rushed and has absolutely no forsite for the following reasons:

1. THERE IS NO PARKING IN THESE DESIGNS. Arena developments not near a Transportation loop need about 8-12k worth of parking spots. That is WAY too high of a capacity to put underground. 

2. Those roads around the arena way way too narrow to support 8k-12,000 cars. It would take an hour just to leave the block. If they city were to expand the roads, it would be on taxpayers to pay for it. There is also a residential development to the north east, and while I am not totally familiar with Phoenix government, I imagine they don't want to deal with that.

3. There is no transportation in the area. Expanding it would also cost taxpayers money. The Scottsdale mayor pretty much stated these concerns are way he's opposed to it

4. Maybe they are changing the name back to "Phoenix", but the fact the arena says "Phoenix" on it in the Coyotes font makes me just think this is a lazy oversite. If you look at the 2nd rendering I posted, it also has their own mascot wearing an outdated Coyotes jersey.

5. They don't seem to have talked to any government body in the region. There very well could be neighbourhood bylaws that prevent them from using something like a goal horn past a certain time, or even have the arena's lights on too bright.

Points 3 & 4 could just be oversites, but the lack of attention to detail just screams to me that this is a person who is not very well organized. 

12 minutes ago, schlim said:

This way the owner can sell Coyotes retro t-shirts ala the Seattle Metropolitans guy, and probably make as much, if not more money, than running the Coyotes.

 

I wonder how much of a holdup the Arizona law allowing sports team owners to own and run a casino is playing into this. Like it or not, the NHL will probably call the Coyotes a 'deactivated' team while still technically allowing the owner to 'own' the team and still run the casino until he can pay the legislature off enough to change the laws and grandfather him in to run the casino.

The Coyotes current owner seems to be a bit of an idiot. I work in real estate and the time line he gave to build this new arena near Scottsdale was never doable. Things like a water services agreement with a neighbouring city need to be worked out WAY in advance. Instead, it seemed like the project never even knew they needed something like that.

While Alex Meruelo (owner of the Yotes) has money in real estate, he's never developed anything before and does not really seem to understand the bureaucratic hurdles that come with a massive mixed-use development like that.

I looked at the renderings and there was absolutely no parking included in it and I am guessing they made no attempt to coordinate with the local transportation system to set up service.

10 minutes ago, Chromatic said:

This is the most surprising thing. All of the BS and lack of success make it surprising they want to hold on to the Coyotes identity.

 

You’d think they’d want a clean break and a fresh start.

7 minutes ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

 

Agreed. And I solemnly believe that Phoenix will get a team waaaaay down the road and adopt the Coyotes name. And when I say down the road I'm talking like 20 years. 

The way it was phrased, was more to do with a legal situation. They don't the current Yotes owner to have reason to sue them. If he gets to keep the rights to the name/IP of the Coyotes/Jets history, and gets first rights at a new team (which is speculated to have a 5 year window), he would have less reason to sue the NHL.

From the way Elliotte Friedman was talking, it does NOT sound like the NHL wants to do business with the Yotes owner again, but will want to put a team back there in the near future. Right now, the NHL just seems most concentrated and getting the team out of there. It looks like they will give him a 5 year window, with them not expecting to get the arena deal done.

This came out in a different news source, but it also sounds like the Coyotes farm team will be relocated to Mullet Arena because they currently have a lease there.

On 4/8/2024 at 10:01 AM, Mr. Krabs said:

And remember in 2007, the Canucks started the playoffs with their regular navy blue orca jerseys for their first three games at home (including the legendary Game 1 in 4OT), and then switched to their retro stick-in-rink royal blue jerseys for the rest of the playoffs starting with Game 7 against Dallas. So they, and the Sabres that year, broke that rule. Were they ever disciplined in some way for it?

Just a note, the Aquilini family (owners of the Canucks) has always preferred blue and green.

46 minutes ago, Foxxtrot44 said:

Given that the name has to be Utah ____, I hope they don't try to force the 'Y' sound alliteration. Yetis and 'Yotes all ring a little hollow to me. (if they pick Unicorns, though.....)

It would be interesting to see them try to alliterate the 'Aw' sound instead. Foxes, Pronghorns, Tomatoes, etc...
That said, this is also a chance to exercise one of the long-running name candidates in Utah sports history. Utah State University tried it in the 70's, Real Salt Lake almost went for it in the aughts...is it finally time for the Utah Highlanders?

Thank you for reading.

One of the reasons Winnipeg got the Jets name back is because they had 2 months to find something and since (at the time) the Coyotes were owned by the NHL, they were able to transfer the IP back to Winnipeg.

Copyright stuff can lag for a while, so the best option might be for the Utah ownership to buy existing IP. I could easily see a deal with the Utah Grizzlies (former AHL, now ECHL team) to buy that name. The Utah Grizz have been operating in Salk Lake City since 1995 and are well known in the market.

Outside of the Jets, the only modern instance I can think of with a quick relocation where the team was compelled to change their name is the Baltimore Ravens. 

1 hour ago, spartacat_12 said:

On today's 32 Thoughts podcast Elliotte Friedman said that the team would use Utah as the name, not Salt Lake.

Beat me to it!

Other general notes:

-The name/branding of the Coyotes is going to be 'deactivated' - it will be a Cleveland Browns situation

-Utah is going to be trying to make the playoffs next year and will be very active in free agency

Vancouver FC revealed a new Cherry Blossom kit

3 hours ago, kiwi_canadian said:

Oilers possibly releasing a new jersey next week... Looking at the pictures though and seeing who they were posted by (ICE District Authentic, the team's official store), I have a feeling that they are rereleasing the original Todd McFarlane jersey as well as the home jersey from the 2006 finals for fans to purchase. Don't think we will see them on the ice.

 

 

Oilers Ease Out New Jersey Reveal

Canucks have a few retro jerseys for sale at their team store. They're all Mitchell and Ness (and terribly quality compared to  the OG CCM's).

I am guessing that's what these will be

Lions have told season ticket holders to look-out for a  jersey that celebrate their 70th.. No idea if its going to be a retro or just a new third. They were really vague about it

2 hours ago, Captain Poncho said:

I once had to talk down a major athletic outfitter who had proffered a "patriotic throwback" to wear in international competition that looked almost exactly like the Confederate battle flag. Took me showing them a side-by-side comparison to get them to scrap it, and thankfully, they did right before the eve of production.

 

In an almost opposite example, Cujo here is wildly projecting an imaginary link to something entirely unrelated based solely on his own biases, which is akin to the likes of hating every red baseball hat in existence because red ballcaps belong to you-know-who.

 

Navigating these two extremes (the Imagined Offense one being far more frequent) in sports design is often an enormous obstacle in getting meaningful work done.

 

 

Back in my graphic design days, I once mindlessly created a logo for a gardening company that looked almost identical the the Soviet Hammer and Sickle. It looked so powerful, I really thought it was my best work until I realized I subconsciously ripped off the Soviet logo. We've also seen this a few times in some soccer kits, where they accidentally put something resembling to a Swastika in the design pattern.

Not going to dump on anyone personally, but those who have more extreme sensibilities are disproportionately more likely to have some sort of mental health issue, so I don't think it' really worth piling on. Society's (and the design world's)  issue is that we used to take these people with a grain of salt and understand the context of their situation. Now we don't. 

On 1/24/2024 at 8:39 PM, M4One said:

Better than Vegas and LA, but still not very good.  Maybe...and it's a big maybe, the chrome/metallic helmets might work if the entire jersey was made from the dazzle material the Canucks used on the OG Orcas, but we know that's not going to happen.  

 

 

They were terrible live. This picture makes it look wawy better than what it was 

23 hours ago, M4One said:

A ticket rep is not going to know what jersey the team might wear in the playoffs with half a season still left to play, so the doom and gloom over the return of the skate jersey is a little premature.

 

Any ways, here's Tampa Bay's Gasparilla jersey.  Kind of wish they used that logo for an alternate jersey.  Extra points for doing more than just slapping the logo on a practice jersey.

 

  

 

 

 

Worked for the Sharks. Marketing departments know well in advance what jerseys teams are going to wear in the playoffs. Playoff merch is the biggest sellers of the year and teams want their branding to figured out in advance.

People like you with no sources, who talk out of their ass is one of the most entertaining things I see on here. Like when you wake up each morning,  do you go "well its time for me to post on the internet as if I am an expert in a field I have no experience in".