Regional/Geographical/City Names

[sportsfan7]

5 hours ago, Echo said:

The Texas Rangers are named for the legendary law enforcement bureau of the same name.  Walker wasn't a Dallas Ranger after all.

True, but before the Senators moved to TX the American Association had a team named the Dallas Rangers and then the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers.

[The_Admiral]

On 4/28/2020 at 7:55 PM, throwuascenario said:

I think that if a city is named after the state that it's in, it should always be called the state name. Minnesota instead of Minneapolis. The Colts should be Indiana instead of Indianapolis. The Thunder should be the Oklahoma Thunder. The extra word or ending just makes it sound clunky and long.

 

The idea behind the Thunder (and before them, the Hornets) representing Oklahoma City was that they didn't want to appear to take sides in the Oklahoma/Oklahoma State rivalry. Paradoxically, using the city instead of the state made them for everyone.

[MilSox]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:38 PM, Tygers09 said:

There is the Great Lakes Loons, a baseball team that plays in Midland, MI affiliate of the LA Dodgers.

I could understand being the Lake Huron Loons.  But not that name when most of the league plays in the Great Lake states.

The Lakeshore Chinooks of the Northwoods League are named even more daftly vague.  Mequon is a middle of nowhere exurb of north of Milwaukee County. But the only place I've ever heard "Lakeshore" used as a geographic identifier is that's what some of the Wisconsin media calls the string of port towns south of Green Bay. And even that area is still to the north of where the team actually plays. 

[MilSox]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:42 PM, TBGKon said:

The Florida Fire Frogs of the Florida State League in MILB are one that falls into this category.

 

I know that some Geographic/Regional names can be used in MILB, but when all 12 teams are in the state you use as an identifier it might not be the best idea...

Similarly, the Carolina Mudcats of the Carolina League.  Granted, that was by happenstance of a CL team taking over the branding of the Southern League Mudcats who had just moved. 

[Digby]

On 4/29/2020 at 12:36 PM, Pharos04 said:

New England Patriots - 6 states claimed

 

Only after the initial attempt at Bay State Patriots, and just claiming one, but... B.S. 

 

All water under the bridge now, but I wonder how necessary that was, coming as it did around the same era of the Richfield Cavaliers. 

[OnWis97]

6 hours ago, Echo said:

 

Both of these make sense though.  The Texas Rangers are named for the legendary law enforcement bureau of the same name.  Walker wasn't a Dallas Ranger after all.  Florida panthers are an actual subspecies of cat.  I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a Miami panther. 

All true, but I've wondered in both cases whether they chose these names at least in part so they could have a legit reason to have the state name in order to try to attract people in between Dallas and Houston / Miami and Tampa.

[Digby]

13 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

All true, but I've wondered in both cases whether they chose these names at least in part so they could have a legit reason to have the state name in order to try to attract people in between Dallas and Houston / Miami and Tampa.

 

Well the Marlins and Panthers were both Huizenga operations, right? Once/always a Fort Lauderdale guy, I guess.

[DTConcepts]

Nobody seems to remember the Rocky Mountain Rage.

[MilSox]

9 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

All true, but I've wondered in both cases whether they chose these names at least in part so they could have a legit reason to have the state name in order to try to attract people in between Dallas and Houston / Miami and Tampa.

I think it's a safe bet to say that was a factor. Though I think Dallas Rangers and Miami Panthers would have been just as fine.

I think Texas Rangers is tolerable to me because they were the only Texas team in the AL for many decades.  Even if the Astros are in the division now, the Rangers are still the OG.   

[Tygers09]

Plus the Florida Panthers were named for panthers that live(d)  in the Everglades.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, Digby said:

Well the Marlins and Panthers were both Huizenga operations, right? Once/always a Fort Lauderdale guy, I guess.

Yep. Originally a Chicago guy, too. Chicago's Dutch, of all people, hold a near-monopoly on picking up trash. Isn't that odd? Chicago and the garbage industry, both synonymous with crooks, but the overlap in the Venn diagram belongs to upstanding Calvinists. Go figure. But yeah, he definitely had a bad case of Broward syndrome. 

 

Texas Rangers doesn't work when the state is really really big and has at least four major cities. Always felt like a team from nowhere to me. I knew the Astros existed, then it was like, oh, there's also another Texas team. Just Texas. All of it. Okay.

[sky1324]

3 hours ago, Tygers09 said:

Plus the Florida Panthers were named for panthers that live(d)  in the Everglades.

So were the Carolina Panthers, making them the one acceptable use for the Carolina geographic name.

[Tygers09]

3 hours ago, QCS said:

So were the Carolina Panthers, making them the one acceptable use for the Carolina geographic name.

I'm down with the Carolina geographic name, yes they play in Charlotte, but by generalizing the name Carolina, it represents both Carolina states...ditto for the Hurricanes as well.

[Digby]

I've thought about this at the minor-league level with Portland, Maine ... where the AA baseball team uses Portland, the G-League team uses Maine, and the AHL team has gone back and forth through the years. I guess I understand it with the Red Claws since the big NBA has a team in that other Portland. I think the hockey teams just go with alliteration. 

 

(Maybe relatedly, haven't thought about it til now, but I wonder why the history of New York-Penn League teams in Burlington always use "Vermont" as the identifier.)

[sky1324]

10 hours ago, Tygers09 said:

I'm down with the Carolina geographic name, yes they play in Charlotte, but by generalizing the name Carolina, it represents both Carolina states...ditto for the Hurricanes as well.

Disagree here. The Carolina (and by extension, Florida) Panthers work because they directly reference a real animal. This helps to extend to the whole region for a regional sport like football (there's usually only one pro team in a given area) but doesn't work for a sport like hockey, where there's like 6 other teams in the area covered by the "Carolina" name (Off the top of my name, there's the Checkers, Swamp Rabbits, Stingrays, Thunderbirds, Marksmen, and I think there's one in Wilmington?). For another example, look at the Charlotte Hornets. If you ever go to a game at Spectrum Center, they play a video before the game to the tune of a song saying "This city is my city" while going through the names of both Charlotte neighborhoods and suburbs and also cities like Raleigh, Greensboro, Greenville, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, etc., effectively claiming the Carolinas for the Hornets but not using them in the name because it doesn't make sense to. You'll never see Atlanta teams going by "Georgia", but that would appeal to the entire region, right? My point is teams will draw fans from their territory due to locality, and not because they named themselves "region name". 

[The_Admiral]

Vermont isn't very big in population or area, and even their largest city isn't all that big, and damn near every state has a Burlington, so I guess they figure they can get away with a state name. "Vermont Expos" worked because it's a French place name for a Montreal affiliate: of course they'd have a farm team for the Expos. The others, I don't know about.

 

The Carolina panther is a real animal? I thought that was the Carolina cougar.

[BBTV]

21 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

The idea behind the Thunder (and before them, the Hornets) representing Oklahoma City was that they didn't want to appear to take sides in the Oklahoma/Oklahoma State rivalry. Paradoxically, using the city instead of the state made them for everyone.

 

Maybe, if college fandom has such influence that it impacts a pro team that much, that's an indication that it's not a city that should have a pro team to begin with.

[The_Admiral]

Just now, BringBackTheVet said:

Maybe, if college fandom has such influence that it impacts a pro team that much, that's an indication that it's not a city that should have a pro team to begin with.

 

In theory, but they did such a good job babysitting the Hornets that they proved they could make it work there with rich owners and revenue sharing. 

[sky1324]

5 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Vermont isn't very big in population or area, and even their largest city isn't all that big, and damn near every state has a Burlington, so I guess they figure they can get away with a state name. "Vermont Expos" worked because it's a French place name for a Montreal affiliate: of course they'd have a farm team for the Expos. The others, I don't know about.

 

The Carolina panther is a real animal? I thought that was the Carolina cougar.

Well, it's technically extinct now, but it was. The cougars that live in NC are all Eastern cougars. The original name for the team was Carolina Cougars but they changed it for branding synergy, I think. They had already picked out the colors and I guess they thought a panther fits black, blue, and silver better than a cougar does.

[Digby]

11 minutes ago, QCS said:

Disagree here. The Carolina (and by extension, Florida) Panthers work because they directly reference a real animal. This helps to extend to the whole region for a regional sport like football (there's usually only one pro team in a given area) but doesn't work for a sport like hockey, where there's like 6 other teams in the area covered by the "Carolina" name (Off the top of my name, there's the Checkers, Swamp Rabbits, Stingrays, Thunderbirds, Marksmen, and I think there's one in Wilmington?). For another example, look at the Charlotte Hornets. If you ever go to a game at Spectrum Center, they play a video before the game to the tune of a song saying "This city is my city" while going through the names of both Charlotte neighborhoods and suburbs and also cities like Raleigh, Greensboro, Greenville, Columbia, Myrtle Beach, etc., effectively claiming the Carolinas for the Hornets but not using them in the name because it doesn't make sense to. You'll never see Atlanta teams going by "Georgia", but that would appeal to the entire region, right? My point is teams will draw fans from their territory due to locality, and not because they named themselves "region name". 

 

I think this is generally right, but I always wonder about the local exceptions. Like the Minneapolis/St. Paul teams are always gonna use Minnesota to skirt around any local politics, that makes sense. The New England Patriots seems excessive, like who else is northern Vermont and downeast Maine going to root for ... But in those early post-merger days the Giants still had a pretty big New England following, so maybe every little bit did help in trying to claw that back. (Or maybe it's always just MBA consultants trying to hard, who knows)