Wall Street Journal article

[pdxuoduck]

The Carolina Panthers made history Monday: For the first time since the franchise was founded, the Panthers changed their logo.

Granted, they didn't change much. (They removed the eyebrows and, according to a team statement, made the panther "more aggressive.") But give Carolina credit: The team went 17 seasons with exactly the same primary logo?an eternity for an expansion franchise.

Expansion teams constantly mess with their logos early in their histories, often within the first five years of existence. Of the 33 new or relocated teams across the four major professional sports since 1988, only nine have had just one main logo (excluding the new Winnipeg Jets, who are in their inaugural season).

The Dallas Stars, for instance, darkened the shade of green in their logo just one year after relocating to Dallas from Minnesota. (The Stars made another tweak five years later.) The Phoenix Coyotes abandoned their cartoonish coyote logo for a more realistic one in 2003, seven seasons after moving from Winnipeg.

NBA teams are particularly bad about this: Seven of the eight new or relocated franchises in the last 25 years have made at least one alteration their logo. The only exception is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who just arrived from Seattle in 2008.

But the worst offender is the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning. Since the Lightning began play in 1992, the team has gone through four different primary logos?the first three of which looked much the same.