SPORTS MARKETING
Intellectual Property
Sports and IP
IP and Sports - Background Brief
It’s early evening and you’re heading toward the gates with thousands of other sports fans to cheer on professional athletes competing at the highest level. Whether it’s Yankee Stadium in New York, Old Trafford in Manchester, Eden Garden in Kolkota or the site of any other major sporting event, throngs of ardent fans are decked out in the jerseys, caps and scarves of their club.
Before kick-off or the opening pitch, this type of team branding and merchandizing is just one example of how the global intellectual property (IP) system supports athletics around the world. Sport creates communities of players and fans alike and it’s also a $300 billion-plus economic engine that provides jobs around the world.
Jerseys, branded grounds: trademarks in action
As you stand in line to enter the stadium, you may realize that many of the world’s most-famous playing grounds now bear the names and brands of their sponsors, as well as team names and logos. This kind of branding is aided by the international trademark registering system administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO is a Geneva-based specialized agency of the United Nations that promotes innovation and creativity for the economic, social and cultural development of all countries, through a balanced and effective international IP system.
Brand owners seek to control their trademarks such as logos or jingles, which act as the cognitive touchpoints for their customers. In sports, as in all areas of business, trademark-protected material represents special qualities that attract fans – which in turn generates the income for companies to make investments in new talent or better infrastructure.
Personal product: players and trademarks
As you settle into your seat, the players take the field to cheers. Some of these individuals may use IP rights to control the use of certain image with which they are associated. For example, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt’s “Lightning Bolt” pose and his “to di world” slogan, US basketball star Michael Jordan’s “jumpman” pose and his Air Jordan brand shoes, and English Rugby star Johnny Wilkinson’s distinct kicking stance are all registered trademarks. Without bestowing absolute rights over those poses and words, trademarks prevent unauthorized commercial use ofproducts without the endorsement of the celebrities. Even without a registered trademark, however, celebrity athletes have “image (or personality) rights” to prevent unauthorized use of their name, likeness or other personal attributes.
Trademarks are protected by entry on a national trademark register. Once registered, they are valid potentially unlimited in time as long as they are used. WIPO’s international trademark registration system, known as the Madrid system, enables trademark holders to file a single application for registration in up to 85 countries, and to maintain and renew those marks through a single procedure.
Lights, camera, copyright
While the players warm up, television camera lights brighten as announcers welcome broadcast audiences to the action. Advances in communications technologies – satellite, cable, broadband and mobile internet – have revolutionized broadcast sports coverage and enabled billions of people around the world to take part in the spectacle and excitement of major sporting events.
Copyright and related rights provide protection against unauthorized retransmission of broadcasts and underpin the relationship between sport and television and other media. Television and media organizations pay huge sums of money for the exclusive right to broadcast sporting events live. For example, of the US$3.7 billion in total revenues (excluding ticket sales) generated by the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa, two-thirds or US$2.4 billion was derived from the sale of broadcasting rights. The sale of marketing rights brought in another US$1.1 billion, with the remainder accounted for by sale of hospitality rights and licensing.
Sport tech: industrial design and patents
Play gets going, and competitors swing bats, kick balls and cut back and forth in state-of-the art gear – all examples of objects whose designs can be protected. In most countries, an industrial design must be registered in order to be protected under industrial design law. However, protection is given only in the country where the design is registered. WIPO's Hague system provides an easy and cost-effective way to obtain protection for an industrial design in up to 57 countries.
During half-time or between innings, players sit down and stretch, reaching their heads toward multi-colored shoes. This simple shoe actually contains multitudes: It may be protected by several IP rights, such as patents that protect the technology used to develop the shoe. WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system provides an easy and cost-effective way to obtain patent protection for an invention in up to 148 countries. Registered designs protect the “look” of the shoe, while trademarks - distinguish the shoe from similar products and protect the “reputation” of the shoe (and the company making it), while copyright – may protect artwork and audiovisual creations used to publicize the shoe.
A lot has changed since Rudolf Lettner obtained a patent for one of the first sport-related inventions, the steel edge ski, in the late 1920s. Today, thousands of sport-related inventions are protected by patents, many of which have been granted on the basis of patent applications filed using WIPO’s PCT system.
An economic and employment engine
But it’s not just professionals and their sponsors who derive benefits from the IP system, it’s all of us who go home from major sporting events to try our own luck on sandlots and schoolyard pitches.
The sports industry has a growing impact on the world economy, creating jobs, investing in public infrastructure and mobilizing resources – and an important component of this is generated through IP-protected activities. The global revenue of the sports industry – comprising sponsorships, gate revenues, media rights fees and merchandising – is predicted to reach US$ 133 billion in 2013 from US$ 114 billion in 2009. The annual global turnover of sporting goods (equipment, apparel and footwear) is put at around US$ 300 billion.
How does WIPO help?
Aside from easing the way for protection of trademarks, patents and designs around the world, WIPO works to ensure that the benefits of the sports industry are spread wide and deep.
WIPO awareness raising and training activities look at successful IP rights strategies and monetization of IP assets to promote the growth of sport as a tool for development. Activities also address challenges for creating an enabling regulatory environment and how to ensure effective action against IP violations that erode sponsors confidence and the benefits associated with the hosting of major sport events.
IP awareness raising and training programs are demand driven and tailored to the specific social and cultural context of each country.
Activities target a wide range of stakeholders such as: government and public bodies; enforcement officials and judiciary; legal practitioners; agents, athletes, clubs, sports federations; event organizers, donors, sponsors; sports good manufacturers; television and media companies.
Themes addressed include: The sport business model building an effective IP rights strategy; Signal piracy and the WIPO draft broadcasting treaty; Sale of media and broadcasting rights; The use of patents, trademarks, designs and models in sport; Use of domain names and Sports-related domain name cases; Digital content, using social media for sport; Sport contracts; Marketing, merchandising and licensing agreements; Athletes’ image rights; Building successful sponsorship programs; Enforcement of rights & Building respect for IPR’s in sport; Sport disputes and alternative dispute resolution for sport.
New frontiers: tech and sports
As you head home the stadium, you’re rejoining the global public that is able to access sporting events remotely, via television, radio, the Internet and other media.
The royalties that broadcasters earn from selling their exclusive footage to other media outlets enable them to invest in the costly organizational and technical undertaking involved in broadcasting sports events to millions of fans all over the world. This is made possible through the protection the IP system provides for their broadcasting rights.
Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, which as host broadcaster for the Beijing Games supplied television signals from all the Olympic venues, deployed 6,000 staff, 1,000 cameras, 575 digital video tape recorders, 350 broadcast trailers and 62 outside broadcast vans.
Television rights are thought to account for about 60% of the income of the Tour de France, which is broadcast in over 180 countries. The English Premier League, whose matches are broadcast in 212 countries, sold domestic and international television rights for the three seasons 2010-2013 for £3.2 billion.
Broadcasters’ rights
Under the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (Rome Convention) of 1961, broadcasters have exclusive rights for 20 years to authorize rebroadcasting, “fixation” (recording), reproduction and communication to the public of their broadcasts. However, there is wide agreement that the protection of broadcasters’ rights needs updating to accommodate the digital communications revolution. Ongoing negotiations at WIPO aim to update the international legal framework to adequately and efficiently protect against the piracy of broadcast signals.
Competitive sport has become a global billion-dollar industry due in large part to IP rights and ever closer cooperation between the media, sponsors and sports authorities.
Pirates: not team players
However, more sophisticated communications technologies, accessible to a wide public, have not only enabled fans to follow live sports wherever they may be but have opened new possibilities for signal theft. Live sports broadcasts have been a particular target for unauthorized retransmission on the Internet, often through peer-to-peer file-sharing technology that acts as a conduit for users to share content.
Signal piracy not only threatens the advertising and sales revenues of the broadcasters that have paid for exclusive rights to show live coverage of sports events, but also risks reducing the value of those rights and hence the revenues of sports organizations. While national laws provide various options for tackling signal piracy, including shutting down illegal websites in some countries, broadcasting organizations have pressed for better legal protection at international level.
Sports have now created global communities, with supporters rooting on teams in distant corners of the world. Many fans may never have the chance to root on their team in its home stadium – but their support is no less important to the teams nowadays.
Similarly, the business of sports is now a worldwide affair, creating jobs and providing livelihoods for employees of broadcasters, apparel merchants and others across the globe –underscoring that IP is everyone’s property.
Vegas Golden Knights
Golden Knights settle trademark issue with Army over use of name
The Vegas Golden Knights have settled their trademark battle with the U.S. Army, clearing the way for the team to be able to have a legal right to the name.
The team announced Thursday that the two have entered into a co-existence agreement that allows the hockey team to file for trademark rights, while still allowing Army, whose teams are called the Black Knights, but whose parachute team is called the Golden Knights, to use the name.
"We are appreciative of their efforts and commitment to reaching an amicable resolution," Vegas Golden Knights chairman and CEO Bill Foley said in a statement. Foley is a graduate of West Point and is the biggest donor to its athletic program. Thanks to a $15 million donation, his name is on its athletic center, which opened in 2007.
"The filing to withdraw the opposition removes the final barrier for the Golden Knights trademark application," said Josh Gerben of Gerben Law, a trademark firm based in Washington. "The trademark will now register in about 60 days."
The trademark became more valuable as the Knights made it to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. No NHL team sold more gear in the 2017-18 season than the Golden Knights.
Hockey and Skydivers
The Fight Over the "Golden Knights"
Since becoming a Nashvillian a little over a year ago, I've fallen in love with a new sport: hockey. Hockey fever is infectious and its contraction was almost unavoidable as the Nashville Predators made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final for the 2016-2017 season.
This year, there is a new team that has attracted attention both on and off the ice: the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Despite being an expansion team, the Vegas Golden Knights have had a record-setting inaugural season, are currently first in their division, and have even positioned themselves for a run at the 2017-2018 Stanley Cup. In fact, if you check the odds, Vegas is betting on Vegas.
Off the ice, however, the Vegas Golden Knights have found themselves in a bit of hot water as they continue to encounter opposition regarding four of their federal trademark applications. Trademarkology readers might recall that these trademark troubles began back in 2016. For a primer on this subject, check out our prior post: NHL Team Trademark Gets Iced.
Shortly after the Las Vegas NHL hockey franchise announced that it would be known as the Golden Knights in November 2016, office actions were issued by the USPTO which refused the marks "VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS" and "LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS," associated with clothing items, on the basis of potential likelihood of confusion with a prior-registered mark for "GOLDEN KNIGHTS THE COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE" owned by the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. The Vegas Golden Knights responded to the office actions in June 2017; however, final disposition has been stalled as the Vegas Golden Knights' applications have been suspended pending disposition of earlier filed applications.
More recently, two other applications for "VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS" and "LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS," for use in connection with entertainment services, namely, professional ice hockey exhibitions, have also been attacked â but this time by none other than the United States Department of Army (yes â THE ARMY)! These two applications for entertainment services were published for opposition in August 2017. The College of Saint Rose responded by requesting an extension of time to oppose. The Army responded by filing its formal Notice of Opposition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ("TTAB") on January 10, 2018, requesting that the Vegas Golden Knights' applications be refused registration. The Army believes that allowing registration of the "VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS" or "LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS" would cause likelihood of confusion, dilution of their brand, and perhaps even cause people to think that the Vegas NHL team is connected or affiliated with the Army.
The renowned U.S. Army Parachute Team has been nicknamed the "Golden Knights" since 1962 and also uses a "yellow/gold, black, and white" color scheme.
Interestingly, the owner of the Vegas Golden Knights NHL team, Bill Foley, was a 1967 graduate of West Point and the Army believes his selection of the "Golden Knights" name and color scheme was intentional. The Army even cited a Tweet from the Vegas Golden Knights' team manager, George McPhee in its Notice of Opposition.
Pursuant to trademark law, the Vegas Golden Knights initially had 40 days to answer the Army's Notice of Opposition (which would have been Feb. 19, 2018). However, recent filings with the TTAB reflect that the parties are actively engaged in settlement negotiations and have agreed to suspend all deadlines for 90 days.
So what does this mean? Will the Vegas Golden Knights have to change their name?
TTAB proceedings only relate to whether the Vegas Golden Knights can obtain federal trademark registrations. (To obtain injunctive relief and/or damages against the Vegas Golden Knights, it would be necessary to file a lawsuit in court.) TTAB proceedings often lead to settlement agreements, which I'm sure all of the parties involved would prefer over expensive and protracted litigation.
The Team Name
What's in a Name?
What's in a sports nickname? A lot. Take the Los Angeles Lakers ...
Let’s play a little word association.
If you hear “jazz,” what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? Utah, right? Because nothing says “Dixieland” like the Beehive State.
Or how about velociraptor, the dinosaur made famous in the movie “Jurassic Park”? Makes you think of Toronto, doesn’t it?
And what conjures thoughts of a cool mountain lake better then a desert? So it makes perfect sense that the first NBA team to play in Los Angeles should be called the Lakers.
Well, not exactly.
But there are reasons why those names remain. The Jazz kept its nickname when it moved from New Orleans to Salt Lake City because the club still had plenty of leftover merchandise to sell. Toronto thought — incorrectly, as it turned out — that the locals would associate with a Raptor because part of “Jurassic Park” was filmed there. And the Lakers just didn’t bother to change the name when departing Minnesota, “The Land of 10,000 Lakes,” for arid Southern California.
So while the names Jazz, Raptors and Lakers might not fit their cities, they fit nicely on a T-shirt. And in the marketing-mad world of professional sports, that’s really all that matters.
“It’s a part of our enthusiasm. The nickname becomes part of being involved,” says John Rowady, president of the Chicago-based sports marketing firm rEvolution. “So nicknames are really important to associate with what it means to be that fan.”
Market strategist Harvey Chimoff agrees.
“It helps with the branding,” he says of nicknames. “If you think in terms of any favorite product, regardless of the product category, there’s some connection that we, as consumers, have with it. For sports teams the nickname has become sort of the shorthand connector between the fans and the team.”
In some cases the connection is so strong that the city it represents becomes insignificant.
When the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles, team historian Mark Langill said, the nickname was considered so iconic that there was no thought of changing it.
The name was as Brooklyn as the bridge, inspired by a pejorative Manhattanites once used for residents of a borough so packed with trolley lines that people literally became “trolley dodgers.” But a new name? Fuhgeddaboudit!
“It was just always going to be Dodgers,” Langill says. “The only thing they had to do was change the initials on the cap.”
Other municipalities have argued nicknames are community property. When the Browns announced they were leaving Cleveland in 1996, the city took the team to court and forced it to relinquish the intellectual property rights and history associated with the name. As a result, the team became the Ravens when it moved to Baltimore. When the NFL returned to Cleveland three seasons later, the new ownership assumed the Browns’ name, colors and record book.
A dozen years later Seattle followed suit, taking the owners of the NBA’s SuperSonics to federal court ahead of the franchise’s 2008 move to Oklahoma City. Seattle wound up with the rights to the Sonics’ name and logo, forcing the franchise to come up with a new moniker, the Thunder.
The NFL’s Colts, on the other hand, kept their name, uniform and distinctive horseshoe logo when they sneaked out of Baltimore for Indianapolis in 1984, just as the Rams took their name with them from Cleveland to Los Angeles to St. Louis, and baseball’s Braves played under the same name and logo in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta.
Not all nicknames are as portable. When the Houston Oilers decamped for Tennessee in 1997, the team kept the nickname for two seasons before acknowledging Nashville had nothing to do with oil. The team renamed itself the Titans.
Though nicknames have become so valuable that judges are determining their custody, there was a time when teams had no nicknames at all.
“The formal names of the clubs, as they were incorporated, tended to be very bland. And the nicknames were not added until the 20th century in many cases,” says John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian.
Those early nicknames were inspired most often by the color of a team’s uniform. The Reds, baseball’s oldest nickname, comes from the color of the socks the players wore; the team originally was known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings and, for a few years during the anti-communist “Red Scare” of the 1950s, as the Redlegs. The Chicago White Sox, the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Red Sox also were named for hosiery.
Other nicknames were coined by sports journalists, who were either looking for more colorful names or for shorter ones that would fit into headlines.
It was an editor with the Chicago Daily News who was credited with first calling Chicago’s National League team the Cubs because it had a number of young players. The frustrated editor of a New York paper, unable to fit Hilltoppers and Highlanders into headlines, reputedly began calling the city’s American League team the Yankees. The name quickly caught on with journalists, who used it so often it was eventually adopted by fans.
“Baseball was so dominant a sport in America between 1900 and 1920 that writers were coming up with endless nicknames for the clubs,” Thorn says. “You cannot overemphasize the need to contract ballclub names for headline purposes.”
Aside from making jobs easier for copy editors, in their earliest days nicknames were also meant to connote an attitude or spirit, as when Times sportswriter Owen R. Bird likened members of USC’s track team to Trojans. That was 1912 and USC has been the Trojans since.
Animal nicknames have been popular too, dating to the first collegiate competitions involving such venerable schools as Columbia, Princeton and Brown — known, respectively, as the Lions, the Tigers and Bears . . . oh my!
Soon so many animals were running amok that the herds needed to be thinned. So when Canoga Park High in the San Fernando Valley chose its nickname, a student named Robert Parks took stock of the school’s rivals — the Van Nuys Wolves, North Hollywood Huskies and San Fernando Tigers — and suggested the Hunters. Nearly nine decades later, a woodsman with a rifle and a coonskin cap remains the school’s logo.
“When a lot of nicknames were created, they were created about the battle, the fight,” Rowady says. “Those were fighting, warring types of names that brought fear as we entered into the arenas to go to battle.”
Some nicknames are chosen or retained for economic reasons. The Jazz kept the nickname and colors — green, purple and gold, the colors of Mardi Gras — after the move to Salt Lake City because the franchise was awash in unsold bumper stickers, T-shirts and jerseys with the name and logo on them. The team has changed color combinations and uniform styles many times since, but never changed the name.
When Disney joined the NHL in 1993, the name for the Anaheim expansion team — Mighty Ducks — was little more than a marketing tool for its trilogy of hockey-themed movies. Early on the movie tie-in helped the team lead the NHL in merchandise sales, but that popularity waned and a year after Disney sold the franchise the “Mighty” was dropped.
Not all nicknames have such simple, agreed-upon etymologies. Take the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, whose name is widely thought to have been inspired by Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody but actually comes from the name of a male bison. And contrary to numerous claims, Barron Hilton did not name his new American Football League team the Los Angeles Chargers as a cheap plug for a charge card he was marketing.
“It was after the trumpet call, followed by the roar of ‘Charge,’” Hilton, who moved the team to San Diego in 1961 after one season in L.A., often said. “It never had a thing to do with the credit card.”
Then there’s Walter Brown, the first owner of the Boston Celtics, who personally chose that now-iconic nickname over Unicorns and Whirlwinds, names his persistent public relations staff preferred for his basketball team. Brown was reportedly inspired by a barnstorming team from New York that had called itself the Celtics a generation earlier. And besides, Brown said, “Boston is full of Irishmen.”
The Heat nearly entered the NBA as the Miami Beaches, and before San Jose’s NHL expansion team became the Sharks in 1991, nicknames under consideration included Salty Dogs, Screaming Squids and Rubber Puckies.
Very punny.
But that’s not all. If saner voices hadn’t prevailed, the New York Mets would be the Skyliners and the Raiders would be the Oakland Señors. And the only thing that stopped the Dallas Cowboys from starting life as the Steers was president/general manager Tex Schramm’s worry that a castrated mascot would lead to ridicule in the testosterone-addled NFL.
Others took a higher road. When Jack Kent Cooke brought hockey to Los Angeles, he wanted to give his team an air of royalty. So he named it the Kings, put a crown on their sweaters and outfitted his players in gold and purple, the latter color one Queen Elizabeth I reserved for members of the ruling family.
It would be 44 years — and a number of uniform changes — before the team would rule the NHL. But the regal bearing Cooke had sought has become such a part of the Kings’ DNA that the team’s top minor league affiliate is the Manchester (N.H.) Monarchs.
If only every nickname was as easily understood.
“I wish somebody would complain [about] the Indiana Hoosiers name,” Rowady says of the Big Ten power. “That’s where I went to school and I still can’t tell people what a Hoosier is.”
Baseball's Odd History
The Origins of All 30 MLB Team Names
With the Major League Baseball season getting underway, here's the breakdown of how the league's 30 teams got their names.
Arizona Diamondbacks
In 1995, the expansion franchise's ownership group asked fans to vote from among a list of nicknames that included Coyotes, Diamondbacks, Phoenix, Rattlers, and Scorpions. Diamondbacks, a type of desert rattlesnake, was the winner, sparing everyone the mindboggling possibility of a team located in Phoenix, Arizona, called the Arizona Phoenix.
Atlanta Braves
The Braves, who played in Boston and Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta in 1966, trace their nickname to the symbol of a corrupt political machine. James Gaffney, who became president of Boston's National League franchise in 1911, was a member of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party machine that controlled New York City politics throughout the 19th century. The Tammany name was derived from Tammamend, a Delaware Valley Indian chief. The society adopted an Indian headdress as its emblem and its members became known as Braves. Sportswriter Leonard Koppett described Gaffney's decision to rename his team, which had been known as the Doves, in a 1993 letter to the New York Times: "Wouldn't it be neat to call the team the 'Braves,' waving this symbol of the Democrats under the aristocratic Bostonians? It wouldn't bother the fans." And it didn't, especially after the Braves swept the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1914 World Series.
Baltimore Orioles
When the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954, the franchise was rebranded with the same nickname of the Baltimore team that dominated the old National League in the late 1890s. That team, which featured the likes of Wee Willie Keeler and John McGraw, was named after the state bird of Maryland. The orange and black colors of the male Oriole bird resembled the colors on the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore.
Boston Red Sox
The team that became known as the Red Sox began play "“ wearing dark blue socks, no less "“ as a charter member of the American League in 1901. With no official nickname, the team was referred to by a variety of monikers, including Bostons and Americans, as in American League. In 1907, Americans owner John Taylor announced that his team was adopting red as its new color after Boston's National League outfit switched to all-white uniforms. Taylor's team became known as the Red Sox, a name popularized by the Cincinnati Red Stockings from 1867-1870 and used by Boston's National League franchise from 1871-1876.
Chicago Cubs
Chicago's first professional baseball team was known as the Chicago White Stockings. When the team began to sell off its experienced players in the late 1880s, local newspapers began to refer to the club as Anson's Colts, a reference to player-manager Cap Anson's roster of youngsters. By 1890, Colts had caught on and Chicago's team had a new nickname. When Anson left the team in 1897, the Colts became known as the Orphans, a depressing nickname if there ever was one. When Frank Selee took over managerial duties of Chicago's youthful roster in 1902, a local newspaper dubbed the team the Cubs and the name stuck.
Chicago White Sox
In 1900, Charles Comiskey moved the St. Paul Saints to the South Side of Chicago. The team adopted the former nickname of its future rivals (the Cubs) and became the White Stockings, which was shortened to White Sox a few years after the club joined the American League in 1901.
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Red Stockings, so named because they wore red socks, were baseball's first openly all-professional team. In 1882, Cincinnati's entry in the newly formed American Association took the same name and retained it after moving to the National League in 1890. Red Stockings eventually became Redlegs, and Redlegs was shortened to Reds. Before the 1953 season, club officials announced that the team would once again officially be known as the Cincinnati Redlegs. Around the same time, the team temporarily removed "Reds" from its uniforms. As the AP reported in 1953, "The political significance of the word 'Reds' these days and its effect on the change was not discussed by management."
Cleveland Indians
Cleveland's baseball team was originally nicknamed the Naps after star player-manager Napoleon Lajoie, so when the team cut ties with Lajoie after the 1914 season, it was in the market for a new name. Club officials and sportswriters agreed on Indians in January 1915. The Boston Braves' miraculous World Series triumph may have been part of the inspiration behind Cleveland's new moniker.
Colorado Rockies
When team officials announced that Denver's expansion team would begin play in 1993 as the Colorado Rockies, some fans couldn't help but question why the team was adopting the same nickname as the city's former NHL franchise, which averaged an abysmal 19 wins per season from 1976 to 1982. "I think for us to compare a failed hockey franchise 10 years ago is nonsense," Rockies CEO John Antonucci said. "We feel very strongly that Colorado Rockies might be one of the strongest names in all of professional sports." According to surveys conducted by Denver's daily newspapers, fans preferred the nickname Bears, which had been used by Denver's most famous minor league team. "The name we picked—it's strong, enduring, majestic," Antonucci said.
Detroit Tigers
Detroit's original minor league baseball team was officially known as the Wolverines. The club was also referred to as the Tigers, the nickname for the members of Michigan's oldest military unit, the 425th National Guard infantry regiment, which fought in the Civil War and Spanish-American War. When Detroit joined the newly formed American League in 1901, the team received formal permission from the regiment, which was known as the Detroit Light Guard, to use its symbol and nickname.
Houston Astros
Houston's baseball team was originally known as the Colt .45's, but team president Judge Roy Hofheinz made a change "in keeping with the times" in 1965. Citing Houston's status as "the space age capital of the world," Hofheinz settled on Astros. "With our new domed stadium, we think it will also make Houston the sports capital of the world," Hofheinz said. The change was likely also motivated by pressure from the Colt Firearms Company, which objected to the use of the Colt .45 nickname.
Kansas City Royals
When Kansas City was awarded an expansion franchise in 1969, club officials chose Royals from more than 17,000 entries in a name-the-team contest. Sanford Porte, one of 547 fans who submitted Royals, was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to the All-Star Game. Porte submitted the name because of "Kansas City's position as the nation's leading stocker and feeder market and the nationally known American Royal Livestock and Horse Show. Royalty stands for the best—that's another reason." Coincidentally, Kansas City's Negro League team was nicknamed the Monarchs.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Los Angeles gained a second major league team in 1961 when the Los Angeles Angels entered the American League. The nickname had been used by Los Angeles' Pacific Coast League team from 1903-1957. The team was renamed the California Angels in 1965 and became the Anaheim Angels after the Walt Disney Company took control of the team in 1997. While the team's lease with the city requires that Anaheim be a part of the team name, owner Arte Moreno changed the team's name to include Los Angeles in 2005 in hopes of tapping into the L.A. media market. The result is one of the most absurd names in all of professional sports.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers trace their roots to Brooklyn, where the team was known as the Bridegrooms, Superbas, and, beginning in 1911, the Trolley Dodgers. The Dodgers nickname referenced the pedestrians who dodged the trolleys that carried passengers through the streets of Brooklyn. While the team was known as the Robins from 1914 to 1931, in honor of legendary manager Wilbert Robinson, the nickname switched back to Dodgers when Robinson retired. When Walter O'Malley moved the franchise to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, he elected to keep the name.
Miami Marlins
The Marlins take their name from the minor league Miami Marlins that called South Florida home from 1956-1960, 1962-1970, and 1972-1988. Owner Wayne Huizenga hoped to give his expansion team, which entered the league in 1993, more regional appeal by including Florida in the name. However, when the Marlins moved into their new baseball-only stadium in 2012, they became the Miami Marlins.
Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers nickname, a nod to Milwaukee's beer industry, was used off and on by various Milwaukee baseball teams during the late 19th century. When the expansion Seattle Pilots relocated to Milwaukee after one failed season in 1969, the team adopted the traditional Brewers nickname under the ownership of Bud Selig.
Minnesota Twins
Minneapolis and St. Paul, which are separated by the Mississippi River and collectively known as the Twin Cities, argued for years over where an expansion team in Minnesota, should one arrive, would call home. When the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis in 1961, club officials settled on Twins as the team nickname and unveiled an emblem showing two baseball players with hands clasped in front of a huge baseball.
New York Mets
Team officials asked fans to choose a nickname from among 10 finalists when New York was awarded an expansion National League franchise in 1961. The finalists were Avengers, Bees, Burros, Continentals, Jets, Mets, NYBS, Rebels, Skyliners, and Skyscrapers. The team received 2,563 mailed entries, which included 9,613 suggestions, and 644 different names. Mets was the resounding winner, followed by two nicknames that weren't among the team's 10 suggestions—Empires and Islanders. As the New York Times noted, "what the fans will call the team when it begins play, of course, will depend in part on how it performs." One of the reasons that team officials chose Mets was because "it has a brevity that will delight headline writers." Another reason was the nickname's historical baseball association. The New York Metropolitans, often called the Mets, played in the American Association from 1883 to 1888.
New York Yankees
In 1903, the original Baltimore Orioles moved to New York, where they became the Highlanders. As was common at the time, the team, which played in the American League, was also known as the New York Americans. New York Press editor Jim Price coined the nickname Yanks, or Yankees, in 1904 because it was easier to fit in headlines.
Oakland Athletics
The Athletics nickname is one of the oldest in baseball, dating to the early 1860s and the Athletic Baseball Club of Philadelphia. In 1902, New York Giants manager John McGraw referred to Philadelphia's American League team as a "white elephant." The slight was picked up by a Philadelphia reporter and the white elephant was adopted as the team's primary logo. The nickname and the elephant logo were retained when the team moved to Kansas City in 1955 and to Oakland in 1968.
Philadelphia Phillies
Founded in 1883 as the Quakers, the franchise changed its nickname to the Philadelphias, which soon became Phillies. New owner Robert Carpenter held a contest to rename the team in 1943 and Blue Jays was selected as the winner. While the team wore a Blue Jay patch on its uniforms for a couple of seasons, the nickname failed to catch on.
Pittsburgh Pirates
After the Players' League collapsed in 1890, the National League's Pittsburgh club signed two players, including Lou Bierbauer, whom the Philadelphia Athletics had forgotten to place on their reserve list. A Philadelphia sportswriter claimed that Pittsburgh "pirated away Bierbauer" and the Pirates nickname was born.
San Diego Padres
When San Diego was awarded an expansion team in 1969, the club adopted the nickname of the city's Pacific Coast League team, the Padres. The nickname, which is Spanish for father or priest, was a reference to San Diego's status as the first Spanish Mission in California.
San Francisco Giants
The New York Giants moved to San Francisco in 1957 and retained their nickname, which dates back to 1885. It was during that season, according to legend, that New York Gothams manager Jim Mutrie referred to his players as his "giants" after a rousing win over Philadelphia.
Seattle Mariners
Mariners was the winning entry among more than 600 suggestions in a name-the-team contest for Seattle's expansion franchise in 1976. Multiple fans submitted the nickname Mariners, but the team determined that Roger Szmodis of Bellevue provided the best reason. "I've selected Mariners because of the natural association between the sea and Seattle and her people, who have been challenged and rewarded by it," said Szmodis, who received two season tickets and an all-expenses-paid trip to an American League city on the West Coast.
St. Louis Cardinals
In 1899, the St. Louis Browns became the St. Louis Perfectos. That season, Willie McHale, a columnist for the St. Louis Republic reportedly heard a woman refer to the team's red stockings as a "lovely shade of Cardinal." McHale included the nickname in his column and it was an instant hit among fans. The team officially changed its nickname in 1900.
Tampa Bay Rays
Vince Naimoli, owner of Tampa Bay's expansion team, chose Devil Rays out of more than 7,000 suggestions submitted by the public in 1995. The reaction was not positive. "So far, I've fielded about 20 phone calls protesting Devil Rays, and most of the callers have described themselves as Christians who are upset about the word devil," a Tampa Tribune columnist told a reporter less than a week after the nickname was announced. Naimoli reportedly wanted to nickname his team the Sting Rays, but it was trademarked by a team in the Hawaiian Winter League. The team dropped the "Devil" after the 2007 season and the curse that had plagued the franchise for the previous decade was apparently lifted, as Tampa Bay made a surprising run to the World Series the following season.
Texas Rangers
A second franchise named the Senators left Washington in 1972, this time for Arlington, Texas. Owner Robert Short renamed the team the Rangers after the Texas law enforcement agency that was formed under Stephen F. Austin in the 1820s.
Toronto Blue Jays
More than 30,000 entries were received during a five-week name-the-team contest. A panel of 14 judges, including 10 Toronto media members, selected 10 finalists. From that list, the club's board of directors settled on Blue Jays. "The Blue Jays was felt to be the most appropriate of the final 10 names submitted," according to a statement issued by the board's chairman, R. Howard Webster. "The blue jay is a North American bird, bright blue in color, with white undercovering and a black neck ring. It is strong, aggressive and inquisitive. It dares to take on all comers, yet it is down-to-earth, gutsy and good-looking."
Washington Nationals
Washington's original baseball team was interchangeably referred to as the Senators and Nationals, or Nats for short, for most of its time in the District before relocating to Minnesota in 1960. Washington's 1961 expansion franchise was known almost exclusively as the Senators until it moved to Texas after the 1971 season. When the Montreal Expos relocated to the nation's capital in 2005, the team revived the Nationals nickname.
Jurassic Park was THAT Big
Studio Stories: Naming and Designing the Original Toronto Raptors
It was the mid-1990s. Purple was trendy, and a new expansion NBA team in Toronto needed to break through the hockey-thick culture to attract youth. There was nothing better than an oversized green raptor on a purple uniform. Well, until that raptor turned red.
The Toronto Raptors started play in the NBA in 1995, offering up a movie-inspired dinosaur name and clad in purple, red, black and white. Getting to that point, though, was primarily driven by then-owner John Bitove and his family’s love of the “Jurassic Park” movie, says Tom O’Grady, then the creative director for NBA Properties and now partner and chief creative officer of Gameplan Creative in Chicago.
“When the movie came out with the ferocity of the evil villain being 6-foot-tall raptors, that echoed in everybody’s thought process,” O’Grady says. “And there was not a professional team named after dinosaurs. We all felt like it was a cool direction to go.”
Sure, Toronto officially offered up a bevy of names on which the fans could vote. The listed included the Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Raptors, Scorpions, T-Rex, Tarantulas and Terriers. The Huskies, thanks to the historical use of the name in the city, had some draw too but was discarded early. The Hogs played off Toronto’s “Hogtown” nickname, and Dragons was considered, as O’Grady says, almost as a placebo.
Three nicknames started to take hold for Toronto, the Raptors, Dragons and Terriers. “The owner and his family fell in love (with Raptors),” O’Grady says. “They did focus groups for a sanity check, but deep down John Bitove wanted Raptors as the name and something had to happen to dissuade that.”
In the nickname selection process, the design team took logo mockups and slapped them on an 8.5×11 sheet of white paper in landscape with black Helvetica font. They looked at how the design balanced, how the letters worked, if the mark must be icon or wordmark driven and if it needed a basketball in it. The mid-90s unwritten rule was “yes” for a basketball, mostly to help an expansion team gain market share globally.
The design team sketched out only three names, the Raptors, Dragons and Terriers, but focused mainly on the Raptors. “We liked it and thought it was unique,” O’Grady says. “We liked where it could take us, and 75 percent of the up-front work was being done on the Raptors. Terriers was cute and fuzzy, and Dragons could have been anything, it was too generic. That is how it came to Raptors and then we said, ‘let’s go.’”
(In an aside, the mockups for the Dragons almost later turned into the New Jersey Swamp Dragons when the team considered a massive rebrand.)
With the Raptors the chosen name — a nickname that would attract youth, tie to culture and play well on merchandise — it was time to push forward on fleshing out the identity.
“Creativity and being different usually won the day in making decisions,” says Bitove
From the first sketches, the Raptors logo with the circular shape with the wordmark arched behind the animal and his feet with claws stuck out. “We focused on that one and pushed the heck out of it to where it became the final Raptors look,” O’Grady says. It was eight weeks from soup to nuts.
The legal side of things was incredibly fast too, with Raptors a really clean name to trademark (Toronto also did the legal work on the Dragons, which was also easy, but for the opposite reason as there are so many dragon themes in culture it is almost as if it is common property).
Then came the colour. “We were having a hard time stumbling on a colour that nobody else had,” O’Grady says. “That is hard. Then we focused on what is a colour combination that might go together that nobody has.” Initially that meant, for Toronto, purple, green, black and bronze, all with a green raptor. Then just before the final approval from Bitove, the design team received a call from the owner that some of the investors were pushing back that the logo didn’t represent Canada.
“Not enough Canada” was the feedback from investors on the original Raptors colourway, the dinosaur then changed from green to red to include the country’s national colour
“Let’s change the raptor to red and reflect Canada without having a maple leaf,” O’Grady remembers from the process. “It was kind of fun. We can do this. We did a quick flip and re-rendered the file and within a day, that was it. If we can protect this, then off to the races we go. That is when we anointed the raptor red because it had to have some Canadian influence.”
The change has served the franchise well, even to today as the only Canadian NBA team embracing red with the moniker “We the North.”
For the purple, Toronto wanted to stay away from the shades used by the Lakers, Suns and Jazz, eventually selecting PMS 266 for a unique twist. “There was a lot to be learned by the Charlotte Hornets when they introduced teal into the sports landscape,” O’Grady says. Purple PMS 266 was to be to Toronto as teal was to Charlotte and while some licensees struggled to match the colour, the sublimation used on NBA jerseys allowed for an exact match. “It was like somebody put a PMS book on a piece of clothing,” he says. “One of the joys of sublimation, you get exactly what you want.”
With a six-month window allowing expansion teams to reap 100 percent of merchandise profits sold within 75-miles of the home city, the Raptors knew they had to do whatever necessary to maximize those initial sales. Instead of sweeping up the cutting room floor during the original logo design process, the placed the runner-up designs straight onto merchandise, whether it was the infamous raptor “humping” logo (the raptor fully embracing a basketball), the “TR” logo, or that ever-popular claw mark.
“People went bonkers for that,” O’Grady says. “It was such a departure from the primary, busy logo.” Having the claw live on the shorts of the uniform also gave it some real official backing.
During design, the team ensured they could pull the full body raptor out in a “peelable” logo design. It all was part of creating as much merchandise at launch as possible to “help fund the franchise fee.”
Early on, Toronto played heavily in the purple and black space, selling a lot of product with purple on black, jumping to seventh in merchandise sales within the first two months of launch. “It was all part of the ‘90s rush to be wackier than the next guy and sell more merch,” he says. “It was in full swing with the Raptors.”
In the font, the Raptors went for a “slashy” look on the uniform with a weird “t” in the middle to balance out the other letters. The scripted mark caressing near the crew neck of the jersey was all done by design.
“We knew we were playing with a more whimsical identity,” O’Grady says. “We were going to unexplored territory a little bit. It wasn’t something people had seen before.” The scratchy character to the wordmark was a play on what you might see on rock carvings years ago, and the lettering and numbers had a prehistoric look to it.
From a raptor mascot to purple as the main colour and rock carving-inspired wordmarks to scratchy lines across the uniform, the entire project was positioned so that kids younger than 20 would look away from hockey, even just a bit.
“Without question, it was the most polarizing project I’ve worked on,” O’Grady says. “You were either all in or all out.” And with the split almost always falling with anyone over 40 years old all out and those younger all in, the team knew they were on to something, even in the highly conservative sports design market that was Toronto.
In the end, though, those who grew up with the design adored it, O’Grady says. “It was designed for them,” he says, “and they owned it.”
That initial look did sit dormant for about 15 years after the initial design gave way to tweaks, but then Mitchell & Ness recreated a Vince Carter uniform a few years ago, which O’Grady credits with restarting the interest in the nostalgia of the original design (it also has become one of the top-selling designs for the company). Toronto then brought the original design back to the court for a series of throwback nights in to celebrate their 20th season in 2015. “It was coming back from extinction with a second life,” O’Grady pans. “Now you have people asking why can’t we wear purple uniforms for at least one NBA Finals game?”
“Change is good,” Bitove says about the current designs. “I love the fact they are using the ‘North’ jerseys in the playoffs. I am sure the organization will continue to evolve and do things differently because that’s how a raptor thinks and what the younger generation wants. It’s not like the past where you had the exact same thing for decades.”
Dubbed the Happy Meal of uniforms with its unabashed focus on attracting young eyeballs, the purple and red — not green — dinosaur movement of 1995 still lives on, though, in Toronto 24 years later. “It has been an interesting ride to see where it has been,” O’Grady says. “I look back and that was, well, interesting.” Interesting and popular.
New Zealand Baseball... Yep, They Have a Team
The Open Branding Project
