In which only one sports franchise realizes that title and cover art are everything · 4:54pm Jul 23rd, 2020
This is about Washington D.C. (National Football League) and Seattle (National Hockey League).
The Washington franchise has been around for decades, mismanaged into the ground for the last two, and looked at as an embarrassment for a very long time. Y'see, until recently, they called themselves the Redskins, and an empathy-deaf ownership vowed never to change that name. But then the political winds shifted, sponsors began to leave, and in the rapidly-growing absence of money, they found themselves with an opportunity. The chance to not only rebrand, but stick that branding on millions of dollars in merchandise sales.
They just announced their new name. One of two teams to do so on the day. And here it is.
...
...so basically, they couldn't think of anything and decided to install a placeholder. Buying themselves an extra year. And in the meantime, I'm sure it'll do the fans of a troubled franchise no emotional harm to declare loyalty to Brand X. Imagine the chants. No, really. Imagine one, because they need all the help they can get.
But in Seattle... in Seattle, the NHL is about to add its 32nd franchise. A new team, one which has yet to play its first professional game. They've been working on their image since the day they were born. Trying to figure out who they were going to be, because the name defines so much. The former Redskins came to stand for deafness, lack of empathy and in the hands of owner Daniel Snyder, a tendency for suing their own fans. Seattle had to figure out the symbol of their existence from scratch. One chance at that first impression.
And on the same day Washington sunk their own boat, the Northwest made a little announcement of identity.
They unleashed the Seattle Kraken.
Look at one logo. Then look at the other.
Who do you want to root for?
The Seattle Kraken.
...
...THAT IS FUCKING BADASS.
Kraken. Definitely.
5319604
Understand: up until today, this was my favorite NHL logo.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9f/New_Jersey_Devils_logo.svg/1200px-New_Jersey_Devils_logo.svg.png
It's utterly elegant. That symbolizes exactly what the team wants to be, it connects them to their area, and it does so with a color choice and a few distortions on the conjoined J. As graphics go, that's beautiful.
Seattle's logo feels like an open dare. You think you can handle the new guys? Come at us if you think you're hard enough, because this is what's waiting for you on the other end. They're the shadows at the end of the alley. Maybe that noise you're hearing is a rat moving around. Maybe. Want to find out?
That's the logo of a legend waiting to be told.
...and now they start their existence with a .200 record.
"But then the political winds shifted..."
Oh no...even estee has fallen into the sjw "burn everything we don't like 'cause we're offended" world. What a shame.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN
5319615
It's a summary of events, Marcelojj. (Except for calling Snyder an empathy-free abuser, because that's established fact.) He swore years ago that as long as he was owner, the name would never change -- and there's been protests against that name for a long time. And I think he would have held to that until he died, except for one problem:
FedEx, which had and paid for the naming rights for the stadium, backed out. And they did so because the winds had changed.
So there goes some money. And then a bunch of retailers announced they wouldn't carry D.C. merchandise. Say goodbye to a few bucks. Oh, wait: now the people who make your merch say it won't go on the machines...
Snyder doesn't care about people, feelings, or his own public image: if details are required, I can link a few of the many times he'd sued his team's fans. But when you start taking a bite out of his profit margin, attention falls from his heart of coal in the form of toxic flakes. As far as I'm concerned, he changed the name because he was losing profit. Nothing more.
There's a few people on Twitter who feel he went with Football Team as a raised middle finger to the world. Someone didn't like the old name? Then the new one will be the blandest thing possible. And certainly people will be lining up to buy that merch...
I think he'll get a few people to purchase, because the logo won't be around for long and there's a collectors aspect to this one. But I'm guessing sales figures are about to plummet.
5319616
There's one problem.
Fanbases often wind up with their own nicknames. The (Oakland/LA/Las Vegas/Wherever) Raiders have the Black Hole. Those Yankees fans who sit behind the outfield walls have earned the title of Bleacher Creatures. And with Seattle's new team? I'm going to make a prediction.
Krakheads.
...oops.
What's that? Dan Snyder, likely the worst owner in the NFL, doing something half-assed and stupid?
Be still my beating heart.
5319627
I think you're drastically underestimating the possibility of "Squidbillies" here.
5319622 True. A football team is a business. A business that doesn't make money isn't a business for long. Once the cash cascade started, the name change was pretty much a done deal, even if they had been named something innocuous like the Banana Slugs. Still, I wish they had decided on the Washington Washingtons. That would be so cool.
5319628
I used to look at him as George Steinbrenner's shadow clone -- if Steinbrenner had emotionally frozen around 1983. Streinbrenner, in the first years of Yankee ownership, was a horror. He lashed out at everyone and everything, couldn't even tolerate failure as a learning experience, spied on his own players and wound up suspended from the league... you probably know the routine and if you don't, do you ever have some reading ahead of you. But as he aged, he softened. He still cared about winning more than anything -- but he started learning how to trust. He ended the parade of manager firings, allowed the farm system to rebuild instead of just tossing money at free agents, and then the rings came back. He changed, if only a little. And the seaboard only learned about the rest of it after his death. The endless donations to charity, none of which a personality made of bombast, someone eternally in search of the back-page headline, had ever found worth mentioning. The creation of golden parachutes for the lowest-level employees in the organization, whenever they got into trouble. The best of him refused to be buried -- but it only escaped into the world at the funeral.
Snyder, however, is the same person he was when he came into the NFL. He sees money as the solution to every problem. If you have less than he does, then you're not someone worth listening to. If you're not giving him enough money, he'll sue you for more. And he wants to win -- but he doesn't want to wait, trust, or do the work for it. He's Ebenezer Scrooge carrying the corpses of three spirits out to the trash on Christmas morning. And at this point, I'm convinced that's all he'll ever be. If there's any charity donations on his ledger, then he probably owns one as a tax shelter so he can write off part of his income and then funnel the money back to himself. Giving him a Napoleon complex is an insult to Napoleon, because at least the general knew what he was doing. He's the curse of his own franchise, and the only way to dispel it will be his death.
Daniel Snyder can be summarized this way: if he was seven feet tall, then everywhere he went, he would still be the smallest man in the room. And whatever horrible things happen to him in life? Were earned.
5319639
Hey, here up north Montreal's NHL team have been doing something nearly as lazy since the start. (It's not even an artful misspelling; that's how it's spelled in French, which is the language they speak there).
An aside on that last bit: yes, officially speaking we are a bilingual country. Unofficially, we are an English-speaking country with Quebec stapled to us, and the aforementioned legal fiction is the staple.
That first one... With a generic design like that, I expect generically priced tickets. Also, I can only imagine what nicknames people have already thought of. The Nulls. The Voids. The Fighting 404.
Meanwhile, the other may well be a prelude to stars aligning. Given the year so far, I wouldn't be surprised.
5319627
Would you say that's better or worse than Cultists? Because tentacles and a glaring red eye seem awfully Lovecraftian, even if it's on the wrong coast. (Though given hockey, I suppose Ithaqua would be more appropriate...)
5319639
As far as I'm concerned, the most offensively-named team currently in existence on any level of sports resides on the college tier. The Evergreen State Geoducks.
This is their logo.
blogs.evergreen.edu/evergreenmind/files/2017/09/cropped-evergreen-state-geoducks.png
This is their mascot.
evergreen.edu/sites/default/files/speedy-illus.png
This is their fight song.
...okay. I'm posting a warning here. The following image has not been altered. It is a picture of a real marine lifeform, and therefore it qualifies as something which would be Safe For Work -- on a biology student level. However, there are going to be those who are shocked, surprised, offended, or can't stop laughing and have their boss come over to see what's so funny. Open the next image at your own risk.
This is what a real geoduck looks like.
ourmarinespecies.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/geoduck-1-e1566596314142.jpg
Damn, something cool happened in my state and I didn't hear about it until Estee told me.
You're a hekin' good journalist, it seems.
Guess I know what my next hat purchase'll be.
5319661
This is the single best thing I have read today, thank you.
5319622
Actually, 6 years ago there was a pool among the indians (is that the right word ?) and the majority of then were ok with the name. Sure, now with all the online pressure and the cancel culture in high gear, things changed.
If it's a natural change or a pressed one, we may never know.
But I agree with one thing: that new logo makes me cry. I mean...orange over orange !?!? You don't mix same collors in a logo ! That's something you learn in the first day of the business !
5319661
'Cultists' may be a little too close to how fanbases usually work out.
As for your fiscal hope... the base of Snyder's legend is the overcharge. Some of his lawsuits have apparently been designed to prevent competitors from offering less expensive parking. So -- keeping in mind that most NFL teams will operate with empty stadiums this year, and just about every franchise has been slow to give back money -- season tickets (generally eight home games and two preseason) start at $759 and go up to $1529. This does not include special privilege passes which offer access to private clubs: it's just for the available seats in the stadium itself (which may not be any of the forever-sold-out super-premiums), and 'seat license fees' are not included. This means that at the low end, a D.C. ticket is $75.90 per game.
So not good. To be fair, also not the highest prices in the NFL by any means, but not exactly being sold at a discount -- unless you're interested in the secondary market. Because Washington has been bad for a long time, a lot of fans just hold on to their seat licenses in the hopes that the team may one day change hands. The tickets get sold. And the further you are into the season, with the team's record getting worse by the week, the cheaper those tickets become. In a typical putrid December, you can get into the stadium for around $18 -- plus the usual ridiculous parking fee.
If you ever want to see an NFL game on the cheap, look for a team which is about to miss the playoffs and is going up against a franchise whose fans don't travel well (no Steelers or Cowboys), then choose your favorite viewing angle. Seats will be available. In fact, if that team is playing a Toilet Bowl against another loser, the original ticket holder may be on the verge of paying you.
5319686 Every state in the Midwest is filled with various high schools and colleges named after indians/tribes/events/culture, and almost without exception, the various school boards talked with their local tribes saying (paraphrased) "Is this OK?" And from the number we still have, the answer was overwhelmingly "Yes" Admittedly, most of the names originated back in the '40s and '50s when the local populations grew large enough that fielding a team was possible. (My grandmother's high school graduating class was six. Mine was 25.)
5319632
I doubt that will happen. They're not going to want to go have a trademark war with Cartoon Network/Turner Broadcasting/Warner Bros. over misappropriation of this:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Squidbillies_title_card.png
Unpopular opinion:
I actually kinda like it.
5319719
It is elegant in its simplicity I guess. But it's not exciting. the only two professional sports teams I follow it all are my local ones (not telling location or teams), and you can easily tell their logo from a ways away. You can't with this.
5319639
Hey, you're talking about my Alma Mater's beloved mascot!
For the record, I think Washington should have kept the same name, and just change the mascot to a potato.
5319661
Just realized. It's right there.
The Washington Est.
5319719
You're allowed. It's certainly not the world's worst font.
Regardless, I can hear the talking heads now. "He sold out to the elitists! All the little points are facing to the left!"
I want my jar of dirt.
Possibly the best comment so far.
5319728
It's certainly better than what I found on Reddit.
The Washington Anons.
What's the maximum occupancy for a Displacement, again?
5319742
Ideally? Zero.
Hang on: got another one. The Washington Classifieds. (They have a name, but your security clearance isn't high enough to know it.)
5319742
How many people buy something from a given merchandise table at a con, assuming that it's all so high-quality you'd swear they stole the actual Super Sentai prop? I'm guessing "as many as there are things to sell", and since the Merchant is the sort of guy who gets a full restock whenever nobody is looking, it's probably more than enough for a football team.
The branding around that new hockey team is astonishingly good. It's not just the logo, but the rest of the branding scheme too. I'm particularly impressed with the anchor/space needle symbol.
5319614
I still think the Devils' logo is the best, but I'm biased, having grown up in New Jersey and occasionally seeing them live at Madison Square Garden (I had a childhood friend whose dad was a Rangers fan and occasionally scored a bunch of free tickets from work, enough to take his kids and a friend) and the Meadowlands Arena (as a family treat).
The Kraken logo is pretty sweet, though, and it's a good name (though not as good as the New Jersey Devils).
5319668
Thanks, I
hatelove it. It's so earnestly dorky, and I'm partial to aquatic molluscs.5319829
Just to show everyone the rest of it:
i2.wp.com/russianmachineneverbreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/seattle-kraken-logos-released.png?fit=2000%2C1083&ssl=1
So far, the biggest complaint is that the font may be a little too close to Haunted Mansion for Disney's comfort.
Official merch isn't quite available for ordering yet, although a quick search will find that a few people predicted 'Kraken' and homemade a few items in advance.
5319615
media1.tenor.com/images/53e515f0a3c04632f9399ff403d8829e/tenor.gif
Luckily, the Seattle name unveiling went a lot more smoothly the last time an NHL franchise revealed its name: https://deadspin.com/the-nhls-vegas-team-name-announcement-was-a-mess-1789290493
I was rooting for the Seattle Sockeye as the team's name, but unfortunately the name is trademarked by an author of a series of hockey romance novels.
As someone from Chicago, my favorite NHL anything is, of course, the Blackhawks.
I definitely understand that people don't want the Indian Head logo anymore, but no one's offered up anything that would ever look good. (There was one that people shopped around that was a Hawks head with the feathers...but honestly it looked like a college football logo and I kind of hated it.)
It's always a weird feeling trying to defend the Blackhawks logo. At the very least, it's not as bad as having a team name that's a blatant racist nickname, versus an actual person. (And even more technically, the team was named after an Army division the original owner was a part of.)
(Also please note: I'm super not equipped to debate this, I'm a massive idiot and talk like a 4 year old. I do ultimately agree that at some point, the Chief Black Hawk logo will have to go and if/when that happens, I'll be behind it.)
The best suggestion I've heard was "Washington Red Tails."
(Edit: which is to say, put a P-51 out front of the stadium.)
5319604
"OOOooo talkin' bout the tentacle!"
5319616
A creature of Satanic rage, bursting from its sunken cave!
5319622
Spiteful blandness, while a strange concept, is a theory I've heard before...
cad-comic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Strip20191118a.x44380.png
5319728
The Washington Establishment — I like it! Of course, the nickname will inevitably be “Deep State”.
5319668
I remember when Mike Rowe worked with some of those on an episode of Dirty Jobs. They are some interesting creatures, for sure.
5319854
Regarding the likeness to Disney’s Haunted Mansion logo, I just don’t see it.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Haunted_Mansion.JPG
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/d/d4/Disney_Parks_-_The_Haunted_Mansion_-_Transparent_Logo.png/revision/latest?cb=20160414211602
The fonts are completely different, though the inclined horizontal bars might give the illusion of similarity. But then you may as well compare it to the original Star Trek font.
fontshop-prod-responsive-images.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/content_image/attachment/438445/mini_magick20160730-5095-1pp41g5.jpg
5320025
That was a good episode. Though Rowe could probably make a profession about watching paint dry be interesting as all get-out
5320055
Lol, heck yeah! Hes such a cool.
5320063
I'm pretty sure he's done the only Ted Talk worth listening to.
I think I've got it around here somewhere...
Ah-HAH! Had it in my other pair of pants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc
I love how old sports fans are upset that Seattle’s name choice is just too nerdy.
5320065
Oh neat, totally gonna watch that later, thanks!
5320066
Those dang boomers!
/s
5320074
No problem! It's an interesting chat from an interesting dude.
5319686
Yes, actually. A good lecture on it.
5319750
Not the Washington Fnords?
Oh man, they went with Krakens! :D That's exciting.
Why do hockey teams have the best names?
(I still miss the Hartford Whalers...)