Real Salt Lake

Real Salt Lake? Real Salt Lake? I just keep asking myself the same question over and over again. Real Salt Lake? Does it make any sense?

The newest member of Major League Soccer shares it's name with one of the most successful soccer franchises in the world, Real Madrid. That's in Spain which is a country that actually uses words like "real" (pronounced ree-all, which means royal, hence the crown over the "e").

I know that there are a ton of Spanish speaking residents in Salt Lake and the game of soccer is hugely popular in the area. Plus, soccer fans love the tradition of soccer and follow the European game closely. But this is really a reach and a slap in the face of European teams that actually have tradition. It's like starting a minor league baseball team in say Biloxi, Mississippi and calling them the Yankees. Just because it's traditional doesn't make it a good idea.

What's next? I've heard that the MLS is going to expanded up here to the lovely Pacific Northwest. I have some great team name ideas for them if the do...

• Gold Bar FC
• Club Deportivos Tillicum
• Sea-Tac United
• Real Forks
• AC Walla Walla
• Manchester United - Concrete
• AC Real Club Deportivos Soap Lake United

We Want the Desert Penguins!

Please visit the Golden Baseball League's website to vote for the Surprise Desert Penguins as the name for the new team to open play this season in Surprise, Arizona. Right now the Desert Penguins are in third place with 17.4% of the vote behind the Surprise Fightin' Falcons (38.2%) and the Surprise Sand Storm (30.5%). I would so love to see the Desert Penguins win the prize just for shits and giggles.

Battle of the Week - #4

Last week's battle wasn't even close. The Potomac Cannons won handily 11-2 over the Potomac Nationals. I guess there is a place for that goofy looking cannonball after all.

This week the feature battle is between the two newest teams in the Northern League, the Calgary Vipers and the Edmonton Cracker-Cats. I personally like the Vipers name and logo a little bit better mainly because there is already a "Cat" team in the Northern League, The Gary Southshore RailCats. But that's just my opinion, please don't let me sway your vote.

Calgary Vipers

This season the Northern League is expanding to Calgary and Edmonton, two cities abandoned by affiliated baseball a few years ago. Buoyed by the amazing success of their only other Canadian team, the Winnipeg Goldeyes, the NL thinks they will be able to create success where both the Cannons and Trappers were unable.

Both teams will be facing an uphill battle in trying to capture their cities interest. Both cities hosted Triple-A baseball for many years and the fans are used to high quality play and major league prospects. When residents think of their city as being a Triple-A city, it's hard to persuade them to come out and see an inferior product.

Although Northern League players are less talented than Triple-A players (although everybody knows the best talent is really in Double-A) their games are typically much more entertaining because team owners understand that fans are not necessarily there for baseball and baseball only. Fun is the name of the game in the Northern League.

So how do you convince fans of this? To me it all starts with the name and the logo. A team stepping into this situation has to be able to differentiate itself from the team that left so that no comparisons can possibly be made. I think that both Calgary and Edmonton (who are called the Cracker Cats, more on them in the future) have done a great job in doing just that.

In Calgary's case it will be hard for fans to think of the Cannons when looking at these two Vipers logos. They are just so different from what they are used to in their baseball teams.

The name is tough enough for adults and the logo is cartoony for kids but not in a cutesy-wutesy way that would turn off their parents. Adults shouldn't have any problem wearing this logo on a t-shirt around town. It helps that the colors are nice and understated and should look great on uniforms, t-shirts and caps.

And most importantly, it's fun. Or at least more fun that any Cannon's logo ever was. That may be enough on it's own to give the Vipers a chance. For a Northern League team the most important thing is to get people into the ballpark once and then put on an amazing show and try to hook them with the fun factor. Hopefully then people will return with two more people who then return with two more people and so on and so on.

I think the Vipers have laid the groundwork for getting that first person into the ballpark. Now the pressure is on to put on a great show and convince them that they have no need for Triple-A baseball since the Vipers and the Northern League are in town.

Youngstown SteelHounds

The Central Hockey League's newest member revealed their nickname and logo today. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you, the Youngstown SteelHounds! Sorry about the small logo, it's only their first day and I couldn't find a bigger one.

I'm having a very hard time with this logo. I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's just so, well, I don't know, confusing. There are some things that I really don't like, for example the random hockey sticks underneath the lettering. What are they supposed to be? The only reason they are there, I think, is to make sure people understand that this is a hockey team.

And the name. This happens so often in hockey where a team just arbitrarily combines two words. Usually it is something like the IceHogs or IceGators so at least it isn't the IceHounds, although Steel is used quite often because it refers to the blades on ice skates. But anyway, why can't it be two words? The Steel Hounds. That looks much, much better.

All that being said, I don't hate this logo or name. Why, I can't say. It's just different and kind of cool. I especially like the colors. The brown (technically rust) works really well with the navy and gray and makes for some interesting looking jerseys. The white one they have a picture of on the CHL website doesn't look that great but the navy jerseys should look really nice.

Battle of the Week - #3

Well, it looks like the majority of you preferred the old Washington Huskies logo in this past week's Battle of the Week. That's pretty much the consensus up here in Seattle as well especially amongst hardcore Husky fans. You see, the old Husky is related closely to the great times that the Huskies had, mainly in football, during the 80's and early 90's. The new logo, or the "weasel" as some people call it, is associated with the disastrous times of Rick Neuheisel for football. I still like the new logo better and always will, but I see everybody's point.

Now on to this week. In the Battle of the Week - $3, we have a showdown between the new Potomac Nationals logo and the old Potomac Cannons logo. The Cannons recently announced that they are changing their name to the Nationals, bucking the trend of moving away from having the same name as your parent club. Rarely do you see a team ditch a unique moniker for their parent team's logo in baseball nowadays.

But in this situation, it makes perfect sense. The Potomac team is located very close to their parent club, the Washington Nationals and it's a great way to feed off of the excitement that the Nationals are bringing to the area. When the Nationals were in Montreal, you couldn't blame the team if they never even mentioned that they were an Expo's affiliate. Now they can be somewhat proud of their parent even if their team is still going to pretty much suck.

All that being said, I'm going to miss that happy little cannonball. I always had a bit of fondness for that logo despite it's cheesiness. Plus, if the Nationals turn into a joke, the same way the Expo's always did, what will the effect on this team be?

So please vote and let me know what you think. What will it be. The new serious Potomac Nationals logo or the happy go lucky Potomac Cannons logo?

The San Diego Surf Dawgs

Well, the Golden Baseball League has stubbed it's toe this time. Not that the previous names have been all that great or anything. They've been OK. But today the GBL announced the new name for the San Diego franchise and boy is it a doozie. Hold your breath...brace yourself...here comes one awful name...The San Diego Surf Dawgs!

Ouch! That's bad. I mean real bad. How can you be proud of a name like this? This is one of those names that just has absolutely no soul. It, like many new logos and names throughout minor league sports, sounds like it was chosen by marketers who pander to the lowest common denominator. The name was suggested by a first grader, which is great, good job to him. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't scrutinized and probed to death by a bunch of marketing whizzes who loved the edginess of the word Dawg. By the way, Does the "Dawg" remind you just a little bit of Poochie from the Simpsons.

Having voted in San Diego's name the team contest I was privy to the finalists for their nickname and now I am truly disappointed that this team didn't go with what could have been one of the best names in all of professional baseball, The San Diego Splinters. It would have been so damn good! It honors one of San Diego's true heroes, Ted Williams, and would have made for a really fun logo. It would have been a great name for both adults, who would appreciate the history of the name, and for kids at the same time. It's a shame that they ended up using the Surf Dawgs.

And now, onto the logo. It, for what it's worth, could have been much worse and I actually like the "SD" logo with the surfboard in the background. That will look pretty good on a hat.

What I do have a problem with though is something that I have noticed in all of the recently released GBL logos. All of these logos have obviously been designed by the same graphic design company and, as far as I can tell, nobody at that company seems to be able to draw eyes. The Yuma Scorpions logo is the only living creature that has eyes, two little red ones. The Fullerton Flyers train logo, for some reason or another, has an eye. Why I couldn't tell you.

But the Long Beach Armada, the Chico Outlaws and now the San Diego Surf Dawgs logos don't have any eyes to speak of. It's very weird. Instead they all just kind of have a blank space that's supposed to be covered up by their hats. Seems like just a cop out by a bad designer to me. But who am I to criticize. I liked that crappy Splinter name over the Surf Dawgs. I guess I'm just not very hip anymore.

I Can't Hear You Now Oregon!

Ok, I just have to say something. It's driving me crazy. This post is going up on both the Sports Logo Pundit and Down With Pants!

SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID UNIVERSITY OF OREGON STUDENTS!!!!!

Oh boy, that felt good! My Washington Huskies hoop team went down to Eugene tonight and came back from what looked like imminent defeat and beat the Ducks in overtime 95-88. Will Conroy was awesome at the end of regulation and in overtime including hitting a three pointer to tie the game with less that 30 seconds left. He was absolutely incredible.

The entire game all you could hear was those idiot University of Oregon fans flapping their gums. Gary Coleman this, Gary Coleman that. Well Gary Coleman had 24 points in your eye and is laughing his ass off all the way home right now. He should have thrown down a huge dunk at the end just for old times sake.

How do you like the season sweep? God I hope the Huskies get another shot at them in the Pac-10 tournament. I'd love to see the Ducks go 0-for-3. That might finally shut up those Nike wearing, ugly uniform wearing, Prefontaine loving sons of bitches.

Fullerton Flyers

The Golden Baseball League continues to churn out logos in preparation for their inaugural 2005 season. The latest logo to be released is for the Fullerton Flyers, a team that will be playing all of their home games at Goodwin Field on the campus of Cal State Fullerton. Goodwin Field is also home to the Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball team and the logos for the Flyers really remind you of their stadium mates.

The similarities between the two teams are striking and interesting. From what I can tell so far, the Flyers colors are exactly the same colors as the Titans. Both teams use navy blue as their base with orange and light blue accents. Both teams hats are going to be Navy with a the "F" logo, the only difference is that the Flyers use a different font and use white as the fill with an orange border instead of orange fill and a white border.

These similarities are really interesting from a marketing standpoint. Do you want to be closely associated with a super popular and successful college program or do you want to distance yourself from them and attempt to produce your own identity? Unfortunately there is no right answer. Either way you go, there are major risks associated.

By picking a similar logo and color scheme the team runs the risk of associating themselves too closely with the Titans to the point where casual fans may not understand that the Flyers are independent from the college. Are they a JV team? A club team? What's the deal? On the other hand you have instant recognition. Most likely fans hear the name and see the logo and automatically associate them with the success of the Titans program and become immediately interested because of that success.

Conversely, if you go a totally different route and use a different color scheme and distance yourself from the Titans you run the risk of having absolutely no recognition to the casual fan. People might not have any idea who you are or where you are from.

There obviously is a ton more to this issue that influenced their decision. My theory on why they decided to use these colors is simple and a bit cynical. I'd be willing to bet that most everything in Goodwin Field is geared toward the Titans including the colors of the seats, logos on walls, etc. The Flyers didn't want to clash with all of these colors and accents and look like a random team obviously playing in a stadium that isn't theirs. Makes perfect sense to me. It's also nice to ride the coattails of the popular and successful Titans program.

Battle of the Week

I'm proud to announce the winner of the first Sports Logo Pundit Battle of the Week is....The Philadelphia Eagles!!!! Actually, "They Both Blow" came out on top with nine whole votes (thanks to the few of you who took the time to voice your opinion), while Philly was right behind with eight votes. The sorry ass Patriots came in dead last with a lousy three votes. You may have won the Super Bowl but your dynasty was squashed during the first Battle of the Week.

Week two of the Battle of the Week gets underway today with a very touchy subject here in Seattle. Which Huskies logo is better? Is it the old classic logo (shown at the top) or is it the new, sleek looking Husky (on the bottom). I actually prefer the new logo, which has been called by many people a weasel. But I have always thought that the old logo made the husky kind of look like a clown. But then again, what do I know.

Please vote...even if you are here for only the 30 seconds it takes to skip past my blog. I would appreciate it. Besides this is serious stuff. I take it way too personally. Please don't make me cry!

Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies

Say goodbye to the Bullies. "Bye, bye... see ya...adios...get the heck out of here... don't call us, we'll call you." See, didn't that feel good to finally bully the Bullies. Well that's what folks in Atlantic City are doing right now. Well not quite, most people probably don't care given the fact that they barely drew anybody to games in the first place but at least you feel like a big man now.

The Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies of the ECHL are on their way to Stockton next season leaving behind this pretty lame logo and one of the country's best looking arenas, Historic Boardwalk Hall, also the home of the Miss America Pageant every year. This should come as no surprise. All of the casino cities (AC, Las Vegas, Reno) have been a virtual wasteland of failed franchises, why would the Boardwalk Bullies be any different?

But today isn't a day to make fun of the Bullies and their miscalculation about whether or not hockey would work in Atlantic City. Nope, today is a day to chronicle the passing of yet another franchise and it's logo, albeit a weak effort.

Teal and Purple? Really, nothing says bully like teal and purple. I mean, I know I'm shaking in my boots. It may work from time to time on the evening gowns and swimsuits of the building's other tenant but it just ain't happening for poor Wooly, the team's mascot. Instead of looking tough, Wooly looks like he might have to run and hide from a bully picking on him. "Give me your lunch money Wooly," shouts one mean ass seven year-old girl. "Or I'll beat you with your own hockey stick you teal wearing mutha!"

Maybe they should have used her as their mascot instead.

Battle of the Week - Super Bowl Showdown!

A new feature here at The Sports Logo Pundit is up and running. To your right you will notice the Battle of the Week. Each week I will pit two logos head-to-head to see which one is beloved by the people.

Our first battle royale is in honor of Sunday's Super Bowl pitting the Patriots and the Eagles against each other in the only game that really counts, SLP's Battle of the Week. The Patriots will probably crush the Eagles on the field but will that weenie looking minuteman hold up against the choking chicken? Vote now and vote often!