NFL with-and-without Maps

 And how does this make you feel?

The Suburbans: indoor travel tag team

At this time a lot of markets can feel missing out on some big leagues. I’m thinking places like Boise, Albuquerque, Louisville, Grand Rapids, Tucson, Tulsa and Birmingham. Or even Fresno, Richmond, Omaha and Hartford or Providence.

Not sure how viable the thought is. But I’m giving it some thought. This time with this brand: The Suburbans.

Fashioned somewhat as the home team camped in your town for the time, and they’re playing the Detroit Red Wings. Better than no team at all? Suburban apparel. After all, Seattle chose the Kraken. I spelled that wrong on the first try.

Art.intell, meta, or somebody or something is still retarded. Second time, I asked AI to spell it correctly on the jersey didn’t work either

Could it work for indoor football, hockey and basketball? It’s the big leagues in your arena a few times a year. Try it for a high pro minor league affiliate?

With thoughts of brand, correlations to soilbirth and loyalty to things such as place or branding, etcetera and so forth - Good topics to contort. Will a pro team just call itself Coke in Atlanta someday?

Shifty diasporas of brand

Thirty years ago much like today in that sense? I don’t know.

And, off the cuff I’m going to make some suppositions, AND they may be outdated. But.

This is the viewpoint of my Midwest near the South, Ohio, and Cincinnati kid viewpoint:

There are probably some Irish American fans all over the place for the Celtics. Notre Dame and Catholic all the same. And going back to my youth, that seemed the case for the African Americans for Raiders and Niners and Bulls. Oh my. Pop culture too. The Bulls were everywhere though. Jordan was that big. And really, whatever Starter brands were available for wear, poor kids wore it all. I think it’s worth exploring loyalty along racial lines. 

Speaking for myself and central Cincinnati late last century, the vibe of tension felt more like caste than color - that being more meritocratic: are you athletic (tough) or not, or are you a mark/nerd? Athletic kids got tested way less. Also, having old black women as teachers, and old people in general, discipline did not get tested often at all. Those old folks came up in no-nonsense. School-in -session was conducive to minding your business. Sounds better than today’s climate

Anyhoot,

Yankees weren’t good enough in the 80s to be trendy in the Midwest. As a big sports fan I even enjoyed picking a second team to follow the box scores for. Also enjoyed following a second player.

Growing up in Cincinnati, pretty much dead center of the city/county, we all saw kids wearing starter jackets and coats of not-Cincinnati teams. For baseball there were more Reds jackets, but for football you’d see Raiders and Niners galore. Then there were those Hornets jackets and coats, our intro to the teal palette in big teams. Every once in awhile we’d see Tar Heels stuff. Around the turn of the ‘90s decade, it probably was an access issue. There were catalogues, but even those had limits and seemed to leave out small market options (or ran out).

I’m too embarrassed to say which coat I ended up getting, but the other choice I had at the time, from Sears, was the Browns, and back then that was the equivalent of me sporting Steelers as a Bengals fan. One of my junior high teachers had a Browns. He was from Cleveland. We didn’t live in Cleveland. We lived in the actual Cincinnati. I would stare at catalogs of choices. Monetarily that wasn’t an option. 5 folks in a 1 bedroom apartment type options. Later, in the suburbs, my brother got a Cowboys coat. I got a Reds Jacket. Some people like color. I liked the team. I suppose I’m casting indictment on “traitors”, but I cannot argue power or freedom of choice.

Outside market fans bothered me. I get why we as kids took whatever we could get. It was the 1900s, for God’s sake. But Cincinnati kids, many who I presume were at least second or third generation Cincinnatian were even verbally preaching fealty to outside market. I was taking second hand clothes from cousins. I remember a Rams sweatshirt. Not sure where I got the Tasmanian devil NY Giants shirt from. But I liked football enough to watch and root for second-teams when the Bengals weren’t on. It helped for awhile that the Bengals were great then, during peak childhood for baseball and football.

It’s also worth mentioning that the suburbs is where I incurred folks with fealty to Ohio State. Maybe that’s the reason the Buckeyes never jived for me. Cincinnati feels like it’s in a different state than Columbus, or really even in Cindi’s surrounding counties sometimes.

Having no NBA team left me victim to the Jordan era. I clung on to Reggie Miller and the Pacers out of proximity. Big networks shoved Lakers, Bulls and Celtics down our gullet. And while on the tv subject, cable networks broadcasted about every Braves and Cubs game into the Cinci and American market. Smart move for them. Old timers like my retired grandpa had cable. Many times they had to catch the Reds flick in the ear (radio), and wind down nights with an Atlanta or Chicago game, those markets being king of the Midwest and South.

What do we see these days?

- A lot of Yankee fans transplants in Florida, and probably Phoenix and Vegas as well. Folks were warning Florida had too many Yankeebaggers decades ago. Probably too many Sox fans now too.

-ditto across the country for Raider and Cowboy nation. I’ve spied west coast old timers staying married to power houses of the 70s, like the Steelers. That and Hillbillies from Ohio with families out of Middletown Steel latching onto that same franchise. Winning pays.

I’m spurning off more questions than answers here.

How much of society only does winners anymore?

Baseball With-and-without Maps

Maybe soonish?

 

Atlanta Braves smothering blanket

 

Or…do We Wish this: Portland Talls vs. Carolina Cougar Cats

 

We Wish: Utah Raptors vs. Nashville Stars

 

My Next Two in the Big Five right now.

NBA: West Coast Whales and Kentucky Colonels. No SuperSonics, but the Whales are in Seattle and La vida Las Vegas.

NHL: Portland Iceroad Fuckers and Cincinnati Polar Bears. Get out of the way of ICE, Portlandpotties. Maybe the Milwaukee Meece instead.

MLS: Armada Milwaukee and Detroit Arsenal 

NFL: Utah Raptors (or Stags) and Kentucky Downs

MLB: Utah Eagles (or Raptors) and Nashville Stars. I guess that’s the name Tennessee wants.

SLC and Brewerville be luvin me.

Montreal Expos Trip-A team

 

We wish: San Diego Madres vs. Cinci Red Legs. Meta AI is still weird edition

 WMLB 

Maybe AI no speak Spanish

We Wish: Detroit Arsenal vs. Sacramento Republic

 

Omaha, Louisville and Birmingham Look Lonely

 

We Wish: Utah Stags vs. Kentucky Downs

A cool Utah Stags helmet is on an older post. Art.Intell did not do a Meta good job on the Kentucky Downs brand. Or the Ky Bucks one. Louisville Horsemen better? Apocalypse cheerleaders? Goth metal.

I’m sure you can come up with better.

Kentucky or Nebraska next?

 States without the big leagues.

NBA or NHL.

Will Louisville bounce that hardwood? Will Omaha have ice before then?

I’m for Omaha-Dakota Diesel and Louisville Stangs

The Basketball and Baseball Bengals. Hockeytown too.

 AI is still a little slow and

woke.

Big Branding Exhibition. Sample West Coast Athletics and Raiders

 Las Vegas may be Tampa West someday, bagging 3 big league teams in a decade, and looking at the fourth on hardwood for Thee Big 4 sports.

If an idea of sharing between a couple big cities in a West Coast brand isn’t a thing, why not do it at least for an exhibition with Portland? Sell the apparel.

Revisiting the possibility of more Big League teams a Decade Later: SLC

 Here we are, overshadowing Portland for MLB west. Ten years ago I probably would’ve dismissed the viable mention of Utah MLB.

Who is laughing now? 

Kicking and dribbling balls has spread into skating and the most expensive big leagues of baseball. The state ties funding to keeping the Utah name. Landing an MLB team would make NFL inevitable as hell. I’d be figuring out the names at this point. What are the team names? Mammoth is locked. Eagles baseball? The football Raptors? Utah Towers. Mountaineers. Utah Travel. Stags.

World widewebbers come up with gold. I spied Stormin’ Mormons, football Hornets, and Elk among them.

Getty image

Click:

The Pitch: Utah MLB

Houston Southstars NHL?

 Nobody is going to latch on to my big brand idea of the Southlakes Fishermen as an NHL team skating between Houston and Atlanta. 

See my nod to ol’ North Stars? 

The Leagues RESORTing to These

 Las Vegas and Austin and Nashville and Orlando

Resort towns, especially if you lump in San Antonio with Austin, and you should definitely do that journey, are INTRAnational destinations, as well as international ones. Las Vegas and Florida have shown folks weary of non-transplant heavy populations can hone in on the home teams enough to plant a flag. Well, Tampa Yankees, cough, I mean Deviled Rays have given MLB grief.

Las Vegas, as artificial as ever, bucks the Dam trend (reach for a Hoover Dam toy town joke). Austin has heartache with so many Texas Big Towns and brands to buck with. Pretty ditto for Alamo.

Nashville dashed with light speed in ten years. If I were a Charlottan, my anxiety would be peak.

In that time also, SLC shot-outta-canon over Portland, and MLB,aside from business bolstering, can see Utah as a nice lillypad logistic hop to new turf Nevada

Nashville, Nevada and SLC have risen bigtime. Central Texas and Orlando have proximal grief. Charlotte swats at its neighbor of Raleigh but really a Carolina brand to root for is what you need.

Move Two in AL/NL. Indianapolis White Sox?

 Rays and Brewers

Nashville Brewers makes sense.

White Sox or Orioles? I’ve talked about these before. Essentially, the DC area and Chicago still got a team.

The Rays is the no-brainer, right? Make Marlins Florida again.

Indianapolis White Sox and Carolina Orioles? Now we got room for SLC and Portland as expansion teams. Indiana is pitched on the map enough, and really planting flags for the future is what MLB is doing for business.

New Orleans and Portland might be triple A towns. New Orleans was recently. Portland awhile ago.

Should the Blue Jackets have been in Cincinnati or Cleveland? Saturation

From Cleveland to Akron and Dayton to Cincinnati, there are simply more people in those two stretches of Ohio.

MLS in Columbus, along with their minor league hockey scene was probably a boost for the heart of Ohio for NHL choice as a halfway compromise for the shoulder shrug between figuring for the existing DawgPound or Jungle turf. Plus, the corners of the Buckeye State were already bigtime but medium markets as compared to cities on the edge of the state and markets by Lake Michigan. 

So, there was saturation economywise (market wise) with all that ticket price USD value TV market mumbojumbo.

Inclusive logo wrapping the state

Could Cleveland get a team one day called the Scary Lakers….