Toronto 2? Ontario, Not California.
Some say Houston. Saskatoon Squatch.
Next Professional Sports Expansion Franchise by Sporting Geography. Where should the next Pro teams be? Your town? Why? The Big 5 Leagues and even the minors. Relocations on the table. With your heart and mind. Let's toss around some ideas. Envision possibility at your place. Talk also about rebranding and travel-team-like co-location feasibility combinations. Spitball !
Then it could exhibit big league baseball. Vegas will have your West Coast Athletics tees ready, and then you could pawn off your Portland apparel at least a couple times per year.
Do 17,500 seats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Triple-A_baseball_stadiums#
Congrats on the situation you got now, I guess.
First series hits the hardwood in Louisville before a later meet, hopping onto the Whales home court in Seattle before docking camp a little later in Las Vegas.
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| Doesn’t the horse’s nose double as a Reaper of the apocalypse? |
Poor Rangers and Angels. It’s a case for San Antonio. If DC can be the Nationals, there can be the San Antonio Americans.
Move the Rays. Make Marlins Florida again.
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.
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| 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?
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And, off the cuff I’m going to make some suppositions, AND they may be outdated.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,
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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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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| Getty image |