How the Blue Jackets can market themselves to all of Ohio

[Big Z Man 1990]

The Blue Jackets have been proud to be Ohio's only NHL team for 20 years.

Thing is, when most people outside the state think of Columbus in terms of sports, they associate it more with Ohio State, which is located in the city.

Several states with only one NHL team have their team named after the state (as does the Florida Panthers in a 2-team state, but that's another conversation). These teams are the Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, and Minnesota Wild.

There are a few other one-team states too, but in at least some of those cases changing the geographic brand to the state would not work, like in the cases of Chicago and Detroit, because those 2 city names have been part of the teams' names since before the Original 6 era.

On the other hand, the Blue Jackets are only 20 years old, and so in order to appeal more to fans in the rest of the state, they should change the location part of their name to Ohio. Of course Toledo will still primarily be a Red Wings city, but at least most of the rest of the state would warm up if the Jackets marketed themselves as Ohio's team.

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[Viqsi]

You've never lived here in Columbus, have you?

Nobody would ever dream of going to an NBA forum and suggesting that Ohio's only NBA team, for marketing purposes, be renamed the Ohio Cavaliers. Columbus is the #1 city by size and #2 by metro area population in the state; it deserves that kind of respect. That it doesn't get it is the pet peeve of the city. Folks here are absolutely sick of being ignored and/or thought of as just "generic Ohio", particularly as compared to Cleveland and Cincinnati.

It's an especially sore point with our hockey team. When Mr. Mac (z''l) set out to get an NHL team here, his stated primary goal was to raise the profile of the city of Columbus. He'd felt that his adopted hometown, where he built an industry and became a successful businessman, was going unappreciated in the world - and the combination of there being no other NHL team in the state and the Chill doing shockingly well looked like a magnificent opportunity to help rectify that. Calling the team the Ohio Blue Jackets would not only have crippled the team's chances of being accepted here, it would have failed to accomplish what Mr. Mac set out to do.

The Jackets have been embraced as much as they have precisely because they are the Columbus Blue Jackets. Changing the name would kill them.

 

[Speedy Sanderson]

They'll never change their name from "Columbus" to "Ohio." However, I think the CBJ should start playing preseason games in Cleveland and Cincinnati, and maybe Toledo and Dayton. Let hockey fans in other parts of Ohio see some NHL action in their town.

 

[Monstershockey]

I have been hoping for a preseason game in Cleveland. It would be pretty cool to see them here. The name should stay Columbus. It's their team. I am still disappointed they changed the Monsters name from Lake Erie to Cleveland. They claimed that they wanted everyone to know the team is from Cleveland. The state flag in the logo is a good enough reference that the Jackets are Ohio's only hockey team. I never knew that people in Columbus thought they have been ignored, or are generic. I have never heard anyone here say that. Actually, other than alumni or people that moved here from Columbus, I always thought the people here liked Ohio State so much is because with all the losing here, Ohio State was the only bright spot when it came to following a winner. I know Cincinnati has never been popular here mainly because of the Bengals, and Sam Wyche's comment during a game years ago.

 

[Long Live Lyle]

The Blue Jackets have been proud to be Ohio's only NHL team for 20 years.

Thing is, when most people outside the state think of Columbus in terms of sports, they associate it more with Ohio State, which is located in the city.

Several states with only one NHL team have their team named after the state (as does the Florida Panthers in a 2-team state, but that's another conversation). These teams are the Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, and Minnesota Wild.

There are a few other one-team states too, but in at least some of those cases changing the geographic brand to the state would not work, like in the cases of Chicago and Detroit, because those 2 city names have been part of the teams' names since before the Original 6 era.

On the other hand, the Blue Jackets are only 20 years old, and so in order to appeal more to fans in the rest of the state, they should change the location part of their name to Ohio. Of course Toledo will still primarily be a Red Wings city, but at least most of the rest of the state would warm up if the Jackets marketed themselves as Ohio's team.

There are six teams in the NHL that identify with the state they’re in, not city. (I think of “New York” as the city, not state.) Three of them play in states that really only have one dominant city (Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey) where you could identify pretty easily the city they’d be from. Two (Minnesota, Carolina) are in an area with more than one big city so it makes more sense to identify with the state. The last one (Florida) plays outside the city limits and pretty far away from the downtown of the major city they represent (and it’s possible/debatable that Fort Lauderdale is big enough that it wouldn’t make sense to name them Miami anyway since they’re much closer to Fort Lauderdale. So it’s arguably pretty similar to Minnesota/Carolina).

If we changed our name to Ohio, we’d be the only team in the NHL with a state name that plays within the city limits of a region’s lone major city in a state with multiple major cities. That sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo but the point is, we want the team to be identified with Columbus (since otherwise it’s possible we could be mistaken for Cleveland or Cincy) and we don’t need to “share” like St. Paul-Minneapolis or Raleigh–Durham. Every other team in our boat, whether it’s the only NHL team in the state (St. Louis, Dallas, Nashville [and that’s even with the Titans NOT doing that]) or one of multiple (the Pennsylvania and California teams) go by the city.

Your point about Ohio State is exactly why it should remain Columbus. Columbus should have a professional, major sports team identified with it, not just a college team. It loses that if the name is changed to Ohio.

This of course doesn’t mean the CBJ can’t de facto represent all of Ohio (similar to the Cavs in the NBA). And we should market throughout the state. We have a great partnership with the Cleveland Monsters, and have done some marketing stuff up in Cleveland. I’d like to see us play a preseason game there every year and one in Cincy every year (and I think we could do a better job of marketing down there).

But it should always be identified with Columbus.

 

[Doggy]

There are six teams in the NHL that identify with the state they’re in, not city. (I think of “New York” as the city, not state.) Three of them play in states that really only have one dominant city (Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey) where you could identify pretty easily the city they’d be from.

New Jersey has TWO dominant cities: New York and Philadelphia. Unfortunately for the Devils most hockey fans in the state are a fan of one of those two teams and their arena usually only sells out when one of those two teams is in the building. It was a dumb place to relocate a team..even when they were dominant their attendance was not great.

As for the original topic, as someone who lived in Cleveland for ten years and became a fan of the CBJ while I was up there, I see no point in changing the name of the team. It's Columbus. I have heard Clevelanders say 'if the team were named Ohio Blue Jackets they would follow the team'. That's BS...those people aren't even hockey fans.

What will get them following the team is not a name change...its winning. I saw more people in Cleveland talking about the CBJ after they knocked off Tampa in the first round than at any other time. Winning makes people stand up and notice. Do you think Clevelanders would be Buckeye fans if they had a football history or played like Rutgers, Indiana or Illinois? Of course not, they would simply not be college football fans and just stick to the NFL and Browns.

If you live in Cleveland (or Cincy) and you are a hockey fan you are either still following the team you followed before the CBJ came into existence or you are following the CBJ. Changing the name changes nothing.

Now those who think the CBJ should lay a pre-season game each year in Cleveland and Cincy...love this idea. Tampa did this one year when the Jacks were their affiliate. It was a double header IIRC.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

Do people not know where Columbus is? Are people in Cleveland afraid to root for a team with Columbus because it might mean Columbus Indiana or Georgia?

 

[JacketsDavid]

I agree with idea of moving pre-season games around, both to grow the game, but to also save myself (STH) from having to pay for those games. I'm guessing that is main reason they don't move thm is $$$. They have 9k people (or so) paying full price. If you have games in Cleveland and/or Cincinnati I'm guessing they would struggle to sell tickets unless the prices were discounted (more like $30 lower, $20 uppers).
Hockey is still niche sport in Ohio. Other mature markets folks grow up around the game, here it's still o novelty for majority of people. I still think key to growing it is winning.

 

[Monk]

Why include the location in the name at all if the goal is more universal fandom?

 

[Doggy]

Why include the location in the name at all if the goal is more universal fandom?

Well in your argument you'd need to change the team name too because Blue Jackets refers to the Union uniforms from the Civil War. That lessens the universal fandom as hockey fans from CSA states would never support the team.

 

[Monk]

Well in your argument you'd need to change the team name too because Blue Jackets refers to the Union uniforms from the Civil War. That lessens the universal fandom as hockey fans from CSA states would never support the team.

Fine by me

 

[CharlotteJacket]

What will get them following the team is not a name change...its winning. I saw more people in Cleveland talking about the CBJ after they knocked off Tampa in the first round than at any other time. Winning makes people stand up and notice.

This x's a thousand. The CBJ made sports fans around the state last spring stand up and take notice and they only made it to the second round. Had they gone further, it would have been even more crazy. We've tried winning fans over with gimmicks like cannon's that go boom after goals or giving our fanbase cute nicknames like "the 5th line" or the sort of annoying use of "your" before mentioning the Columbus Blue Jackets. None of those gimmicks put one fan in the seats or draw eyes on TV sets around the state, winning series and advancing in the playoffs does.

 

[Monstershockey]

People in Cleveland took notice of the Jackets last year because they swept the best team in the league, and the Cavs sucked. If the Cavs were in the playoffs, the Tampa series win wouldn't have registered here. Only hockey fans would have noticed. I have never heard anyone say they would follow the Jackets if they were called Ohio. Winning brings fans, which is why a lot of people here follow Ohio State, also why there is a large group of Steeler fans. Lot of front runner fans in Cleveland. Hockey is a tough sell, the fans here still mainly ignore hockey, even though hockey has the most professional championships, between the Barons and Monsters, than all the other sports. People in Cleveland know that Columbus is in Ohio, we have had computers, books, and maps here for a while now.

 

[Long Live Lyle]

Well in your argument you'd need to change the team name too because Blue Jackets refers to the Union uniforms from the Civil War. That lessens the universal fandom as hockey fans from CSA states would never support the team.

The Universe Neutral Jackets.

 

[Speedy Sanderson]

I agree with idea of moving pre-season games around, both to grow the game, but to also save myself (STH) from having to pay for those games. I'm guessing that is main reason they don't move thm is $$$. They have 9k people (or so) paying full price. If you have games in Cleveland and/or Cincinnati I'm guessing they would struggle to sell tickets unless the prices were discounted (more like $30 lower, $20 uppers).
Hockey is still niche sport in Ohio. Other mature markets folks grow up around the game, here it's still o novelty for majority of people. I still think key to growing it is winning.

I agree hockey is more of a niche sport in large parts of Ohio, but it's pretty firmly entrenched in Cleveland and Toledo, especially Cleveland. My son travels there for tournaments quite a bit, and they have an impressive number of rinks and teams in northeast Ohio. Youth hockey in central Ohio is booming, and starting to produce NHL'ers.

 

[Jive Pawnbroker]

Blasphemy.

 

[Doggy]

I agree hockey is more of a niche sport in large parts of Ohio, but it's pretty firmly entrenched in Cleveland and Toledo, especially Cleveland. My son travels there for tournaments quite a bit, and they have an impressive number of rinks and teams in northeast Ohio. Youth hockey in central Ohio is booming, and starting to produce NHL'ers.

There is a big difference between participatory hockey and spectator hockey. As a hockey parent you would know that. How much free time does your kid have to follow a pro-team or go to games? I have a nephew who plays in CT and his entire life revolves around school, practice and traveling for tournaments all over the Northeast and into Canada. He likes the pro game but there's no room in his life to be a fan.

Cleveland has a very good participatory hockey community...especially considering this has not been a hotbed spectator market for decades.

 

[NotWendell]

They'll never change their name from "Columbus" to "Ohio." However, I think the CBJ should start playing preseason games in Cleveland and Cincinnati, and maybe Toledo and Dayton. Let hockey fans in other parts of Ohio see some NHL action in their town.

I've been saying this since year one. Of course I agree wholeheartedly!

 

[NotWendell]

People from Columbus have no problems following baseball or football teams named Cleveland or Cincinnati. Cleveland fans should have no problems following a hockey or soccer team named Columbus.

 

[EspenK]

New Jersey has TWO dominant cities: New York and Philadelphia.

Hey! Piscataway & Neptune say hold our beers.

 

[NotWendell]

The CBJ could also market weeknight games as Cincinnati Night (with Joe Burrow or Joey Votto coming up), Cleveland Night (Baker Mayfield, Francisco Lindor, Kevin Love), Dayton Night (the UD Flyers basketball team), Youngstown Night (Tress!), Athens Night, ok you get the idea.

 

[TaketheCannoli]

The Blue Jackets have been proud to be Ohio's only NHL team for 20 years.

Thing is, when most people outside the state think of Columbus in terms of sports, they associate it more with Ohio State, which is located in the city.

Several states with only one NHL team have their team named after the state (as does the Florida Panthers in a 2-team state, but that's another conversation). These teams are the Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, and Minnesota Wild.

There are a few other one-team states too, but in at least some of those cases changing the geographic brand to the state would not work, like in the cases of Chicago and Detroit, because those 2 city names have been part of the teams' names since before the Original 6 era.

On the other hand, the Blue Jackets are only 20 years old, and so in order to appeal more to fans in the rest of the state, they should change the location part of their name to Ohio. Of course Toledo will still primarily be a Red Wings city, but at least most of the rest of the state would warm up if the Jackets marketed themselves as Ohio's team.

Waiting for an NFL team to become the Ohio Browns or the Ohio Bengals. Maybe the Ohio Cavaliers.

 

[Old Guy]

If the CBJ want to become Ohio's team, all it takes is one thing and one thing only.......

Win the Eastern Conference and play for the Stanley Cup.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Look, if we're changing any name it should be Blue Jackets since it's a whole corporate concocted lie that has led this franchise to be cursed by the great deceased Shawnee war chief. Until this changes or the powers that be admit this disrespect, the organization will forever remain doomed.

 

[NotWendell]

The obvious answer to the question posed in the this thread is: win the Stanley Cup.