Utah team nickname/colors/logo (and related marketing)

[rt]

Yeti is a worse name than Kraken. So is Buzz. I know the team wants to stay away from religious themes, but not using Crusaders is a giant miss.

A Salt Lake City team would rather be called the Cat Turds than a Catholic name.

 

[stymie]

Nomads

 

[KevFu]

I hear ya but I present the following: Fang, the Arizona Rattlers mascot, is one of the coolest in sports history. I mean look at how cool this dude looks:

I remember seeing a plush snake mascot at a Diamondbacks game, and it was hideous and I'm like "No wonder they went with the Bobcat. The Bobcat mascot is ugly, but that snake thing looks like it was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and choose poorly."

 

[KevFu]

I was trying to find a pic of the snake mascot I know I saw... and failed, but I did find this, which, which is pretty good to the branding discussion:

A Brand with Some Bite: The Story Behind the Arizona Diamondbacks

With 18 seasons under their belt, the Arizona Diamondbacks are still Major League Baseball’s new kid on the block. The team debuted along with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998, in a splash of purple and teal, an oasis of color in the Arizona desert. Unconstrained by convention or tradition, the

news.sportslogos.net

Specifically mentions the challenges of a mascot with a snake nickname; and also explains that they went away from their original colors of teal and purple because those colors were notoriously hard to match shades of both from textile to textile in different parts of their uniform, but also the digital graphics on TV and on scoreboards. It was fine from 1998-2003, but when HDTV came out, it was obvious and they looked bad. Since their division had two purple teams no red team, they rebranded to the Sedona Red/Black and Sand look.

Then much later, they did a throwback to the 2001 team, and discovered the color matching tech was better and they COULD pull off teal, so they added it back because it was an important color to them and the region.

 

[Neill99]

Utah Yeti or Blizzard or Monmouth are my choices.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

Utah Yeti or Blizzard or Monmouth are my choices.

I believe the choices have been made that have been registered..... we'll see how the bracket challenge goes....

 

[JMCx4]

I think one of the reason snakes aren't used very often is because the "cons" list when decision making.

-- a snake mascot has no arms

-- a snake mascot with no arms can't throw things to the crowd.​

-- a snake mascot costume would be incredibly ugly.
-- lots of children are scared of CUTE mascots, let alone an ugly snake one.
-- Snakes are massively high on the list of things people are afraid of
-- 3% of the population has a phobia of snakes.
-- HALF the population say that snakes give them anxiety. ...

Counterpoint: The mascot of the minor pro hockey team Columbus (GA) Cottonmouths, "Boomer", was beloved by young & old. He also had arms AND hands. Not sure if he had a driver's license, though. I reckon not, having seen him do his shtick on that ATV.

 

[JMCx4]

Utah Yeti or Blizzard or Monmouth are my choices.

If you're keen on distant & obscure connections to Utah history & culture, you might as well champion "Nauvoo(s)" as the team name.

 

[StreetHawk]

Wonder if Toronto Raptors will object.

Granted, New York Jets don't object to Winnipeg Jets.

NY jets is the much larger brand. They don’t care about Winnipeg. Jets to Americans are the nfl team. Plus it was a return to a name from 15 years earlier and one from the 70’s. 2020’s best to not copy the names especially nba ones since those clubs do play in delta center. Be it raptors or wolves.

I think a bug name is fine for Utah. Just need to consider color choice. Hornets are teal and purple. And the jazz are a borderline purple/ blue and light blue scheme which the owner says he wants to mirror.

 

[Gnashville]

how about Utah Buzzards since they circle the desert looking for dead Coyotes

 

[lakeshirts37]

Yeti is a worse name than Kraken. So is Buzz. I know the team wants to stay away from religious themes, but not using Crusaders is a giant miss.

crusaders is just as bad

 

[chizzler]

As long as the name has an S at the end.

 

[JMCx4]

As long as the name has an S at the end.

The Utah SSSSSSSS it is, then. Their mascot could be a flat tire.

 

[Headshot77]

Utah Yeti seems to have the most local momentum. I'm partial to the Utah Outlaws personally.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

The Utah SSSSSSSS it is, then. Their mascot could be a flat tire.

how about the Utah JMC X4's

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Utah Pioneers is a good name. Too bad it’s not an option.

 

[Yukon Joe]

NY jets is the much larger brand. They don’t care about Winnipeg. Jets to Americans are the nfl team. Plus it was a return to a name from 15 years earlier and one from the 70’s. 2020’s best to not copy the names especially nba ones since those clubs do play in delta center. Be it raptors or wolves.

I think a bug name is fine for Utah. Just need to consider color choice. Hornets are teal and purple. And the jazz are a borderline purple/ blue and light blue scheme which the owner says he wants to mirror.

Winnipeg Jets goes back to 1972 - and allegedly because owner Bennie Hatskin was a big NY Jets fan.

1972 was a long time ago though. Teams really didn't think about licensing, or their intellectual property to anywhere near the same degree. Of course nobody thought about web domain names, or SEO results, or anything.

That's why if you go back over the last several expansion franchises they've all had much more unique names. Kraken, Golden Knights, Blue Jackets, Thrashers - nobody else is using those names (well actually the Vegas Golden Knights ran into trouble because an army parachute team of the same name).

So does that give us any hints where Utah might go? Several of the names suggested sound pretty, well, common. Ice, Venom, Fury, Outlaws all sound like pretty typical names that have been used before. There was the Winnipeg/Wenatchee Ice, Venom is the name of a movie franchise, There's the Ottawa Fury in CPL soccer, Outlaws has been used in both the XFL and USFL.

Blizzard, Yetis, Mammoth and Utah HC have no obvious pro sports connections, so seem more likely.

 

[StreetHawk]

Gets harder and harder to ensure trademarks and branding for the team name. At least in terms of something you truly like and represents the area or region.

Bug name could be wasps, Stingers, hive, something. But their color scheme should be different than charlotte hornets otherwise it may be viewed by non hockey fans as a variant of the hornets logo.

Washington football team was unlikely to use Warriors or red wolves due to GS and Minny teams bearing those names.

Mammoth is Colorado’s NLL team but not sure that would dissuade an nhl team given that vancouvers NLL team is the Warriors.

 

[KevFu]

Counterpoint: The mascot of the minor pro hockey team Columbus (GA) Cottonmouths, "Boomer", was beloved by young & old. He also had arms AND hands. Not sure if he had a driver's license, though. I reckon not, having seen him do his shtick on that ATV.

View attachment 861139​

Counter-counterpoint: Are you telling me THAT is a snake? That's a bird.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Gets harder and harder to ensure trademarks and branding for the team name. At least in terms of something you truly like and represents the area or region.

Bug name could be wasps, Stingers, hive, something. But their color scheme should be different than charlotte hornets otherwise it may be viewed by non hockey fans as a variant of the hornets logo.

Washington football team was unlikely to use Warriors or red wolves due to GS and Minny teams bearing those names.

Mammoth is Colorado’s NLL team but not sure that would dissuade an nhl team given that vancouvers NLL team is the Warriors.

So I've used the example of drug names, or corporate names, where the idea is if you completely make up your own word you can own that word 100%. "Ozempic" is a word the drug company can control 100% in any use, any situation.

But obviously a made up word is hard for fans to get behind. So a team will want to come up with a name that's unique enough they can have a fair bit of control over it, but obviously not 100%.

"Yeti" has come up in the context of drink containers (or, mythical monsters). Obviously the Yeti Corp controls that trademark for drink containers and coolers. The name "Yeti" when referring to mythical monsters is public domain - nobody can control it. But "Yetis" is unique enough that the hockey club should have full control over it when it comes to hockey teams at a minimum, maybe pro sports teams as a maximum. That's not bad.

(and I don't like the name Yetis)

I wasn't aware of the Colorado Mammoth in the NLL - I really don't follow that league. If the hockey team were to try to use that name it might be allowed, but it would be tightly tied to only hockey at most.

 

[StreetHawk]

Just shows that if Atl wants a nhl team be ready now with your team name. Same with Houston as I believe it currently is owned by the Wild for the Aeros.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Just shows that if Atl wants a nhl team be ready now with your team name. Same with Houston as I believe it currently is owned by the Wild for the Aeros.

To be fair, there's next to no chance that the Wild would block a Houston team from using the Aeros name if Houston wanted it. There'd be no benefit for the Wild to get a bad PR hit over it when they don't really profit from it, and it's not like the Wild have any animosity towards Houston in the same way that the Titans won't let their Oiler grudge versus Houston go.

 

[Yukon Joe]

To be fair, there's next to no chance that the Wild would block a Houston team from using the Aeros name if Houston wanted it. There'd be no benefit for the Wild to get a bad PR hit over it when they don't really profit from it, and it's not like the Wild have any animosity towards Houston in the same way that the Titans won't let their Oiler grudge versus Houston go.

Yeah - the Wild would be getting millions of dollars in expansion fees if the league goes to Houston - there'd be no need to be petty over an IP they have no intention of using.

This isn't like the CFL expanding to Baltimore in 1994 and trying to sue the name "Baltimore CFL Colts", when the team in Indy was already using that name (and in a very similar sport).

 

[JMCx4]

Counter-counterpoint: Are you telling me THAT is a snake? That's a bird.

Mascot costume budgets below the AHL are VERY restrictive. They're lucky to get a twice-used mismatched set that doesn't smell like stale beer & recycled nacho cheese.

 

[LadyStanley]

That's why if you go back over the last several expansion franchises they've all had much more unique names. Kraken, Golden Knights, Blue Jackets, Thrashers - nobody else is using those names (well actually the Vegas Golden Knights ran into trouble because an army parachute team of the same name).

And a small college (they paid off).