Utah owner Ryan Smith divulges name and uniform plans

Utah’s NHL team will use a March Madness-style bracket to determine a name and share some uniform similarities with the NBA’s Jazz.

Those were two of the key takeaways of an interview with Utah co-owner Ryan Smith on the 32 Thoughts podcast with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on Tuesday.

“The goal is we want it to be by Utah, for Utah, and let our fans and our people and our players take part in creating that,” said Smith, whose purchase of the Arizona Coyotes was confirmed last week.

Smith, who also owns the Jazz with his wife, Ashley, said he envisions some shared uniform concepts between the teams.

“If you look at the mountains on the (Jazz) jersey, I think that kind of breeds a little bit of a colour palette naturally, of fresh ice, the whole setup, blue skies, you see that,” he said. “In a dream scenario, there’s a Venn diagram where you’ve got the Jazz and this team … where things could kind of overlap.

“You’ve got to leave a little room for teams to get out and do special stuff that’s not going to be part of that diagram,” he added. “But I think there can be a really cool symmetry and I don’t think it has to just be like Pittsburgh or everything else where everything’s the exact same colour.”

As for a nickname, fans are going to have a say with a bracket, Smith said.

“We have like six or eight names that seem to be the ones,” he said. “We’ve engaged Qualtrics (founded by Smith and partners) to do it from a survey standpoints and grab all the feedback and run the brackets so it’s right.”

Several names have been rumoured, including Blizzard, Venom, Black Diamonds, Yetis and Golden Eagles.

“I have my opinion but this is part of the reason why I want to do it with the fans is because unfortunately, or fortunately, my opinion weighs pretty heavily here,” Smith said. “That’s not what we’re trying to do. I truly want this fanbase to be able to name it.”

When asked to name most interesting text he had received since buying the Coyotes, Smith wasn’t ready to point to just one person.

But he did mention he got messages from many Canadian basketball players previously on the Jazz, including current Toronto Raptors centre Kelly Olynyk, as well as another notable hoops figure.

“Charles Barkley texting, saying, ‘Hey, if you need a goalie, I’m available on the cheap,’” Smith said. “I thought that was pretty good.”

Magic: ‘Everything’s on the table’ regarding potential Commanders name change

It’s possible the Washington Commanders will get another major rebrand in the future.

Magic Johnson, who is part of the ownership group led by Josh Harris that officially acquired the Commanders on Thursday, didn’t rule out a name change after the 2023 season.

“I think everything’s on the table, especially after this year,” Johnson said on “The Today Show,” according to Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post. “We’ll see where we are with the name, but I can’t say that right now.

“We’re going to spend this year understanding what we have in place, and then I’m sure that that’ll come up. The Commanders, the name of the team, will come up eventually. But right now, we got enough work to do that will keep us busy.”

Another change would mark the fourth name in recent memory. The NFL franchise retired the controversial Redskins team name – which had been in use since 1933 – after the 2019 campaign due to pressure from sponsors. The team then adopted the Washington Football Team moniker for two seasons before unveiling the Commanders name prior to the 2022 season.

The Washington franchise was sold to Harris and Co. for a reported price of $6.05 billion, making it the most expensive acquisition ever of a U.S. sports franchise. The sale marked the end of a 24-season ownership tenure by Dan Snyder that was filled with multiple scandals over alleged workplace misconduct, sexual harassment, and financial impropriety.

Jay Gruden on WFT: ‘They Should Have Never Changed the Name in the First Place’

On the same day that the Washington Football Team announced its plans to reveal its new team name, one of the franchise’s former coaches decided to weigh in on the issue.

Jay Gruden, who was Washington’s head coach from 2014 to ’19, spoke about the name change while appearing on a Washington D.C.-based radio show, Russell & Medhurst, on The Team 980. Rather than offer his opinion on what the new name should be, he spoke out against the franchise changing the original name in the first place.

“I don’t want to ruffle any feathers,” Gruden said. “But they should’ve never changed the name in the first place.”

Gruden opened his appearance on the show by sarcastically asking the hosts, Chris Russell and Pete Medhurst, “Are you guys just trying to figure out the new name? It’s so exciting.” He then added, “I don’t think anybody really cares other than you guys.”

One of the hosts then replied, “And Jay, believe me, we don’t care either.”

The team did not officially unveil a list of final name options, but those that are still being considered include the Hogs, Brigade, Armada and Defenders.

In five full seasons at the helm, Gruden guided Washington to one playoff appearance and two winning seasons. He was fired five games into the 2019 campaign after an 0–5 start.

Washington Football Team to unveil new name, logo Feb. 2

The Washington Football Team will reveal its new name and logo Feb. 2, the team announced Tuesday.

“We can finally say that we are in the homestretch of our rebrand journey,” team president Jason Wright said. “We know this has been a long process – one with a lot of pieces and details – and we appreciate you sticking with us.”

Wright didn’t give any indication as to what the new name will be but did eliminate both the Wolves and Red Wolves from contention.

“Understanding the weight and importance of our team name, and excitement around other name options – both internally and within our fan base – we didn’t want to risk going down a route that could be dotted with legal hurdles,” Wright added. “The prospect of years of litigation wasn’t something that we wanted you, our fans, to have to bear as you begin to embrace a new brand.”

Washington dropped the Redskins moniker after facing pressure from the public and sponsors who considered the term racist against Native Americans. The franchise had used the name dating back to the 1930s. It’s gone by the Washington Football Team since July 2020.

The NFC East club previously announced it wouldn’t adopt the Warriors as its new nickname because of how closely it relates to Native American themes.

“We are confident that this identity is one that our team and our fans across D.C., Maryland, Virginia and beyond can rally behind for another 90 years and more as we continue to cheer on the Burgundy & Gold in this next chapter,” Wright said.

Cleveland renaming baseball team to Guardians after 2021 season

The Cleveland baseball team’s new name will be the Guardians, the club announced on Friday.

https://twitter.com/Indians/status/1418565355472101378?s=20

“In searching for a new brand, we sought a name that strongly reflects the pride, resiliency, and loyalty of Clevelanders,” owner and CEO Paul Dolan said in a statement.

“Guardians embodies those defining attributes while drawing upon the iconic Guardians of Traffic proudly standing just outside Progressive Field on the Hope Memorial Bridge.”

The franchise will continue to use Indians until the end of the 2021 season and will attempt to launch as the Guardians afterward, according to Dolan.

The name change is accompanied by new logos, which the club made available on their website.

Cleveland made the decision to abandon using Indians as its team name last December.

Edmonton Football Team selects Elks as new name

It’s one of the largest species within the deer family, can stand almost two metres tall at the shoulders and inflict serious damage when challenged.

Now, the elk will be featured in the CFL. The Edmonton franchise announced Tuesday it is changing its team name to Elks.

The move comes 10 months after the club dropped its longtime name, Eskimos. It followed a similar decision by the NFL’s Washington team amid pressure on franchises to eliminate racist or stereotypical names.

The CFL franchise had been called the Edmonton Football Team until Tuesday’s announcement.

“We definitely did the right thing,” Edmonton president/CEO Chris Presson told reporters during a teleconference. “(The name change) was needed, it was probably a few years overdue to be honest.

“But I’m glad that we’re where we are now. No doubt we made the right decision.”

The Eskimos moniker had been tied to sports teams in Edmonton since the 19th century, but critics said the name was derogatory and a colonial-era term for Inuit.

In February 2020, the Edmonton franchise announced it was keeping the Eskimos name after a year-long research period that involved Inuit leaders and community members across Canada. Then on July 8, the club promised to speed up another review of its name, noting “a lot has happened” since the decision in February.

One sponsor, national car-and-home insurance provider Belairdirect, had announced it was rethinking its relationship with the team because of the name. Others added they’d welcome a review.

This all happened as NFL’s Washington team had said it would undergo a thorough review of its nickname. A similar announcement was made by Major League Baseball’s Cleveland team, which is switching its name next year.

Although American Inuit continue to use the word Eskimo, Canada’s northern people left that name behind at about the same time they began negotiating their land claim in the 1970s. Many historians believe the origin of Eskimo comes from an Algonquin term meaning “eaters of raw meat.”

Others believe it actually comes from another Aboriginal term that refers to people wearing snowshoes. The people themselves have used the word Inuit for centuries. It means “the people” in Inuktut.

“Man, it’s been a whirlwind,” Presson said. “We wanted to make sure we got it right, we wanted to make sure we did the proper research and we wanted to make sure we created something that was special, and we have.

“When you look at the history of the Edmonton Football Team and the CFL itself, there’s a lot there to see. To know you are a part of that and you had a chance to make an impact like this, it’s pretty special.

“We plan to continue our northern engagement, we plan to enhance our local engagement. Back to June 2018 we had players and executives that went and spoke with northern leaders, artists, influencers to learn more and really that was a precursor to where we ended up today.”

Last week, a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children was discovered in B.C. on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school. Edmonton paid tribute to the victims with a moment of silence during the video release of the new name.

“What I’ve read about in the last several days is certainly disturbing,” Presson said, his voice wavering. “I still can’t even get my head around it, I really can’t.

“To think about my own family and the fact of having three daughters of my own . . . obviously it’s challenging to talk about.”

Elk was one of seven potential name changes the Edmonton Football Team provided on its shortlist. The others included: Evergreens, Evergolds, Eclipse, Elkhounds, Eagles and Elements.

“I can tell you animals were the clear selection of the 40,000 responses we got,” Presson said. “That being said, Elks continued to rise to the top.

“It was No. 1 with our players, it was No. 1 with our coaches, it was No. 1 with our fans . . . it was really the fans who made the choice. They were clear in their votes what they wanted. It will allow us to develop a nice ecosystem for our business as a whole.”

The adoption of Elks, though, was surprising to some given the plural term of the word is usually Elk, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. But Presson said the club did its homework before adding ‘S’ to the name.

“We checked with the Oxford Dictionary folks, we also checked with a linguistics expert at (the University of Alberta),” he said. “It is proper, especially in a team name.

“We liked how it sounded, frankly it’s more inclusive than the word elk. Elks isn’t you or me, it’s us and I think the inclusion around the plurality of it was a key mechanism for us.”

Presson said while Edmonton’s helmets will bear elk antlers, the club plans to also use its other logos, including the iconic EE.

“We will wear the antlers on the helmet, no doubt about it,” he said. “We freshened up our EE, it’s still within our ecosystems of brands and we still plan to use it.

“How and when we use any and all of the brands is still yet to be determined.”

The name change also comes in time for the resumption of CFL play. The league has tentatively scheduled starting a 14-game 2021 campaign Aug. 5 after not playing in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I feel good about where we are,” Presson said. “I think as we look forward, we’ll be on the field the early part of August, I feel very confident in that.

“I expect a schedule to be released relatively soon and so I think everything seems to be coming together in a positive way.”

Founded in 1949, the Edmonton team has won the Grey Cup 14 times, second only to the Toronto Argonauts at 17. The community-owned club’s impressive history on the field includes a record five consecutive Grey Cups from 1978 to 1982.

Edmonton set a North American pro sports record by qualifying for the playoffs in 34 straight seasons from 1972 to 2005.

Columbus restores ‘Crew’ to club name after fan outcry

The Columbus MLS team restored “Crew” to its name after fans objected to a rebranding that had dropped it.

The team announced the franchise would retain the name after meeting with angry team supporters.

Supporters took to social media to vehemently oppose dropping the name after the franchise announced plans last week to rebrand the club as Columbus SC.

“The importance of keeping the Crew as the Club’s primary identifier was clear,” said a statement from the ownership group, which includes Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam. “The decision that came from the discussion was that Columbus Crew will remain the team’s official name moving forward.”

The rebranded crest also will be changed to include the Crew name.

Washington won’t pick new name until 2022 season

The Washington Football Team will apparently hold only their name for one more season.

Washington teased its decision to not choose the organization’s new name until 2022 by launching a new team-created website, WashingtonJourney.com, on Tuesday.

“We’ve transitioned from our old name,” said the club on the site’s front page. “Now it’s time to write a new legacy. The future of Washington Football arrives in 2022.”

The site includes a timeline that walks fans through the name-change process. The franchise is also asking for fans to get involved, with a place on the site to submit their own ideas for the next team name and logo.

Among the current submissions displayed are the Washington Memorials, Washington Phoenix, and Washington Justice.

In October, Washington team president Jason Wright said the lengthy process that comes with an NFL team rebrand meant it was unlikely to happen in time for the 2021 season.

Wright also speculated in November that the NFC East team could possibly keep the Football Team brand.

“I don’t think anything is off the table,” said Wright.

Washington retired the controversial Redskins name before the 2020 campaign amid pressure from many of its marquee sponsors.

The club is expected to keep its burgundy and gold color scheme regardless of its ultimate decision.

Elk, Eagles, Elements on short list of Edmonton Football Team names

The Edmonton Football Team says it has a short list of seven candidates for its new name.

Elk, Evergreens, Evergolds, Eclipse, Elkhounds, Eagles and Elements are listed as possibilities on an online survey released Monday.

The CFL team dropped the name Eskimos last year. It followed a similar decision by the NFL’s Washington team as pressure mounts on teams to eliminate racist or stereotypical names.Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team has since announced it also is changing its name.

Edmonton’s survey, the second and final phase of the selection process, asks fans to rate the seven candidates from first to worst. The team says the group selecting the name will take the results into account after the survey concludes Sunday.

The team says it had 14,833 submissions with 2,047 unique name entries in the first phase of the selection process.

The team has been known as the Edmonton Football Team or EE Football Team since dumping the old name. The team’s logo continues to feature two Es.

In wake of Indians’ decision, Blackhawks stay with team name

The Chicago Blackhawks are going to remain the Blackhawks and there is no sign of a change coming anytime soon.

Speaking publicly for the first time since baseball’s Cleveland Indians announced Monday they plan to change their name, Blackhawks CEO Danny Wirtz reiterated the same message the team shared this summer after lingering questions about Native American team names returned to the forefront.

“Obviously respect the decision the Cleveland Indians made to go down that path, but we continue to deepen our commitment to upholding our namesake and our brand,” Wirtz said Thursday.

In July, after Washington’s NFL team announced it was reviewing its name, the Blackhawks said they planned to continue with their name because it honors Black Hawk, a Native American leader from Illinois’ Sac & Fox Nation. Washington ended up dropping the “Redskins” name, logo and all Native American imagery. The Indians announced their decision this week, while the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and baseball’s Atlanta Braves have said they have no plans to change their name.

The Blackhawks also said this summer they are committed “to raising the bar even higher” when it comes to expanding awareness of Black Hawk and all Native American people — and Wirtz, the son of Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, made it sound as if that effort had only reinforced what the franchise felt about its name. The team announced later in July that they were banning headdresses at home games as part of their pledge to honor the Native American community.

“The work we’ve been doing over the last several months in expanding and deepening conversations and partnerships within the native community, we continue to feel really positive about the types of work we can do,” Danny Wirtz said, “the way in which we can be better stewards of the namesake and the history, and to use our platforms to be educators, not only for our fans, but for our internal teams and making sure that we provide that reverence and respect that we talk about.”

Danny Wirtz, 43, made his remarks a day after the Blackhawks shuffled their front office. Wirtz was named chief executive officer after serving as interim president following the firing of John McDonough in April. General manager Stan Bowman was elevated to president of hockey operations, and Jaime Faulkner was hired as president of business operations.

Faulkner was the CEO of E15, a consulting strategy and analytics company that she helped create in 2013. At E15, she worked with more than 200 clients, including some pro sports teams, to develop systems predicting fan behavior. Her husband, Colin, is the executive vice president of sales and marketing for the Chicago Cubs.

Faulkner joins a small but growing number of female executives with major sports teams. While discussing her excitement about her new role, she paid tribute to Valerie Camillo of the Philadelphia Flyers and Gillian Zucker of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, two women serving as the president of business operations with their franchises.

“I have an 18-year-old daughter who is a freshman at college who has always wanted to follow in her dad’s footsteps, who is also in sports,” Faulkner said. “And for me to be able to look at her and say, hey, you don’t have to just aspire to be head of marketing or head of social media, which are really great jobs, but to be able to look at her and say you can run a team one day is pretty powerful.”