CLEVELAND, Ohio – When it comes to the Cleveland Indians and their search for a new name, the lid is on tight with an elephant sitting on top. Lips are sealed with Super Glue.
No one wants to say a word.
That includes some executives from other pro sports teams when I contacted them about the Tribe’s search for a new name. None wanted to be quoted.
Nonetheless, I’ve heard the team is “making progress” toward a new name. The goal is to have it done in plenty of time for the 2022 season.
But as executives from other teams told me, the process is difficult – especially for a team that has been called the Cleveland Indians for 106 years.
It’s believed this pro sports name change is the only one after a franchise has had the same nickname in the same city for more than a century. As I was told, this makes it even harder for the team because the name has so much history and emotional attachment for the fans.
And even if some fans favor the name change because “Indians” is considered a racist and derogatory term, those same people may not embrace the new name.
Furthermore, the trademark issues are huge. Liking a name isn’t enough; getting permission and cutting a deal to use the name can be a complicated task.
As a Tribe official told me months ago, “We can’t do this again in five years. We have to get right. We want a name that can last 100 years like the last one.”
A big point: It’s much easier to say, “We’ll change the name” of a legacy franchise than it is to find a new one that is acceptable to the majority of customers.
CHANGING A LOGO
In 2017, the Cavaliers introduced two new logos...both with a shield. Their main logo is the red stylized C, which has been around since 2003. But the black shield has popped up a lot lately.
I was told it took the Cavs 18 months to come up with the two logos, making sure they had the trademarks and color schemes all set and legal, along with it being appealing to the fans.
I repeat, 18 months for a new logo.
The Cavaliers were in no rush. The Cavaliers nickname stayed same. The team had other logos. Perhaps they could have completed it faster. Nonetheless, any change of names, logos, uniforms etc. on the major league level is complicated and drags on and on.
You also need to know your market. When the Haslam family bought the Browns, they saw a helmet with no logo. There had to be a temptation to change that. But over and over, they were told. “Don’t touch the helmet.”
They wisely listened.
Illustration by Ted Crow for Crowquill. Shows Indians owner Paul Dolan staking out the middle ground for renaming Cleveland's MLB team with the NFL's Washington Football Team at one end and the NHL's Seattle Kraken at the other.
LET’S GET KRAKEN?
It took the National Hockey League expansion franchise in Seattle 19 months to settle on this nickname – Kraken.
Nineteen months for a Kraken? What is a Kraken? It a twisted mythical beast that sometimes also is like an anchor.
I’ll let you decide how that sounds. But the point is it took 19 months to pick a name along with a new logo, color scheme and mascots.
The Kraken had an advantage of being a brand new franchise. Seattle hockey fans were happy to have a team.
“The reality is, the process to find the right name for a sports team is grueling, onerous and tedious, and it comes with career peril,” wrote John Rizzardini on Fivethirtyeight. Rizzardini worked on the Kraken’s name selection.
The Cavs added this logo in 2017.
HARDER IN CLEVELAND
The Seattle hockey fans weren’t attached to an old nickname, logo or color scheme as is the case in Cleveland with the Indians.
Remember the outcry from some fans when the Tribe dropped Chief Wahoo on Jan. 3, 2019? At that point, Tribe owner Paul Dolan told me there were no plans to change the Indians nickname.
On July 3, 2020, the Indians issued a tweet saying they were considering a name change. They insisted no final decision had been made.
It had been made...they would no longer be the Indians.
You don’t issue a tweet saying you’re thinking about changing the name and then come back and tweet months later, “Oh, never mind!”
The nickname had become politically radioactive. After the killing of George Floyd and the social unrest, the team knew the nickname had to go the way of Chief Wahoo. The franchise was tired of fighting the culture wars.
There also were top people in the organization such as team president Chris Antonetti who believed for years changing the nickname “was the right thing to do.” Many of the players agree.
On Dec. 14, 2020, the Tribe made it official. No more Cleveland Indians.
My sense is the franchise didn’t become serious about looking for a new name until early in the summer of 2020. So this has been an intense process for only about a year.
Fedex Field screen displays the Washington Football Team logo during pregame warmups.AP
WASHINGTON STILL SHOPPING
Like the Tribe, the Washington Football Team (the old NFL Redskins) is searching for a new name...maybe.
There is some support for keeping the Washington Football Team (WFT) with that safe and generic name.
Cleveland will not become the Cleveland Baseball Team. Nor will it be the Tribe, too close to the Indians name. Anything close to a Native American reference is out.
Washington has received more than 1,000 new name suggestions from fans, as has the Tribe.
“We will still need to go through the months-long work of legal wrangling, trademarking, merchandising feasibility and dozens of other uninteresting but really important steps that go into the launch of a new name,” said WFT President Jason Wright in the Washington Post.
The same is happening in Cleveland.
The Canton Charge use the same basic colors as the Cleveland Cavaliers.
HOW THE CAVS ORGANIZATION DID IT
Dan Gilbert’s Cavaliers and Rock Entertainment also own the Cleveland Monsters minor league hockey team and the Canton Charge G-League basketball team.
The Charge will be playing in Cleveland at the Wolstein Center for the 2021-22 season.
In both cases, the franchises moved to Northeast Ohio from other cities. That made them almost like expansion teams as the Cavs were able to create a new brand without worrying about a fan base with a connection to the old names.
Yet the two teams still needed between six and nine months to find a nickname and line up all the business necessities.
The Charge and Monsters were not trademarked by anyone, so that made it easier for the Cavs to get this done. Furthermore, the Charge are the Cavs’ minor league team and they have the same basic color scheme as the NBA team in Cleveland.
The Class AA Akron RubberDucks changed their name, logo and colors in 2014. Akron RubberDucks open season at
HOW ABOUT RUBBERDUCKS?
The area team that made a name change is the Akron RubberDucks.
Ken Babby bought the franchise in 2012. It was known as the Akron Aeros, a name that wasn’t extremely popular in Akron. In 2014, he went with the RubberDucks, the name being all one word.
The name wasn’t trademarked, so that made it easier. Babby declined to comment for this story.
He also owns the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. They were the Jacksonville Suns when he purchases them. Switching nicknames in the minors is somewhat common. Finding odd or funny names is a new tradition.
But the RubberDucks were careful to keep the same basic color scheme as the old Aeros. They added a duck mascot, but also retained the old Orbit mascot because some fans like it.
There was one minor trademark issue. A small business made rubber ducks. The rubber ducks the team sells and sometimes gives away – they are bought from that business.
The Akron RubberDucks brought in new ducks mascots, but also kept the old Orbit mascot from the Akron Aeros.The Plain Dealer
Orbit went back to the Akron Aeros days. The mascot made the cut when the team became the RubberDucks. (Ann Norman/cleveland.com)
NAMES, MASCOTS, COLORS
Meanwhile, the Indians are a franchise with that name in the American League since 1915. It’s an internationally known baseball brand, and the new name will have to be trademarked globally. Simply grabbing a nickname used elsewhere could be outrageously expensive.
That’s why it’s doubtful they’ll become the Cleveland Buckeyes, because Ohio State has that name. Even the Spiders could be tricky, because that’s the nickname of the University of Richmond. There could be trademark issues, even though back in the 1890s the Cleveland baseball team was the Spiders.
My guess is the team is looking for something not close to offensive. Fans have suggested colors: The Blues, The Grays, etc. Or for former players: The Rockers (music, Rocky Colavito), The Fellers (Bob Feller), the Cyclones (Cy Young) and the Dobys (Larry Doby).
I keep hearing The Guardians, The Freighters, The Sailors and The Captains. But the Captains are the Class A Lake County Tribe farm team.
I have no clue what they are considering.
It’s not just the name.
It’s the logo. It’s the mascot: Even if they keep Slider they’ll probably add something else. It’s the color scheme. It would be unwise for them to move away from the red, white and blue scheme the team has had for decades.
As one executive from another pro sport told me, “It’s having to look at changing everything, and that’s really tough for a team in Cleveland’s position. Lots of people are attached to different aspects of the old name.”
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