VLR was asked to contribute to an article in the Philadelphia Enquirer about how the city should go about choosing a mascot for their new soccer team. The full article can be read here. Our contribution follows:
Naming a sports franchise is a lot like choosing a tattoo or wallpaper: you’re always worried what it will look like in 50 years. Consequently, most teams go for the safest bet- some animal that’s known for commonly attacking humans, e.g. The Detroit Lions or LSU Tigers. Its like choosing “Fred” for your son’s name- sure, its some what boring, but he never needs to worry about his name being made fun of on the playground.
When choosing an animal mascot, however, you must avoid the two common mistakes of being too vague (Nashville Predators) or too specific (TCU Horned Lizard). On any given week, Nashville could send everything from a bird, to bear, to virus out on to the field. On the opposite end, there is nothing worse than hearing an egg-head sports fan defend an overly-technical mascot with explanations like, “actually, wasps kill more humans in a year than bears”.
Having fans choose the nickname is always fun for the city but often leads to excessively local mascots, like The Baltimore Ravens. For example, this new team might as well be called The Italian Stallions since it will never take the field without “Rocky” music being played. The problem with local nicknames, however, is they simply baffle people once the team moves (e.g. The LA Lakers or Utah Jazz). Additionally, the public tends to favor nicknames that are a little *too intimidating*, like The Hurricanes or the Bullets. As a general rule, you never want to go past the ‘beast of prey’ or ‘pirate’ section on the scale of intimidating mascots. Anything involving Mother Nature (The Landslides) is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
by The VLR
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