A lot of it is what is more marketable. In some states, if you name a team for just a city you're alienating part of the state. Tennessee is a great example: Someone from Memphis might not feel the same about the "Nashville Titans" the same way they do the "Tennessee Titans".
Other states, the city is too big to fail, for lack of a better term: Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas are far more marketable than Georgia, Illinois, Nevada
One the funniest comments ever was in BASEketball. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where they don’t have lakes. The New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah, where they don’t allow music.
when I was a kid and learning about music, I always thought jazz was regional, because I heard of New Orleans jazz, but also Chicago, and KC, and Philly, and Memphis, and NYC, and I always thought MAN THE JAZZ MUSIC IN UTAH MUST BE PHENOMENAL IN UTAH, they named their whole basketball team after it!
The world works in mysterious ways…
You might be surprised, [The Cougarettes, BYU’s Hip Hop and Jazz Dance teams, just won their 25th and 26th D1 Dance National Championships. Members of this team are considered to be elite dancers and some of the best Hip Hop dancers in the US](https://byucougars.com/news/2024/04/15/cougarettes-win-25th-and-26th-national-championships)
[I cannot confirm this personally, but SLC apparently has a decent jazz scene weirdly enough](https://downtownslc.org/blog/item/1641-the-other-utah-jazz)
[The Cougarettes have now won eight NDA Open Division/Jazz IA championships (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), 10 NDA Hip Hop Division IA championships (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) and eight NDA Team Performance Division IA championships (1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010). They were also United Spirit Association National Champions in 2005 and 2006. The Cougarettes won gold in both the jazz and hip-hop division at the ICU World‘s competition in 2021.](https://byucougars.com/news/2024/04/15/cougarettes-win-25th-and-26th-national-championships)
I can kind of see it happening in the way SLC had a punk scene back in the 80s (and a whole movie about it), where a repressive religious environment breeds radicalism. Plus there is a lot of liberal environmentalist/outdoorsy types who flock to Salt Lake City because it's right in the middle of like 4 major National Parks.
i saw someone say something to the effect of the Utah Jazz is clearly the most American team as it combines basketball, jazz and mormonism, and I think about that a lot.
The Titans are Nashville's team. When talk of the Oilers moving to Nashville began, it was sold to the state legislature as Tennessee's team to get support for state funding of the stadium.
Also some states like PA have two teams and a great deal of the residence sort of residence toward the sides of the state where the cities are so it make sense to be Philly and Pittsburgh.
I have to imagine there's also some amount of crossover with college names. Back in the day, it was the college teams that people cared about, not the NFL, and trying to associate yourself too much with the colleges would be pushing too close to what used to be the big dogs of football. Also, with Universities having names like the University of Illinois or the University of Georgia, it's easier to have your team stand out when it's the city name in certain cases and not the state name.
Given its marketing I imagine a lot of it is basically what sounds good as well. Tennessee Titans is wonderfully alliterative, Nashville titans just doesn’t flow as easily by comparison. Minneapolis vikings just doesn’t fit as nicely as well
Exactly, a big part of it is how many large cities of comparable size there are in the state. In Georgia for example Atlanta is by far the biggest city and everyone in Georgia is like yah that’s our capital that represents us, even if they don’t love everything about Atlanta. Nobody would expect a football team to be in any other city
There was a bunch of controversy when the oilers moved to TN. Here’s a good summary https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/columnists/geoff-calkins/2017/08/29/twenty-years-ago-memphis-told-nfl-and-oilers-now-titans-stick/610647001/
It’s a naming thing. The Panthers are named after both states because the founder/first owner wanted something to bring the 2 states together, plus if they moved to the SC side they would still be the Carolina Panthers. He had ties to both states (went to Wofford in SC, had the team play at Clemson while BOA was being built). Charlotte is the biggest market in both so they play there.
WTF.. I've lived in NC for like 20 years and this is the first I have ever heard of it or noticed.. just showed it to my bro in law (diehard Panthers fan) and he had no clue either.. lmfao
Kansas City Chiefs sounds better than Missouri Chiefs. It’s probably just because it sounds better that way.
And I just realized how unique the New England Patriots are because its the only team thats not state or city
I think it’s also about trying to reach more people. Just to continue on the Chiefs example, if you name the team Missouri Chiefs, then a lot of people in Kansas probably wouldn’t give a shit. Also in 1963 when the Dallas Texans moved to KC and became the Chiefs, the Cardinals were in STL so you’d alienate a lot of Cardinals fans in Missouri
It was when they moved out of Boston and to Foxboro. Can't call yourself the Boston X when you're don't play in Boston.
*Glares at Meadowlands*
Edit: yes I am aware the majority of teams no longer play in within the city limits of their name sake. That's part of my joke
This is exactly the reason. When Bob Kraft's first stadium plan fell through (it was going to be in the Boston Seaport district), he went with a plan to move the team to Hartford, CT and he would've kept New England in the name since Connecticut is part of NE. The NFL hated this idea because even though the name would stay the same, they saw it as a move out of the US's 6th largest media market to something like the 30th largest. Ultimately they built the new stadium right next to the old one on land that Kraft already owned (aside from a corner of a trailer park that had to be relocated).
Buffalo plays in Orchard Park, Green Bay plays in Ashwaubenon, Miami plays in Miami Gardens, Washington plays in Landover, Los Angeles plays in Inglewood, Las Vegas plays in Paradise
Any more we're missing?
Lambeau is bordered on three sides by the village of Ashwaubenon, but the stadium itself is fully in Green Bay. The nearby outdoor practice fields (Clarke Hinkle Field and Ray Nitschke Field) and Don Hutson Center are in Ashwaubenon.
So it's accurate to say the Packers practice in Ashwaubenon, but they play in Green Bay.
Interesting, thank you for educating me. I see the stadium carve out now looking for it on Maps
I wasn't knocking, I know political city boundaries can be weird and teams have good reasons for playing where they do. I just rattled off the teams I thought played outside their named city limits and was wrong on that one
They played in 4 different stadiums in their first ten years. When they couldn’t get a publicly funded stadium built in the city of Boston, they moved out to Foxboro. As a way to stick it to the politicians, the owner Billy Sullivan changed their name to the Bay State Patriots. But the joke was on him, because then they became the BS Patriots. The League did not like that, so about a month later, they changed it to New England
I do but two of its biggest metro areas border other states, so I think it’s an example of trying to reach a broader region than just a state centered around a single Metro area as if they were called the Nashville Titans.
Tampa Bay is the colloquial name of the Tampa-St. Pete-Bradenton area that surrounds the body of water known as… Tampa Bay.
Similar to Oakland (RIP major sports), San Jose, and San Francisco surrounding San Francisco Bay, only their teams (save the Warriors) are known by their city names.
Sometimes it can be tied to stadium financing too.
I know it’s baseball, but when the Marlins and Rockies both came into the league the Rockies wanted a new stadium, and Joe Robbie needed some extensive renovations in Miami.
So I think the deal there was if you use the state name, you get state financing to help with those stadium issues too.
There was a wonderful documentary about the attempt by Miami to draw a team away from their home instead of an expansion team.
Called “Major League,” Cleveland almost moved to Miami!
Charlie Sheen said that he was using steroids and I try to make the pitching seem more realistic.
Allegedly his fastball went from mid 70s to mid 80s with it, but they also moved the mound closer to make it seem faster.
The big bad Yankees closer was actually an MLB catcher who was hired to be the consultant, and you can definitely tell he wasn’t a natural pitcher with his delivery.
And Willie Mays Hayes, portrayed by Wesley Snipes… notice how every time he runs it’s in slow motion?
That’s because Snipes is actually really slow, so they had to make him seem faster, and slow motion does the trick.
But… Blade!
Ryan Reynolds really didn’t like working with him on the movie… I don’t think Jessica Biel did either, but that movie helped make Deadpool, so it was worth it
All the Minnesota sports teams are named Minnesota XXX because of the Twin Cities: you don't want to slight the other Twin by having the St. Paul Wild or the Minneapolis Vikings. Originally when we got pro sports in the 1960s, all three teams (Twins, Vikings, North Stars) were in Bloomington, a big suburb south of Minneapolis.
I suspect the Colorado teams are similar because they want to represent the whole state and not just Denver, because the Front Range includes Boulder, Fort Collins, Colo. Springs, etc.
Broncos and Nuggets are both Denver team, Rockies, Avs, and Rapids are Colorado, so ours is a mixed bag.
The Rapids also don’t technically play in Denver, but that doesn’t really stop sports teams (hell, the Giants and Jets play in a different state altogether)
The soccer complex is bordering the city limits on two sides on the edge of Commerce City. It's not as egregious at a stadium in a far flung suburb nowhere near the city it's named for
Some states have multiple regions, so a team can better represent a wider fan base and multiple metro areas, especially if there isn’t another team nearby.
These are all good answers, but I also wonder about the timing of when each team was founded. Things like stadium funding and fanbases really weren't part of the calculus until recently.
Every team was named after a city until 1960, when the Patriots were founded. Then Minnesota in 1961, and Tampa Bay in 1976. The Cardinals were named after a city three times before becoming Arizona in the 90s. Around the same time Carolina and Tennessee came onboard (or moved).
It's marketing. New York Jets sounds better than the New Jersey Jets. Los Angeles Chargers sounds better than the Inglewood Chargers (Inglewood is a city in its own right within Greater Los Angeles, just like the New England Patriots covers a larger area than just Boston). As someone else mentioned, Kansas City Chiefs sounds better than Missouri Chiefs.
As a jets fan from New Jersey, I’ve been arguing this for a decade, the Jersey Jets would be way better and it gives us our own sports team. Why do we only have hockey? They took the nets from us too, it’s payback
Missouri had the Cardinals (and later Rams) so it wouldn’t even make sense to name the Chiefs after the state
Minnesota, New England, and Arizona didn’t have any other NFL teams
You would also then have the Inglewood Rams and soon to be the Inglewood Clippers. Weird how the Ducks are Anaheim but the Angels are Los Angeles despite playing in Anaheim which is like 30 miles away from LA. Soon enough out of the 10 professional sports teams the only ones in LA will be the Dodgers Lakers Kings and LAFC. That's less than half.
When Denver adopted its new logo in the late 90's, some fuss was made about the decision to phase Denver out of the logo, as locals interpreted it as a threat to relocate the team if taxpayers didn't agree to foot the bill for the new Mile Hi.
History, marketability, the risk of geographical alienation/geographically related internal conflict, politics, and most importantly financing. The Oakland Raiders became a thing because the AFL needed a West Coast team to appease the Chargers (politics). Obviously couldn't be called the California Raiders because the Los Angeles Chargers were already a part of the AFL. They moved to LA in '82 because Oakland was unwilling to finance stadium upgrades while LA was, having been abandoned by both the Chargers in the 60's and then the Rams in the 80's (financing + politics). They moved back to Oakland, and then faced the same issues again (needing a new stadium, no local financing, etc.) after which they chose to move to Las Vegas because LA was occupied by both the Chargers and Rams (again) and the league was quite happy with creating some distance between the 49ers and Raiders, while also capitalizing on the huge market that is Las Vegas.
Kind of a tangential rant, but oh well. The Chiefs are the Kansas City Chiefs and not the Kansas Chiefs or Missouri Chiefs because of the unique opportunity to capitalize on two state-markets (an especially enticing proposition after they basically got pushed out of Dallas). In general, team names are a direct reflection of market-size and stadium financing, although there are obviously more exceptions to that "rule" than you can count on one hand.
Yeah, I know. it was too ridiculous. I remember them as the California Angels, then Anaheim Angels, then now. I didn't know they were the LAA. I think they might have played at the LA Colisseum first, but not sure.
Teams can choose, so a lot will pick the entire state to try to appeal to more fans. It really makes no difference outside of marketing.
I’m old enough to remember when the Arizona Cardinals were the Phoenix Cardinals and made the change for that exact reason.
The Bills have the craziest naming convention in the NFL and it doesn't make any sense. They are the only team to actually play and be based in NY state, but are located on the Canadian border. They are named after the city and a person, but their logo is of a different animal (bison) than a buffalo. The person they are named after (Buffalo Bill), is pluralized, so the "Bills" are the players and staff. There have been times where there was quite a few Williams on the team (like fan favorite Kyle Williams), who in that case literally are Buffalo Bills (Players named William/Williams who play on a team from Buffalo). There is also two of them, the original wild west Buffalo Bill Cody and then the 1930's/40's Buffalo Bill (Wilcox) that not only started the CIA, he was actually from Buffalo (the original Wild Bill local connections are closer to nearby Rochester, NY). The City of Buffalo probably isn't even actually named after either animals, buffalo or bison, but probably was a corruption of a french term for beautiful river (referring to the Niagara/Buffalo rivers). The Erie Canal made Buffalo a hot spot for fur trading, all the bison hides passing through, it kind fit with the corruption of the French terms, as like a slang name for the area and it just stuck. Beau Fava became Buffalo after all the different ethnic fur traders got hammered and couldn't pronounce it right. Buffalo is also a verb term, that means to bully, so that also fit with becoming a football team name.
Also, the Buffalo Bills actually don't play in Buffalo either. They are about 20 minutes away from the city in Orchard Park, NY. None of it really matters and that's what makes it great.
Extra fun fact: Buffalo's fan base is called Bills Mafia, the city is famous for it's chicken wings and pizza (Buffalo wings, which also have nothing to do with the animal and everything to do with people screwing up the city name again, because the word Buffalo is also a flavor, a hot spicy flavor named after a city famous for blizzards), the official pizza sponsor of the Buffalo Bills is an (allegedly) notorious mafia boss from Canada.
I’m just going off the top of my head, so forgive me if I forget some here.
The ones named after a single state, for the most part, are trying to draw fans from multiple metro areas so don’t want to alienate ppl in the second closest city: Minnesota, Arizona, Tennessee
Ones trying to draw variety of fans from a vague region of multiple states: Carolina, New England
Then there are states that have multiple cities with teams that then can’t be named after the state: Miami/Jacksonville/Tampa Bay, Dallas/Houston, LAC/LAR/SF, NYG/NYJ/Buffalo, Philly/Pittsburgh, Cincy/Cleveland
States with one big city that is more famous or culturally relevant than the state themselves: Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore
City that lies on the border of multiple states: Kansas City, Washington DC
City that is similarly famous to its state: Indianapolis, Denver
Team that would 100% be named after its state if it were named in 2024 (but it’s fun to have such a weird exception): Green Bay
Before ppl get mad at me, I’m aware the NY teams play in NJ and Washington plays in MD. Those are still NY and Washington’s teams.
To pile on, they were phx cardinals playing in Tempe. They play in Glendale now. They are AZ Cardinals for marketing because most who live here still root for their team prior to moving to AZ.
Denver has the colorado fanbase so can remain Denver, Green Bay is Wisconsin so will always be Green Bay. A couple teams (Arizona and Tennessee) want to pretend that the majority of their state isn't Cowboys fans.
LA hates the Chargers, but they remain LA so midwestern fanbases know where to fly to.
New England, Carolina are fine.
Minnesota rolls off the tongue better than Minneapolis.
Calling the Dolphins a "Miami" team could have been viewed as alienating to everyone in Broward county (where Ft. Lauderdale is) and Palm Beach county, since combined they are bigger than Miami-Dade. But it's not a problem.
I’m a Panthers fan and I think the reasoning for the name being “Carolina” instead of “Charlotte” is it captures two entire states instead of just one comparatively small market city. Even though it encompasses two states, we’re still a smaller market franchise.
We’re also a newer team compared to most so it was important to incorporate as much region as possible to build a fanbase from the jump. The Charlotte Panthers might have alienated South Carolina residents who would’ve otherwise started pulling for the team.
New York has 1 team but named two teams after the state, even though they are New Jersey teams. Panthers are located in North Carolina, but are named after both North and South Carolina. Some states have/had multiple cities with teams. MO had Cardinals/Rams while KC has Chiefs. Other states are Ohio, California, Texas, Florida.
Let's be clear. The teams don't belong to the city or the state. They are privately owned. The city typically pays for the stadium, because why should a billionaire have to pay for his own stadium when there are millions of poor taxpayers that can buy it for them? But the owner isn't obligated to keep his team there if another city offers to build a better stadium.
A lot of it is what is more marketable. In some states, if you name a team for just a city you're alienating part of the state. Tennessee is a great example: Someone from Memphis might not feel the same about the "Nashville Titans" the same way they do the "Tennessee Titans". Other states, the city is too big to fail, for lack of a better term: Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas are far more marketable than Georgia, Illinois, Nevada
It’s always funny to me that across every sport, teams from Minneapolis are just “Minnesota” since St. Paul is gonna be like half their fans
Learned there lesson after the Minneapolis lakers
Not to mention the New Orleans Jazz (currently the Utah Jazz; they were founded in New Orleans in 1974, and left in 1977).
One the funniest comments ever was in BASEketball. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where they don’t have lakes. The New Orleans Jazz moved to Utah, where they don’t allow music.
when I was a kid and learning about music, I always thought jazz was regional, because I heard of New Orleans jazz, but also Chicago, and KC, and Philly, and Memphis, and NYC, and I always thought MAN THE JAZZ MUSIC IN UTAH MUST BE PHENOMENAL IN UTAH, they named their whole basketball team after it!
Utah got to have bottom 10 Jazz scene in the us
The world works in mysterious ways… You might be surprised, [The Cougarettes, BYU’s Hip Hop and Jazz Dance teams, just won their 25th and 26th D1 Dance National Championships. Members of this team are considered to be elite dancers and some of the best Hip Hop dancers in the US](https://byucougars.com/news/2024/04/15/cougarettes-win-25th-and-26th-national-championships) [I cannot confirm this personally, but SLC apparently has a decent jazz scene weirdly enough](https://downtownslc.org/blog/item/1641-the-other-utah-jazz) [The Cougarettes have now won eight NDA Open Division/Jazz IA championships (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), 10 NDA Hip Hop Division IA championships (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) and eight NDA Team Performance Division IA championships (1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010). They were also United Spirit Association National Champions in 2005 and 2006. The Cougarettes won gold in both the jazz and hip-hop division at the ICU World‘s competition in 2021.](https://byucougars.com/news/2024/04/15/cougarettes-win-25th-and-26th-national-championships)
I can kind of see it happening in the way SLC had a punk scene back in the 80s (and a whole movie about it), where a repressive religious environment breeds radicalism. Plus there is a lot of liberal environmentalist/outdoorsy types who flock to Salt Lake City because it's right in the middle of like 4 major National Parks.
Salt Lake is right in the middle of 4 national parks?! Lol good one. It’s about 3.5 hours from the closest national park.
Nobody knows about this other than perverts
That, or if you were born and raised in or near an LDS community….
i saw someone say something to the effect of the Utah Jazz is clearly the most American team as it combines basketball, jazz and mormonism, and I think about that a lot.
“The raiders moved from Oakland to Los Angeles then back to Oakland, though no one in Los Angeles seemed to notice”
And Memphis Grizzlies where there is 0 grizzly bear.
Love that movie & reference!
BASEketball and Orgazmo were both great movies and very underrated.
Totally agree! Shame most people never heard of or seen them!
Salt Lake City Jazz would be a mouthful. There's no pro teams named after three work cities that I can think of
Yes (this is definitely not intended it only just revise could be intuprrtred that way )
They left so soon its even more mind boggling that they kept the moniker Jazz
Huh? But the current NBA team there is also called New Orleans, and in the NFL it’s also called New Orleans.
Except they didn't learn their lesson, because they went with the city name again with the New Orleans Pelicans.
I dunno most games are after St Paulites’ bedtimes
Huh?
The Titans are Nashville's team. When talk of the Oilers moving to Nashville began, it was sold to the state legislature as Tennessee's team to get support for state funding of the stadium.
They did play in Memphis for a year though.
Yes, and they had no support.
Also some states like PA have two teams and a great deal of the residence sort of residence toward the sides of the state where the cities are so it make sense to be Philly and Pittsburgh.
I have to imagine there's also some amount of crossover with college names. Back in the day, it was the college teams that people cared about, not the NFL, and trying to associate yourself too much with the colleges would be pushing too close to what used to be the big dogs of football. Also, with Universities having names like the University of Illinois or the University of Georgia, it's easier to have your team stand out when it's the city name in certain cases and not the state name.
Given its marketing I imagine a lot of it is basically what sounds good as well. Tennessee Titans is wonderfully alliterative, Nashville titans just doesn’t flow as easily by comparison. Minneapolis vikings just doesn’t fit as nicely as well
They were branded as “Tennessee” before they became the Titans. They spent two seasons as the “Tennessee Oilers.”
Fr imagine if it was the Secaucus giants and jets?
...you have my attention
Exactly, a big part of it is how many large cities of comparable size there are in the state. In Georgia for example Atlanta is by far the biggest city and everyone in Georgia is like yah that’s our capital that represents us, even if they don’t love everything about Atlanta. Nobody would expect a football team to be in any other city
There was a bunch of controversy when the oilers moved to TN. Here’s a good summary https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/columnists/geoff-calkins/2017/08/29/twenty-years-ago-memphis-told-nfl-and-oilers-now-titans-stick/610647001/
It’s a naming thing. The Panthers are named after both states because the founder/first owner wanted something to bring the 2 states together, plus if they moved to the SC side they would still be the Carolina Panthers. He had ties to both states (went to Wofford in SC, had the team play at Clemson while BOA was being built). Charlotte is the biggest market in both so they play there.
The original plan was the have the stadium built on the state line, but they realized the SC side would be crumbling within a few years.
They might be the only team with the state border in the logo which is cool
i’m actually so shocked my head is hurting. i’ve never realized that!!
Can you explain? Not seeing it.
The outline of the panther is the same shape as the outline of NC+SC
WTF.. I've lived in NC for like 20 years and this is the first I have ever heard of it or noticed.. just showed it to my bro in law (diehard Panthers fan) and he had no clue either.. lmfao
I guess it’s easy to miss, just a weird outline but that is a good trivia question lol
It's easy to miss because it's only vaguely reminiscent of the border.
This is actually mind blowing
They would have had to make all the paths to the stadium on the north side cause lord knows South Carolina roads can’t handle millions of people
Kansas City Chiefs sounds better than Missouri Chiefs. It’s probably just because it sounds better that way. And I just realized how unique the New England Patriots are because its the only team thats not state or city
I think it’s also about trying to reach more people. Just to continue on the Chiefs example, if you name the team Missouri Chiefs, then a lot of people in Kansas probably wouldn’t give a shit. Also in 1963 when the Dallas Texans moved to KC and became the Chiefs, the Cardinals were in STL so you’d alienate a lot of Cardinals fans in Missouri
Sir, New England is the 52nd state
What’s the 53rd?
Despair
I thought that was Missouri.
I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah.
It’s almost like Golden State Warriors. There isn’t a place called golden state but California is known as the golden state (I think I’m not American)
Yes every state has an official state nickname which is Golden State for California.
Carolina Panthers technically fall under the same category as the Patriots.
Yeah like if you had a team that represented Dakota
Not the only team. Tampa bay is also a region
New England is a whole corner of the country… not a piece of Florida
I would count Golden State as the other since it’s not the actual name of the state
Region: an area or division, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries
I believe they played as the Boston Patriots for the first couple years then switched to “New England” to draw more fans
It was when they moved out of Boston and to Foxboro. Can't call yourself the Boston X when you're don't play in Boston. *Glares at Meadowlands* Edit: yes I am aware the majority of teams no longer play in within the city limits of their name sake. That's part of my joke
This is exactly the reason. When Bob Kraft's first stadium plan fell through (it was going to be in the Boston Seaport district), he went with a plan to move the team to Hartford, CT and he would've kept New England in the name since Connecticut is part of NE. The NFL hated this idea because even though the name would stay the same, they saw it as a move out of the US's 6th largest media market to something like the 30th largest. Ultimately they built the new stadium right next to the old one on land that Kraft already owned (aside from a corner of a trailer park that had to be relocated).
Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington
SF 49ers play in Santa Clara
Buffalo plays in Orchard Park, Green Bay plays in Ashwaubenon, Miami plays in Miami Gardens, Washington plays in Landover, Los Angeles plays in Inglewood, Las Vegas plays in Paradise Any more we're missing?
Lambeau is bordered on three sides by the village of Ashwaubenon, but the stadium itself is fully in Green Bay. The nearby outdoor practice fields (Clarke Hinkle Field and Ray Nitschke Field) and Don Hutson Center are in Ashwaubenon. So it's accurate to say the Packers practice in Ashwaubenon, but they play in Green Bay.
Interesting, thank you for educating me. I see the stadium carve out now looking for it on Maps I wasn't knocking, I know political city boundaries can be weird and teams have good reasons for playing where they do. I just rattled off the teams I thought played outside their named city limits and was wrong on that one
Detroit Lions used to play in Pontiac at the Old Silverdome before moving to Ford Field.
They played in 4 different stadiums in their first ten years. When they couldn’t get a publicly funded stadium built in the city of Boston, they moved out to Foxboro. As a way to stick it to the politicians, the owner Billy Sullivan changed their name to the Bay State Patriots. But the joke was on him, because then they became the BS Patriots. The League did not like that, so about a month later, they changed it to New England
Tampa Bay Buccaneers are named after a body of water
It only sounds better because that's what you are used to hearing. If it had been another name since the beginning, you'd be fine with it.
Tampa, Carolina, Tennessee.
What do you think Tennessee is?
A state with multiple metro regions?
…do you not think Tennessee is a state?
I do but two of its biggest metro areas border other states, so I think it’s an example of trying to reach a broader region than just a state centered around a single Metro area as if they were called the Nashville Titans.
2? Does Tennessee even have metro areas besides Memphis and Nashville? I don’t think they have another city over 200k.
Chattanooga borders Georgia.
And like I said, under 200k pop
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or you don’t want fans there.
*Tampa Bay
Yeah.
Tampa is a city. Depends on how pedantic we want to get. Tennessee is a state.
Tampa Bay is the colloquial name of the Tampa-St. Pete-Bradenton area that surrounds the body of water known as… Tampa Bay. Similar to Oakland (RIP major sports), San Jose, and San Francisco surrounding San Francisco Bay, only their teams (save the Warriors) are known by their city names.
Carolina is 2 states not a state
Sometimes it can be tied to stadium financing too. I know it’s baseball, but when the Marlins and Rockies both came into the league the Rockies wanted a new stadium, and Joe Robbie needed some extensive renovations in Miami. So I think the deal there was if you use the state name, you get state financing to help with those stadium issues too.
There was a wonderful documentary about the attempt by Miami to draw a team away from their home instead of an expansion team. Called “Major League,” Cleveland almost moved to Miami!
Lots of laughs on that documentary
“HEY BARTENDER! Jobu needs a refill!” 🤕
“Are you trying to tell me Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?”
Here you go: one whole chicken… 🍗 🪣
My favorite fact is Dennis Haysbert was actually launching HRs as Cerrano
Charlie Sheen said that he was using steroids and I try to make the pitching seem more realistic. Allegedly his fastball went from mid 70s to mid 80s with it, but they also moved the mound closer to make it seem faster. The big bad Yankees closer was actually an MLB catcher who was hired to be the consultant, and you can definitely tell he wasn’t a natural pitcher with his delivery. And Willie Mays Hayes, portrayed by Wesley Snipes… notice how every time he runs it’s in slow motion? That’s because Snipes is actually really slow, so they had to make him seem faster, and slow motion does the trick.
Nice! Also Wesley Snipes is incredibly unathletic so he’s not shown throwing the ball or catching it
But… Blade! Ryan Reynolds really didn’t like working with him on the movie… I don’t think Jessica Biel did either, but that movie helped make Deadpool, so it was worth it
Carolina Panthers are actually named for two states. The New England Patriots are named for a region
Tampa Bay is also a region
And new York is named for a state of mind
A region in Florida
Yeah, so? Still not named after a state or a city
You do know Tampa Bay is a city right?
Tampa is different than Tampa Bay.
Its not. Tampa is a city. Tampa Bay is not a city.
You are correct. Tampa Bay is a region in Florida and still goes to show New England represents multiple states, not a region in one state
Why are you spinning in circles?
I like it. It makes me feel good.
And the jet and giants are named for their neighbors.
Fun fact: the Panthers logo is shaped like both North and South Carolina put together
All the Minnesota sports teams are named Minnesota XXX because of the Twin Cities: you don't want to slight the other Twin by having the St. Paul Wild or the Minneapolis Vikings. Originally when we got pro sports in the 1960s, all three teams (Twins, Vikings, North Stars) were in Bloomington, a big suburb south of Minneapolis. I suspect the Colorado teams are similar because they want to represent the whole state and not just Denver, because the Front Range includes Boulder, Fort Collins, Colo. Springs, etc.
Broncos and Nuggets are both Denver team, Rockies, Avs, and Rapids are Colorado, so ours is a mixed bag. The Rapids also don’t technically play in Denver, but that doesn’t really stop sports teams (hell, the Giants and Jets play in a different state altogether)
The soccer complex is bordering the city limits on two sides on the edge of Commerce City. It's not as egregious at a stadium in a far flung suburb nowhere near the city it's named for
Feels like New York is bi curious in this question
Some states have multiple regions, so a team can better represent a wider fan base and multiple metro areas, especially if there isn’t another team nearby.
These are all good answers, but I also wonder about the timing of when each team was founded. Things like stadium funding and fanbases really weren't part of the calculus until recently. Every team was named after a city until 1960, when the Patriots were founded. Then Minnesota in 1961, and Tampa Bay in 1976. The Cardinals were named after a city three times before becoming Arizona in the 90s. Around the same time Carolina and Tennessee came onboard (or moved).
The Patriots were originally the Boston Patriots.
And one of those times, it didn't change locations. known as the “Phoenix Cardinals” from 1988-93. In 1994, they became the Arizona Cardinals.
It's marketing. New York Jets sounds better than the New Jersey Jets. Los Angeles Chargers sounds better than the Inglewood Chargers (Inglewood is a city in its own right within Greater Los Angeles, just like the New England Patriots covers a larger area than just Boston). As someone else mentioned, Kansas City Chiefs sounds better than Missouri Chiefs.
The Giants and the Jets should have to play for who gets to call themselves the NY team. Loser gets NJ.
If you had Eli Manning vs Aaron Rodgers that would be a fairer fight. But today's Giants vs Jets? No way that's a fair fight.
Disagree, the Jersey Jets sounds much better.
As a jets fan from New Jersey, I’ve been arguing this for a decade, the Jersey Jets would be way better and it gives us our own sports team. Why do we only have hockey? They took the nets from us too, it’s payback
Missouri had the Cardinals (and later Rams) so it wouldn’t even make sense to name the Chiefs after the state Minnesota, New England, and Arizona didn’t have any other NFL teams
You would also then have the Inglewood Rams and soon to be the Inglewood Clippers. Weird how the Ducks are Anaheim but the Angels are Los Angeles despite playing in Anaheim which is like 30 miles away from LA. Soon enough out of the 10 professional sports teams the only ones in LA will be the Dodgers Lakers Kings and LAFC. That's less than half.
Yes it’s the same reason The Anaheim Angels changed names to the LA Angels. More outsiders know Los Angeles.
Also briefly called the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
When Denver adopted its new logo in the late 90's, some fuss was made about the decision to phase Denver out of the logo, as locals interpreted it as a threat to relocate the team if taxpayers didn't agree to foot the bill for the new Mile Hi.
History, marketability, the risk of geographical alienation/geographically related internal conflict, politics, and most importantly financing. The Oakland Raiders became a thing because the AFL needed a West Coast team to appease the Chargers (politics). Obviously couldn't be called the California Raiders because the Los Angeles Chargers were already a part of the AFL. They moved to LA in '82 because Oakland was unwilling to finance stadium upgrades while LA was, having been abandoned by both the Chargers in the 60's and then the Rams in the 80's (financing + politics). They moved back to Oakland, and then faced the same issues again (needing a new stadium, no local financing, etc.) after which they chose to move to Las Vegas because LA was occupied by both the Chargers and Rams (again) and the league was quite happy with creating some distance between the 49ers and Raiders, while also capitalizing on the huge market that is Las Vegas. Kind of a tangential rant, but oh well. The Chiefs are the Kansas City Chiefs and not the Kansas Chiefs or Missouri Chiefs because of the unique opportunity to capitalize on two state-markets (an especially enticing proposition after they basically got pushed out of Dallas). In general, team names are a direct reflection of market-size and stadium financing, although there are obviously more exceptions to that "rule" than you can count on one hand.
Only one reason: Marketing. The most absurd is The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Literally translates to The Angels Angels of Anaheim.
Apparently they dropped the Anaheim starting in 2016 so now they're just the Los Angeles Angels Like they were originally
Yeah, I know. it was too ridiculous. I remember them as the California Angels, then Anaheim Angels, then now. I didn't know they were the LAA. I think they might have played at the LA Colisseum first, but not sure.
Teams can choose, so a lot will pick the entire state to try to appeal to more fans. It really makes no difference outside of marketing. I’m old enough to remember when the Arizona Cardinals were the Phoenix Cardinals and made the change for that exact reason.
Jets and Giants only play in the state theyre named after when they go to Buffalo
The Bills have the craziest naming convention in the NFL and it doesn't make any sense. They are the only team to actually play and be based in NY state, but are located on the Canadian border. They are named after the city and a person, but their logo is of a different animal (bison) than a buffalo. The person they are named after (Buffalo Bill), is pluralized, so the "Bills" are the players and staff. There have been times where there was quite a few Williams on the team (like fan favorite Kyle Williams), who in that case literally are Buffalo Bills (Players named William/Williams who play on a team from Buffalo). There is also two of them, the original wild west Buffalo Bill Cody and then the 1930's/40's Buffalo Bill (Wilcox) that not only started the CIA, he was actually from Buffalo (the original Wild Bill local connections are closer to nearby Rochester, NY). The City of Buffalo probably isn't even actually named after either animals, buffalo or bison, but probably was a corruption of a french term for beautiful river (referring to the Niagara/Buffalo rivers). The Erie Canal made Buffalo a hot spot for fur trading, all the bison hides passing through, it kind fit with the corruption of the French terms, as like a slang name for the area and it just stuck. Beau Fava became Buffalo after all the different ethnic fur traders got hammered and couldn't pronounce it right. Buffalo is also a verb term, that means to bully, so that also fit with becoming a football team name. Also, the Buffalo Bills actually don't play in Buffalo either. They are about 20 minutes away from the city in Orchard Park, NY. None of it really matters and that's what makes it great. Extra fun fact: Buffalo's fan base is called Bills Mafia, the city is famous for it's chicken wings and pizza (Buffalo wings, which also have nothing to do with the animal and everything to do with people screwing up the city name again, because the word Buffalo is also a flavor, a hot spicy flavor named after a city famous for blizzards), the official pizza sponsor of the Buffalo Bills is an (allegedly) notorious mafia boss from Canada.
You’ll never guess who the Bills [signed last week](https://uni-watch.com/2024/05/10/he-was-born-to-play-for-the-buffalo-bills/)
I’m just going off the top of my head, so forgive me if I forget some here. The ones named after a single state, for the most part, are trying to draw fans from multiple metro areas so don’t want to alienate ppl in the second closest city: Minnesota, Arizona, Tennessee Ones trying to draw variety of fans from a vague region of multiple states: Carolina, New England Then there are states that have multiple cities with teams that then can’t be named after the state: Miami/Jacksonville/Tampa Bay, Dallas/Houston, LAC/LAR/SF, NYG/NYJ/Buffalo, Philly/Pittsburgh, Cincy/Cleveland States with one big city that is more famous or culturally relevant than the state themselves: Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore City that lies on the border of multiple states: Kansas City, Washington DC City that is similarly famous to its state: Indianapolis, Denver Team that would 100% be named after its state if it were named in 2024 (but it’s fun to have such a weird exception): Green Bay Before ppl get mad at me, I’m aware the NY teams play in NJ and Washington plays in MD. Those are still NY and Washington’s teams.
Houston's team name is "The Texans"
That’s a good call
You forgot the Cardinals, who used to be the Phoenix Cardinals when they moved in 1988, but changed to the Arizona Cardinals in 1994.
I included Arizona, they’re at the beginning
To pile on, they were phx cardinals playing in Tempe. They play in Glendale now. They are AZ Cardinals for marketing because most who live here still root for their team prior to moving to AZ.
Denver has the colorado fanbase so can remain Denver, Green Bay is Wisconsin so will always be Green Bay. A couple teams (Arizona and Tennessee) want to pretend that the majority of their state isn't Cowboys fans. LA hates the Chargers, but they remain LA so midwestern fanbases know where to fly to. New England, Carolina are fine. Minnesota rolls off the tongue better than Minneapolis.
Also, it really would also be the Minneapolis/St Paul Vikings.
Cards were once the Phoenix Cardinals
It’s just a name. And except for the Green Bay Packers the teams belong to an owner or group of owners.
Calling the Dolphins a "Miami" team could have been viewed as alienating to everyone in Broward county (where Ft. Lauderdale is) and Palm Beach county, since combined they are bigger than Miami-Dade. But it's not a problem.
And then the weirdest one is the random city of Green Bay
I’m a Panthers fan and I think the reasoning for the name being “Carolina” instead of “Charlotte” is it captures two entire states instead of just one comparatively small market city. Even though it encompasses two states, we’re still a smaller market franchise. We’re also a newer team compared to most so it was important to incorporate as much region as possible to build a fanbase from the jump. The Charlotte Panthers might have alienated South Carolina residents who would’ve otherwise started pulling for the team.
New York has 1 team but named two teams after the state, even though they are New Jersey teams. Panthers are located in North Carolina, but are named after both North and South Carolina. Some states have/had multiple cities with teams. MO had Cardinals/Rams while KC has Chiefs. Other states are Ohio, California, Texas, Florida.
Let's be clear. The teams don't belong to the city or the state. They are privately owned. The city typically pays for the stadium, because why should a billionaire have to pay for his own stadium when there are millions of poor taxpayers that can buy it for them? But the owner isn't obligated to keep his team there if another city offers to build a better stadium.