Should a team name remain with the city?
By Ryan Davis
A team’s name should remain with the city. The Dolphins are Miami. The Packers are Green Bay. The Browns are Cleveland. The Raiders are Oakland?
Three NFL teams have decided to move in the last 14 months. The St. Louis Rams moved to Los Angeles last season, the San Diego Chargers are moving to Los Angeles this season and the Oakland Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in 2019.
When Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore, the name appropriately stayed with the city of Cleveland. Similarly, when the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee, the football team changed its name to the Tennessee Titans.
However, the Raiders will take their name to Las Vegas. The Raiders name should stay in Oakland and it should have stayed in Oakland when the team moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s. The silver and black Raiders belong to Oakland as an original AFL team.
The Chargers belong to San Diego, a city known for its famous zoo, beaches, and the football team.
Fans of a city have a history with the name, the colors and the culture of the team. The name and colors of the team become engrained into the culture of the city. When a team moves from a city the people of that city lose a part of their culture.
The silver and black are Oakland. The aqua and orange are Miami. Those names and colors should stay with the city, so if the opportunity comes for the city to have a team in the future, that city can use that name and those colors.
The team name epitomizes the city and when the team moves, a new name should be given, which represents that new city. The name Dolphins is perfect for the city of Miami and would not work in another city. The San Antonio Dolphins does not work.
If the names should stay with the city, what should be the new nickname for the team that will call Las Vegas home? The Las Vegas Scorpions? Perhaps the Las Vegas Gila Monsters? The Las Vegas Gamblers? Conceivably the Las Vegas Outlaws?
What nickname should replace the Chargers? The Los Angeles Bobcats? Possibly the Los Angeles Stars? Maybe the Los Angeles Shakers? The Los Angeles Quakes?