How to Bungle a Sports Team Name Change

Here’s your branding lesson for today, in light of the curious events in Cleveland sports. As a story, it’s filled with drama, controversy, and intrigue.

Who Owns the Brand?

As any Level C certified brand strategist can tell you, one of the most critical brand principles is, “The tribe owns the brand.”

In the case of the team formerly known as the Indians, the Tribe is the brand, but the team owners either were unaware forgot that their fans (the tribe) own the brand and that the owners are only stewards of the branding.

The brand the tribe (the fans) owns is over 100 years old — a multi-generational brand — and despite several name changes over the years, the latest name change is not enhancing the brand, team, or city’s reputation.

Ironically, the team formerly known as the tribe’s home stadium is aptly named Progressive Field. The new name, “Cleveland Guardians,” refers to a set of statues on a local bridge and is so bland as to offend nobody, except for fans who love the name, “Indians.”

Do Your Opposition Research

In a news release, the organization claims to have “surveyed 40,000 fans and conducted 140 hours of interviews to pick a name across 1,198 different options.” Yet earlier polls revealed that fans preferred two other names, Spiders and Rockers, over Guardians.

Fans ridiculed the name change on Twitter and other social marketing platforms.

It reminds me of the time Aespire designed a college athletic mascot. “It looks mean,” was the reaction by the decision-makers. “We can’t have it looking mean.”

“The new mascot is fierce and determined,” was our response. “Fans want their teams to be competitive, not nice.” For some college teams, winning doesn’t matter as much as appeasing everybody. After all, you don’t want to risk offending anyone because they might become a donor someday.

In an appeasement culture, corporate team owners aren’t trying to be relevant and nice. Fans want their team to be competitive and win.

Who owns the Cleveland Guardians trademark?

Meanwhile, the current Cleveland Guardians, a men’s roller derby team, filed for trademark protection to preserve the value in their team name.

Did the current team neglect the most fundamental opposition research, which is a critical part of any brand strategy? A 30-second online search for the domain name clevelandguardians.com would have revealed that Cleveland Guardians is in use. As you can see by the scores that appear when you search for Cleveland Guardians, Google already recognizes the name change.

”The baseball club, contrary to some online speculation after the announcement, was aware of the Cleveland men's roller derby team that goes by Guardians and has a website tied to the nickname. But the Indians, after consulting with their legal team, were "very confident" that there wouldn't be any serious roadblocks in moving ahead with the name unveiling, multiple sources told Crain’s.”

When your team is losing, and fans aren’t showing up at the stadium, only time and a bundle of legal fees will show the brand stewards (the MLB team) if the fans will want to change tribes.

Marsha Gentner, a senior counsel in Dykema's Intellectual Property Group, said the Indians “are just gonna go full steam ahead and litigate if they have to against these guys.” Crain’s Cleveland declares this to be a David vs. Goliath scenario; it’s actually a bully vs the smallest kid on the block scenario. Who wants to associate with a brand that starts life as a bully?

Stay tuned. This story promises to get better with time. I'll consider making a comment on the bad Cleveland Guardians typography in a future post.

Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash