# Question for Non-americans about Sports **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 31, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087 "2014-10-31T04:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/41 "2014-10-31T22:38:13Z")
A lot of the US Major League Soccer teams have European-style names: DC United New York City FC Orlando City SC Philadelphia Union Toronto FC FC Dallas Real Salt Lake ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/42 "2014-10-31T22:51:14Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > The San Fransisco Giants just won the World Series. DAMMMMMIIITTTTTT!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/43 "2014-11-01T00:13:52Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > DAMMMMMIIITTTTTT!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: You just heard? ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/44 "2014-11-01T00:44:48Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I wonder if baseball in Japan goes along those lines because the teams were originally modeled after American baseball leagues? So teams are based more on cities. Although years ago many companies did own their own baseball teams. All 12 NPB teams are still corporate owned, except for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, which has always been half-owned by the City of Hiroshima and half-owned the Toyo Corporation. If you go back thirty years or so, all the teams (except for the Carp)were only known by their company names, and you would have no idea which teams played where by their names. Now 8 out of the 12 teams have either a city or region (Hokkaido, Tohoku) as part of their name in addition to the corporate owner name (e.g. Chiba Lotte Marines). What’s changed? -Back in the days when Japan had a monster economy, the companies basically ran their teams as corporate PR loss leaders. The corporate logo was more important than building a regional fanbase. Now the owners would actually like to see their teams earn a profit. -The teams were incredibly clumped together, so a city name was not much of an identifier. There were six teams in the the Kanto Region (Tokyo Metropolitan Area) and four in the Kansai Region (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto). That left the Carp in Hiroshima and the Chunichi Dragons in Nagoya as the only outliers. -The oldest, most popular, and most stable (no relocations or ownership changes) teams still use the traditional naming mechanism. (e.g. Yomiuri Giants) -As the lesser teams in the Kanto and Kansai areas relocated to outlying areas in search of greener pastures, they usually added the name of their new home the team name. For example, the Nippon Ham Fighters played in Tokyo and shared a stadium with the massively popular Yomiuri Giants. Around ten years ago, they moved to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido and are now the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. -For years, baseball was almost literally the only game in town. In the 90’s pro soccer in the form the J-League exploded on to the scene and their teams built strong local/regional fanbases by locating teams out of the Tokyo/Osaka areas and using the city name as an identifier). Baseball started to follow suit. Hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/45 "2014-11-01T00:50:57Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Los Angeles Dodgers/Angels, New York Yankees/Mets/Giants, Chicago Cubs/White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals/Browns, Philadelphia Athletics/Phillies, Boston Braves/Red Sox. And going back to the 19th century, when these naming conventions were adopted, places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and Chicago could have three or more major clubs competing professionally. > > None of these clubs felt a hesitation to claim to represent an entire city, even when there were multiple clubs in the area. All of those examples follow an American League/National League split. Way back in the day, the AL and the NL were separate rival leagues, so of course both leagues wanted teams in America’s largest cities. ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/46 "2014-11-01T01:04:09Z")
Hockey teams that don’t have a city in their name: NHL New Jersey Devils Carolina Hurricanes Tampa Bay Lightning Florida Panthers Minnesota Wild Colorado Avalanche Arizona Coyotes (was Pheonix last season) AHL Adirondack Flames Iowa Wild Lake Erie Monsters Texas Stars ECHL Alaska Aces Colorado Eagles Florida Everblades Idaho Steelheads Indy Fuel Missouri Mavericks Quad City Mallards South Carolina Stingrays Utah Grizzlies ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/47 "2014-11-01T02:01:35Z")
Golden State Warriors … ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/48 "2014-11-01T02:42:18Z")
> [@bmoak](#): > > All of those examples follow an American League/National League split. First of all, that’s not a contrast. The clubs in European sports are in multiple difference leagues too. Second, you’ll note I referenced the 19th century, which was before there was an American League. Many of the clubs claiming to represent the same city were all in the National Association together. Third, it doesn’t represent any kind of logical contrast with the English soccer situation. Chelsea and Arsenal are just as much commercial rivals as were the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves before 1903. Fourth, note the date 1903, when the National Agreement was reached. The American and National Leagues essentially stopped being entirely separate rivals after only a couple of years. > [@EllisDee](#): > > No, that’s the nickname. No. There are two possible meanings of “nickname” in the context of American team sports. The first is the non-geographical part of the name. Under this definition, the nickname is “Giants.” The second is a name that has no official status, that is often conferred and used informally by journalists and fans. Under this definition, the nicknames include: Big Blue, G-Men, Jints, etc. “New York Giants” is not a nickname under either definition. I’ve already mentioned several bits of evidence that show that “New York Giants” is the official name of the team, or at least _an_ official name of the team. I’ll note you didn’t respond to any of those. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/49 "2014-11-02T05:00:28Z")
> [@bmoak](#): > > All 12 NPB teams are still corporate owned, except for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, which has always been half-owned by the City of Hiroshima and half-owned the Toyo Corporation. If you go back thirty years or so, all the teams (except for the Carp)were only known by their company names, and you would have no idea which teams played where by their names. Now 8 out of the 12 teams have either a city or region (Hokkaido, Tohoku) as part of their name in addition to the corporate owner name (e.g. Chiba Lotte Marines). What’s changed? > > -Back in the days when Japan had a monster economy, the companies basically ran their teams as corporate PR loss leaders. The corporate logo was more important than building a regional fanbase. Now the owners would actually like to see their teams earn a profit. > > -The teams were incredibly clumped together, so a city name was not much of an identifier. There were six teams in the the Kanto Region (Tokyo Metropolitan Area) and four in the Kansai Region (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto). That left the Carp in Hiroshima and the Chunichi Dragons in Nagoya as the only outliers. > > -The oldest, most popular, and most stable (no relocations or ownership changes) teams still use the traditional naming mechanism. (e.g. Yomiuri Giants) > > -As the lesser teams in the Kanto and Kansai areas relocated to outlying areas in search of greener pastures, they usually added the name of their new home the team name. For example, the Nippon Ham Fighters played in Tokyo and shared a stadium with the massively popular Yomiuri Giants. Around ten years ago, they moved to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido and are now the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. > > -For years, baseball was almost literally the only game in town. In the 90’s pro soccer in the form the J-League exploded on to the scene and their teams built strong local/regional fanbases by locating teams out of the Tokyo/Osaka areas and using the city name as an identifier). Baseball started to follow suit. > > Hope this helps. Ok, so lets say their is a kid growing up in Tokyo. Which team would he probably become a fan of? ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/50 "2014-11-03T13:48:55Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > That’s too bad. They could have say an all-London team, maybe called the “Big Bens” or something, play say the Paris “Towers”. Since there are about 7,000 soccer clubs in England’s FA, there might actually be one called the London Big Bens, even if it’s just a bunch of Sunday beer leaguers. And if not, there’s nothing stopping a bunch of people from starting a club with that handle and working their way up the pyramid. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/51 "2014-11-04T02:31:03Z")
Is Sheffield Wednesday (who originally played on Wednesdays as opposed to the weekend) the only major team in any sport with a day of the week in their name? ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/52 "2014-11-04T04:40:14Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, so lets say their is a kid growing up in Tokyo. Which team would he probably become a fan of? Probably the Yomiuri Giants, which are the Japanese equivalent of the Yankees. But the Yakult Swallows are also based out of Tokyo and the Lotte Marines, Seibu Lions, and Yokohama BayStars are also in the area. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/53 "2014-11-04T05:07:01Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Well you have the Colorado Rockies which are named after a mountain range but play out of Denver. > > The only team I can think of which is named after a region and not a city or state is the New England Patriots. > > Some are city based but want to be a national brand so thats why say the Dallas Cowboys want to simply be known as the “Cowboys” and “The Mighty Ducks” (a hockey team) started by Disney dont always go by their city name which is Anaheim California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Anaheim changed their name to simply The Anaheim Ducks years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/54 "2014-11-04T11:46:14Z")
There’s plenty of amateur football and rugby teams playing in the lower leagues in the UK formed out of the workforce of various companies and using the company name as the name of their team (for example Airbus UK). Elsewhere in Europe, some of these former works teams have diversified the player pool whilst retaining the name connection and gone on to be quite successful, for example PSV Eindhoven was Philips Electronics’ former works team, and Bayer Leverkeusen was the works team for Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Indeed, a lot of the big British football teams started out as works teams, including Arsenal who were originally named after the company they represented. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/55 "2014-11-04T12:59:41Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > There’s plenty of amateur football and rugby teams playing in the lower leagues in the UK formed out of the workforce of various companies and using the company name as the name of their team (for example Airbus UK). Elsewhere in Europe, some of these former works teams have diversified the player pool whilst retaining the name connection and gone on to be quite successful, for example PSV Eindhoven was Philips Electronics’ former works team, and Bayer Leverkeusen was the works team for Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Indeed, a lot of the big British football teams started out as works teams, including Arsenal who were originally named after the company they represented. The one I love is “Billingham Synthonia” it always sounded elegant to my young ears until I found out that it was a contraction of “synthetic ammonia” and related to the fertiliser product of the nearby ICI chemical works. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/56 "2014-11-04T13:07:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I’ve already mentioned several bits of evidence that show that “New York Giants” is the official name of the team, or at least _an_ official name of the team. I’ll note you didn’t respond to any of those. [Cite.](http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.New_York_Football_Giants_Inc.5c17a3fd6db696f6.html) The official name of the team is the New York Football Giants. Everything else is just a nickname. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/57 "2014-11-04T13:21:46Z")
Just last night on MNF the announcers referred to them as the NY Football Giants a few times. So it’s still in usage by the general public, even though NY Giants is more common. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/58 "2014-11-04T13:27:16Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > [Cite.](http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.New_York_Football_Giants_Inc.5c17a3fd6db696f6.html) > > The official name of the team is the New York Football Giants. Everything else is just a nickname. Your own cite says: > [@](#): > > New York Football Giants owns and operates the New York Giants professional football team Owner’s name = New York Football Giants Team name = New York Giants ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/59 "2014-11-05T05:00:36Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ok, so lets say their is a kid growing up in Tokyo. Which team would he probably become a fan of? Right now, I couldn’t say for sure, but historically, it would be the Yomiuri Giants by a large margin. A poster above compared them to the Yankees, but that actually understates how popular the Giants were in their heyday. Japan’s first pro baseball franchise (they existed as a touring/barnstorming team even before the league started) and easily the most successful historical franchise. They won nine straight Japan Series in the 60s and 70s and were more popular than all the other Tokyo-area teams combined. The Giants were the only team in Japan that had a national fan-base. Of course, being owned by Japan’s major media conglomerate (TV network, newspaper, sports dailies) helped with that. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2014, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087/60 "2014-11-05T06:00:27Z")
Australian Rules Football, Soccer, Rugby Union and Rugby League in Australia tend to be aligned to suburban boundaries. EG we have the Melbourne Demons AFL team but they represent all of Melbourne. Lately soccer teams have started to ID with large capital cities but even then we can have two in a town. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-non-americans-about-sports/703087.md?page=4)