You have been given the awesome responsibility of selecting a city to receive an expansion team in one of the four major North American leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) under the following rules:
The city must not already have a franchise for that league, and it must be a city that could reasonably be expected to have enough fans to support the team (ignoring the Green Bay Packers as the obvious exception; some examples would be - Los Angeles for an NFL team; Portland or Columbus for MLB (or NFL), etc.)
The team name you choose must be appropriate for the location (no names like the Utah Jazz or L.A. Lakers) and it must also be a name that the Commissioner would not be likely to reject due to offensive or insulting language (no “Cleveland Steamers” or “Nashville Rednecks”, for example).
Orlando Rage - NFL. Unlike some Florida cities coughJacksonvillecough, we can support a major league franchise.
Plus, some of us still have hats and jersey from the similarly-named* XFL team
*Okay, it was exactly the same name. I’m also a big fan of our AFL team name (the Predators). It ties in with the film industry, which is big here, and ensures our mascot is awesome-looking, rather than a sweaty college kid in a fur suit.
NFL - Los Angeles Lobos. Professional football really should get back into LA. And I think Lobos would be a good name. It’s alliterative. It’s an animal, which fits in with other NFL team names. And it’s Spanish which fits with the local culture.
The Bradley Center was built with the goal of getting an NHL team, though it’s probably out of date now due to a lack of suites. It keeps with history a bit (beer barons, German heritage in general), and keeps with the M-B of of Milwaukee sports (Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks).
Commissioner Bettman might grump about the name, but come on, the team would have a ready-made theme song. And Nova Scotia needs a team after being screwed over in CFL expansion, and it’s not as if they’re not as hockey-mad as the rest of the country.
MLB: Brooklyn Robins
NHL: Hamilton Steelers
NBA: Seattle SuperSonics - sorry, but it’s just the right thing to do
NFL: Los Angeles Lobos is a great idea.
Once the Cuban political situation becomes more hospitable:
Havana Sugar Kings – MLB (taking the name of the old International League franchise that won the Little World Series in 1959, only to fall victim to Castro’s nationalization policy the next year)
