Reading up on it, they even spent two seasons as the Tennessee Oilers, which I didn’t remember at all.
ISTR the ‘team photo’ baseball cards, which had team records on the back, had Browns and Orioles All Time Leaders as a heading. Senators/Twins were similar. I don’t think the Topps company had their own records division, but used what MLB supplied them.
Which is totally stupid, considering that the Ravens didn’t get to retain the Browns’ history and name, etc…
In the long run, it’s probably better that the Houston franchise not be saddled with the history and underachievement of the Oilers…
Cleveland threatened to sue the “Ravens”/NFL. Part of the negotiated settlement was that Cleveland was promised an expansion team which would “own” the history and colors of the old Cleveland Browns. Presumably Houston and the NFL had a different (or no particular) settlement.
My guess would be because the owner of the Oilers managed to totally piss off Houston-both the city officials and the populace by essentially holding them hostage through a threat to move the team if they didn’t perform substantial upgrades to the Astrodome in 1988. Which they acquiesced to, only to have Adams see how the Chargers made out in their move, and for him to come back in 1994, barely six years later asking for nearly $200 million to build a new stadium, at the same time that the team had a nearly historically bad 2-14 season.
The Houston mayor at the time basically told him to stick his proposal up his ass and that if he wanted to move the team, to not let the door hit him in the ass on the way out, and public opinion was firmly alongside the mayor. So Adams left, but for some weird reason, announced it nearly 2 seasons before they actually did move. The Oilers had a really bizarre pair of lame duck seasons (1995 and 1996) where they had crowds in the 35,000 range and lower (last game was only 15,000!)
So I’m not at all surprised that the city didn’t sue the Oilers/Adams for the rights.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Now, the Jets/Giants thing is an anomaly I get MetLife Stadium is about 5-7 miles from New York City, but they still retain the New York monicker and are in a completely different state!
As for temporary moves ie the NY Giants playing in Connecticut, the New Orleans teams playing out of state after Katrina and the Bears playing in central Illinois, these were during stadium renovations and repairs with the city’s namesake having every intention of returning. I don’t count these.
I forgot to mention a unique situation going on here. For three years the Philadelphia Union had a farm team, Bethlehem Steel FC, play in Bethlehem PA. The USL, American soccers second division, declared the stadium wasn’t up to USL standards. The Union have vowed to return the Bethlehem area, but for 2019 the BSFC are playing home games at the Union’s home stadium in Chester, PA, about 60-70 miles away.
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I’ve never understood the whole “But they’re in a different state!” shock. The Redskins play in Maryland, a similar distance away from DC as the Jets and Giants are from NY, but nobody ever exclaims “They’re in a different state!” with an exclamation mark or refers to them as the “Maryland Redskins.” It just seems weird to me.
Carson is indeed in LA County, but in any case the Chargers will be moving to Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park (still under construction), which they’ll share with the Rams–and which is not in Hollywood, and not even in L.A. (city), but rather in Inglewood, also home of the Forum, where the Lakers and the Kings once played.
Yes, a city or a metropolitan area or a conurbation is a natural unit. But state and municipal boundaries are arbitrary. There’s nothing about the boundary between the State of New York and the State of New Jersey that is meaningful to culture. But there is a difference between the New York conurbation and the Philadelphia conurbation.
I think this became an issue back when Gov Whitman was the NJ Governor. New Jersey funded the original Giants Stadium and no one minded the Giants were the “New York” Giants but they at least took the “ NY” off their helmets. Then, they put the NY on it and I remember she was a little red-assed about it.
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