Agreed, but it seemed to me that in this discussion of state- and regional- named teams, the question was about area.
The strangest named team in existing Americal major league sports is, I think, the Golden State Warriors. Why wouldn’t they have just called themselves the California Warriors?
And Brooklyn covers more area than Boston, Miami, and San Francisco.
Green Bay itself is not really all that small in square miles. The only US team I can think of named for something smaller than a city is the Harlem Globetrotters.
What do you mean by 1) - is it “another team *in that sport *in the state” or juts “another Big Four team in that state”? If it’s the former, then we’ve got:
Baltimore Ravens
Milwaukee Brewers
Kansas City (and later Sacramento) Kings
San Diego (and later Los Angeles) Clippers
Cleveland Barons
Dallas Stars
Phoenix Coyotes
The Sullivan family is said to have changed the Boston Patriots’ name, when they moved to a cheaply and quickly built high-school-type stadium next to the Foxboro Raceway, out of spite. Team owner Billy Sullivan had wanted to build their own facility in the city of Boston, after bouncing around the BU, BC, and Harvard stadiums and Fenway Park, but the local pols were so insistent on palm-greasing and kowtowing that Billy had had enough. The team was briefly the “Bay State Patriots” upon the Foxboro move before making the marketing decision to more directly appeal to the entire region.
On that list was the Baltimore Ravens so you’re wrong because there were already the Baltimore Orioles.
However, they’re probably a special case because they were landing right in the middle of 3 well established markets with rabid fanbases (Washington, Philiadelphia, and Pittsburgh) and so they probably needed the specificity to try to establish the market.
And of course, let’s not forget about the Baltimore Colts and that they were sort of a replacement for them for the embittered fans they left behinds, so having Baltimore in the name would make sense to try to get those fans interested and leave whatever team they switched to.
I’m unsure about the legal status related to when they chose the name, but certainly when they were toying with the idea, before they were forced to change it, Baltimore Browns sounds a lot better than Maryland Browns.
So, it may not fit your set of rules, but I think it was a conscious decision to be very specific rather than trying to be more inclusive.
I think it’s because at the time the only other pro team named after the state of California was the California Angels who played in Orange County. Being a Northern California/Bay Area team, they didn’t want people to think the Warriors were another Southern California/LA-area team. Northern Californians and Southern Californians can very territorial.
Back in the 1990s in Formula, the Luxembourg Grand Prix was run in Germany and the San Marino was held in Italy. Spain had two races and the one at Jerez was known as the European Grand Prix. You had regulations saying that a country with two could only have one named after the host country.
Of course the NFL Giants and Jets call themselves “New York” but have spent the last few decades playing in the swamp lands of New Jersey where Jimmy Hoffa allegedly ended up.
Northern Californians can very territorial. Southern Californians don’t care.
I think they went with Golden State to avoid confusion with nearby UC Berkeley, generally called California or Cal when it comes to sports.
Big 4, I’ll agree, although I still think the earlier mentioned “Kansas City-Omaha Kings”, together with the “New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets” would both give it a run for the money in the NBA. (I’m willing to give the latter case far more leeway than the earlier due to the circumstances.)
If we count MLS as a major league, then Chivas USA has to enter any such conversation. At least with the Warriors, a little geographic knowledge helps to narrow down to the state in which they’re located. The best that you can do with such knowledge and Chivas USA is determine that they’re probably in the southwestern US. (The LA area, for those who aren’t aware.)
NDP:
Maybe that’s why the California Golden Seals eventually had to fold, people couldn’t find the arena because they were looking for it 700 miles from its actual location. (BTW, they were so named at the same time that the Warriors decided to change to “Golden State”).
I forgot about the NHL’s California Golden Seals (as, apparently, many did even during the time of their short existence). In fact, for years after their demise, I mistakenly thought they were called the *San Francisco *Golden Seals (confusing them with the old PCL baseball team).
FTR, the California Golden Seals didn’t fold until after they moved to Cleveland and changed their name to the Barons.
Nitpick, they never folded. Rather, they merged with the North Stars, and helped provide the nucleus of the good North Star teams of the early 1980s.
As an aside, the Barons’ owners became the North Star owners through the 80s. At the end of the 1980s, they were granted an expansion franchise which was instituted by splitting the North Star roster in two. This was the San Jose Sharks, which can therefore be considered as the unofficial return of the Seals to the Bay Area.
I wonder if Chivas USA is the most vaguely (in a geographical sense) named team in the U.S. However, the most moronically named team in American sports is Real Salt Lake. I don’t recall the King of Salt Lake giving them his royal charter.
NDP:
Yes, I knew that, I meant “folded” in the sense of “could not maintain their existence in that form”, not in the technical sense of “complete cessation of operations of the overall franchise.” They couldn’t make a success of operating an NHL team in the SF Bay Area.
Another head-scratcher of a name: the Arizona Cardinals.
They existed as the Phoenix Cardinals for the first few years after the move from St. Louis. Anyone from Tucson or Flagstaff that might not have been attracted to the team they previously rejected alliegance to because they were named for Phoenix wasn’t suddenly going to decide, “Hey, now they’re our team too!”
The Phoenix metro area contains a whopping two-thirds of the state’s population, so it’s not like there was a major segment out there to appeal to that wasn’t already into their games.
And it’s not like they had been playing in Phoenix proper and then changed because they moved out of the city proper (as with the Los Angeles Angels, Boston Patriots or San Francisco Warriors). They were always in a suburb of Phoenix, first in Tempe, and now in Glendale. And the name change didn’t accompany the move anyway, they played under both names in Tempe.
The Carolina Hurricanes started out playing 2 years in Greensboro because their arena in Raleigh was not built, that was a good reason for using a state based name.
I’ll add that most people outside of the state (and many within it) think Seattle is Washington…
Off-topic, I know, but this is why my homeland, the Republic of Cascadia, desires to liberate and annex Northern California:
“But it isn’t merely geography that unites us. The peoples of Northern California share a common culture with other Cascadians and find themselves oppressed by the occupational SoCalist government which wants nothing more than to replace redwoods with hollywoods. There can be no freedom for our brothers and sisters in Northern California as long as their land is occupied by the forces of tinseled tormentors.” 
The Carolina moniker was mostly due to them wanting to tap both the North Carolina and South Carolina markets. They mostly succeeded in capturing the NC market (outside of ACC Basketball season.)
That was the same reason the Panthers are the Carolina Panthers, rather than the Charlotte Panthers. Though, I imagine I’m not the only person in this state who refuses to cheer for any team that calls itself “Carolina.”
Maus Magill:
Didn’t the Panthers actually play a few seasons in South Carolina before settling into a permanent home in Charlotte?
They were playing at Death Valley (Clemson’s stadium) while BoA Stadium was being built.
From a marketing perspective, it make perfect sense for a Charlotte team to call itself the Carolina (whatevers), Charlotte is literally on the state line.