A team's moniker may not register much in basketball terms aside from a groan-worthy pun or seven, but the branding and iconography of a professional sports team still matters quite a bit in the sphere of local identity.
Yankee pinstripes, Forum blue and gold, the Dallas Cowboys' signature star...those items mean something in a greater cultural consciousness, and have come to not only define worldwide fanbases of particular teams, but strike particular resonance in their regional centers.
Which makes it all the more understandable that New Orleans Hornets owner-to-be Tom Benson craves the Jazz name that was once exported to Utah, as well as any kind of change that would make the professional basketball team in New Orleans more nominally in line with what the city represents. From Jimmy Smith of The Times-Picayune (via Sporting News):
"We need to find a name like (Jazz)," Benson said, referring to New Orleans first NBA team that relocated to Salt Lake City in 1979. "Whether we can get that or let us use that, you've got to know we're working on it. We'd like to change it tomorrow. We have not gotten that approved, but we're not letting up on it, either. Because we've got a good relationship with the commissioner and his people and we're going to be on them daily to do something."
"Tomorrow" may be a bit of a stretch, considering that the official change of a team's name often requires a multi-year process.
It's not as simple as a website makeover and some new stitching on 15 jerseys; brand changes of this magnitude require a ridiculous amount of orchestration, and if Benson really is committed to transforming the Hornets into something more culturally relevant to New Orleans, it could be some time before we actually see that change come to fruition.
That said, this very thought process, of the need to define a team in local or regional terms, is a fascinating one.
Many of the storied sports institutions of our era have carved out their own elaborate mythologies despite nonsensical nicknames; the relocated Lakers stand as an obvious example, though we can trace the same trend through other sports to franchises like the Boston Red Sox, the Minnesota Vikings, or the Los Angeles Kings.
None of those nicknames make particular sense to the cities they call home, and yet they've come to hold meaning through the growth and play of the teams themselves. Those colors, names and logos don't mean much of anything other than what they've earned, while more setting-specific names (like, say, the absurdly named Houston Texans) have little to show for their locational relevance.
Naming a sports team as a nod to a slice of history or a cultural subset is a fun gesture, but which comes first: the context or the history?
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