NFL Team Mascots Changes?

[West Florida]

Why weren't people this angry when Charlotte changed their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets? It's almost like they don't actually care about teams changing names - maybe there is another motive.

I actually find the name Hornets highly offensive.

[BlazerDawg]

Well, be prepared for the NBA's Adam Silver' new infused avenue of politics. I have to admit that I grew up being a truly 'colorblind' fan of the NBC and their extremely well paid, athletically privileged players.

I haven't watched an NBA game in over 30 years.

I haven't watched an MLB game since the early 2000s. There was talk of a strike in whatever season that was, I decided to not watch that year so as not to get interested and then be disappointed if the season was cut short. It turns out that I didn't miss it; thus, I never came back to it.

[Eagle74]

Entertainment is supposed to be an escape from life's troubles. I quit watching the NFL when it became nothing more than another avenue for politics.
If college football turns from entertainment into intrusive politics, I'll quickly lose interest in it too.

Well, be prepared for the NBA's Adam Silver' new infused avenue of politics. I have to admit that I grew up being a truly 'colorblind' fan of the NBC and their extremely well paid, athletically privileged players.

[BlazerDawg]

Entertainment is supposed to be an escape from life's troubles. I quit watching the NFL when it became nothing more than another avenue for politics.

I have Native American ancestry through my maternal grandmother. I was raised as a Redskins fan due to Sam "Slinging Sammy" Baugh being a relative on my mother's side. In his later years he preferred to be called "Sam".

I adopted the Chiefs as my AFC preference specifically because of the arrowhead logo and the nickname, and I entered each season hoping for a Redskins/Chiefs Superbowl. Now I just don't care.

If college football turns from entertainment into intrusive politics, I'll quickly lose interest in it too.

[SW_Mustang]

I think he's referring to what happened at Long Beach State. Some students and others complained that 49ers (the miners) were cruel to others in their pursuit for gold. So Long Beach State killed off Prospector Pete in 2018 and then changed the name of their sports teams to the Sharks last year. But it's still OK to call their baseball team the Dirtbags. https://twitter.com/LBDirtbags

That's interesting - although, I'll have to be excused for not understanding the reference, given this is an NFL thread and "Long Beach State" isn't exactly on my sports radar.

CSU-LB probably isn't the best barometer of what the American public at-large believes anyway, and this should definitely be chalked up to an anecdotal example.

[SW_Mustang]

Bobcats and Hornets aren't politically incorrect. They're critters, and as far as I know everyone is cool with using them for team names. If not, PETA and the ASPCA would have complained already. Also, they were the Charlotte Hornets originally, before they moved to New Orleans. Michael Jordan (the team's majority owner) changed it back to the Hornets in 2014, the name that most Charlotte citizens preferred.

That comment was intended as a joke - I'm very aware of the history of the Hornets. I was pretty sad when the franchise relocated to New Orleans, and I was pretty happy when the Bobcats/NO Hornets worked it out to bring the name back to North Carolina.

That being said - things are pretty backwards if people are in an uproar over the offensive nicknames names being changed as opposed to the non-offensive ones. PETA does most of what it does for publicity stunts. They really don't have as much influence as a lot of folks think they do. Don't get me wrong, I don't like them - but they're really a non-player, and they certainly aren't the most egregious animal rights group out there.

[SW_Mustang]

I just have to stir this up. So, like everyone is cool with the term Yankee? I thought it does has some derogative connotations to it. And though not a US team, I've wondered about Canucks. (Vancouver for you non-hockey types) I'm not supporting Washington's current name, but I find these inconsistencies a bit odd.

I'm all for abolishing the Yankees. Oh... you mean the team name.

Those two terms are derogatory, technically - but they are not racial slurs, for one thing.

Also - something to think about, but if a group of Americans chooses to refer to themselves as "Yankees," is that the same thing as a group of people from the UK calling those same people "Yankees?" Substitute that word for "redneck," "deplorables," or "punks." All three are derogatory terms, yet all three have been embraced by the same group those words intended to humiliate. Is that the way society should operate? That's up for debate - but that's the way society operates.

That's why, when a civil rights group from Minneapolis threatened to sue the Warroad High School over their Native American name and imagery, they were stopped pretty quickly - by a group of Native Americans from Warroad.

https://www.twincities.com/2014/08/1...al-group-says/

Just something to think about.

[Predatory Primates]

I think he's referring to what happened at Long Beach State. Some students and others complained that 49ers (the miners) were cruel to others in their pursuit for gold. So Long Beach State killed off Prospector Pete in 2018 and then changed the name of their sports teams to the Sharks last year. But it's still OK to call their baseball team the Dirtbags. https://twitter.com/LBDirtbags

On the cruelty scale, I have to think Sharks rank waaaaay up there. :)

[Predatory Primates]

The existence of that team name has baffled me since I was a kid.

The reason people are bothered by the change is simple. They have to admit that it was wrong and that they had been freely using that racial slur all their lives even though they didn't mean it as a slur, and are good people who are in no way racist. The feeling of guilt without intent makes people lash out. Internet morons banging on them and calling them racist makes it much worse.

[crixus]

Aren't those the people that tried boycotting Starbucks when they took the reindeer off the cups?

One person said they should change the name, that doesn't mean they are in the "crosshairs." The NFL team in Washington, again, is a special case because of the racial slur involved.

Why weren't people this angry when Charlotte changed their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets? It's almost like they don't actually care about teams changing names - maybe there is another motive.

Bobcats and Hornets aren't politically incorrect. They're critters, and as far as I know everyone is cool with using them for team names. If not, PETA and the ASPCA would have complained already. Also, they were the Charlotte Hornets originally. Michael Jordan (the team's majority owner) changed it from Bobcats back to the Hornets in 2014, the name that most Charlotteans preferred.

[crixus]

Who is "they," exactly? Why would they do that?

I think he's referring to what happened at Long Beach State. Some students and others complained that 49ers (the miners) were cruel to others in their pursuit for gold. So Long Beach State killed off Prospector Pete in 2018 and then changed the name of their sports teams to the Sharks last year. But it's still OK to call their baseball team the Dirtbags. https://twitter.com/LBDirtbags

[SW_Mustang]

The cancel culture...now Texan Rangers are in the crosshairs
The Redskins may also have to drop Washington too as he was a slave owner

Aren't those the people that tried boycotting Starbucks when they took the reindeer off the cups?

One person said they should change the name, that doesn't mean they are in the "crosshairs." The NFL team in Washington, again, is a special case because of the racial slur involved.

Why weren't people this angry when Charlotte changed their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets? It's almost like they don't actually care about teams changing names - maybe there is another motive.

[Redwing]

You mean like the song/band from Tommy Shaw (Styx), Jack Blades (Nightranger), and Ted Nugent?

Damn, whodda thunk it. :-)

[crixus]

Old Tommy impregnated at least one of them, Sally Hemings.

[Wildcat Khan]

It used to be an derogatory term used by Americans, but now it is embraced by Canadians.

The bigger issue up there are the Edmonton Eskimos. I remember asking some visiting Canadians thirty years ago when they stopped calling them Eskimos and started calling them Inuits. They looked at me like I was dense and said, "We've always called them that" which I didn't believe. I found out later that probably started in the mid to late 1970s.

Yankees doesn't bother me at all. I just can't stand the baseball team. If some foreigner called me a Yankee I wouldn't be insulted unless they put some other words in front of it.

You mean like the song/band from Tommy Shaw (Styx), Jack Blades (Nightranger), and Ted Nugent?