Alternative Names for the Ravens
Since it's been 17 years since Art Modell announced the name "Ravens", Baltimore Sun reposted an article they wrote in 2009 that detailed the names that led up to the fan vote that gave us Ravens...
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/200...s-norm-coleman
Some highlights
- The first name thrown around was "Baltimore Rhinos", even before the move was announced
- Other names given by NFL Properties included Bombers, Steamers, Railers, and Mustangs
- The fan vote was limited to Marauders, Americans, and Ravens
- Ravens got 20k+ votes in the fan poll, while Marauders and Americans got 5k+ each.
What I find funny about this is the franchise coming from Cleveland, almost being named the Steamers. Almost wish the NFL had forced them to change their name from the Browns to the Cleveland Steamers. Would've been SO very appropriate...
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Marauders and Americans were awful choices.
We were going to be the Bombers if we got the expansion team in 93 I believe. But I'm sure that would have been changed years later as it's not PC in the post-9/11 world. :eyes:
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Rhinos is a pretty cool name for a football team.
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
If it hadn't been Ravens, wouldn't have minded the Baltimore Mustangs. Very close to having the Colts name, assuming Stallions was also not available.
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BohBalmer
Blue Crabs
That's actually not bad... Bc
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RavenScallywag
- The first name thrown around was "Baltimore Rhinos", even before the move was announced
- Other names given by NFL Properties included Bombers, Steamers, Railers, and Mustangs
- The fan vote was limited to Marauders, Americans, and Ravens
- Ravens got 20k+ votes in the fan poll, while Marauders and Americans got 5k+ each.
Wow. Nearly all of those are "steamers". I think we could come up with a better list in about 10 minutes.
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Baltimore Americans? Sounds like a hyphenated ethnicity. :grbac: And yes, Bombers would've been awkward as hell after 9/11. I didn't mind Railers, though. Like Ravens, it speaks to the city's history/culture.
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Quote:
Originally Posted by
akashicrecorder
Baltimore Americans? Sounds like a hyphenated ethnicity. :grbac: And yes, Bombers would've been awkward as hell after 9/11. I didn't mind Railers, though. Like Ravens, it speaks to the city's history/culture.
IIRC Americans was a RR line
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RavenScallywag
Since it's been 17 years since Art Modell announced the name "Ravens", Baltimore Sun reposted an article they wrote in 2009 that detailed the names that led up to the fan vote that gave us Ravens...
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/200...s-norm-coleman
Some highlights
- The first name thrown around was "Baltimore Rhinos", even before the move was announced
- Other names given by NFL Properties included Bombers, Steamers, Railers, and Mustangs
- The fan vote was limited to Marauders, Americans, and Ravens
- Ravens got 20k+ votes in the fan poll, while Marauders and Americans got 5k+ each.
What I find funny about this is the franchise coming from Cleveland, almost being named the Steamers. Almost wish the NFL had forced them to change their name from the Browns to the Cleveland Steamers. Would've been SO very appropriate...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
GOTA
Rhinos is a pretty cool name for a football team.
The 2009 Sun story cited is sort of a partial history. It's more interesting and complete to go back further in time to the 1993 expansion bid and look at the team names that were proposed then, and then follow that history through to the Browns move.
There were two ownership groups that the city had presented to the league during expansion. One was led by Boogie Weinglass, who made his money as owner of the groove retail chain, Merry-Go-Round (and who was played by Mickey Rourke in the Barry Levison film, Diner). The other was Malcolm Glazer, who went on to buy the Bucs.
Baltimorons didn't trust Glazer -- thought of him as a Florida carpet bagger, after the Irsay experience. The NFL had a big problem with Weinglass and wasn't so hot on Glazer either. Eventually they forced Baltimore to dump both prospective owners, creating a shotgun marriage with Arthur Lerner as the prospective owner. Lerner had Maryland ties (MCNB credit card empire) and was Art Modell's buddy.
[I've forever maintained that Lerner and Modell conspired to sabotage the Baltimore expansion bid (the financially strapped Modell ran the expansion committee) so the Modell could move to Baltimore, Taglibue could help out his buddy JK Cooke in DC, and Lerner could just wait and get awarded the new Browns franchise and the NFL's stadium money... all culminating in Tags, Lerner and Modell --and that goof of a governor Parris Glendening -- jammed into Lerner's private jet at BWI to sign the contract to move the Browns.... But that's another story!]
Anyway, Boogie wanted to name the team Bombers and even had team colors picked out (cream and dark red and navy) and a logo. He also registered Ravens because an informal poll said Ravens was the fan favorite.
Glazer wanted Cobras.
The NFL, which had final said, rejected the names before they rejected the men. They forced both groups to accept Rhinos as the name of the 1995 expansion team, had they won the bid.
Of course it was Lerner who inherited the Rhinos proposition, and then sneaked out the back door after Tags announced Jacksonville over Baltimore, so the name game ended there, for the time being.
When the Modells moved here, and eventually agreed to drop the Browns name, it was David Modell who was given the job of picking the name. He was sold on Americans (I want to say the name came from an early locomotive built at B&O's Camden Yards, but I'd have to check on that).
But Modell pledged to go with whatever the fans voted on, and as it was five years prior, Ravens was the fan favorite.
Re: Alternative Names for the Ravens
Raptors
Phoenix (rising from the ashes of the Colts' departure)
Wolfpack (would have loved that one with our D)
But I still would have voted for Ravens.