Sports Team Branding Changes: Overview
Sports team branding changes have increasingly come under scrutiny, particularly concerning the use of Indigenous-themed names and mascots. Historically, many teams have adopted names inspired by local culture, wildlife, or historical events, which were often intended to foster community spirit. However, the adoption of names referencing American Indian tribes has sparked significant controversy due to their potential insensitivity and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes. For instance, logos like Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland MLB team, which was retired in 2018, exemplify how branding can be rooted in offensive caricatures.
In recent years, movements advocating for cultural sensitivity have gained momentum, leading to significant branding changes among various teams. Notably, the Washington NFL team, previously known as the Redskins, rebranded to the Washington Commanders in 2022 amid growing public pressure and a societal shift towards recognizing Indigenous rights. Conversely, some teams, like the Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Chiefs, have retained their names despite ongoing debates about cultural appropriation and racism.
The discussion surrounding sports team branding often divides opinions, with some viewing traditional names as a celebration of local heritage, while others argue they contribute to ongoing discrimination and misunderstanding of Indigenous cultures. Recent legislative actions in states like New York and California aim to address these issues further by mandating changes to schools utilizing Indigenous-themed names and imagery. Overall, the topic remains complex and multifaceted, reflecting broader societal conversations about race, identity, and tradition in contemporary sports culture.
Sports Team Branding Changes: Overview
Introduction
When sports teams adopt their names, they frequently draw inspiration from cultural concepts, historical events, weather patterns, and wildlife that are common to the communities or regions in which the teams are formed. These monikers are usually noncontroversial in nature and serve to unite teammates and fans.
Some sports teams select names by paying homage to certain social groups that are either currently or formerly prevalent in their respective communities. One of the most common and controversial examples of this practice is the use of the names of American Indian tribes. Some names, such as the Florida State University (FSU) Seminoles, connect with a specific tribe or elements thereof. Other sports teams use terms that are historically pejorative, derogatory, or prejudicial terms for Indigenous peoples used by White colonizers. Team names have, in turn, fed into other aspects of their branding, such as logos, mascots, and fight songs or chants, and have, at times, inspired behaviors or gestures performed by mascots, cheerleaders, or fans.
In the twenty-first century, increased attention has been paid to issues of cultural sensitivity in sports teams' branding. Many groups have argued that the time has come to change the Indigenous–themed names of sports teams. Other parties have argued that such names are not insensitive and that a change in brand would damage a team's tradition, popularity, and economics. The issue remained controversial in America, where the celebration of diversity is as prevalent as the celebration of sports franchises.
Understanding the Discussion
Chief Wahoo: The longtime logo and mascot of the Major League Baseball team representing Cleveland, Ohio; a bright red, smiling caricature of an Indigenous man that is widely considered offensive. It was officially retired in 2018.
Florida State Seminoles: Nickname for athletic teams representing Florida State University (FSU). Although some have criticized the name for being insensitive to Indigenous peoples, the school has developed a relationship with the local Seminole community; the Seminole Tribe of Florida has sanctioned the school's use of the Seminole name.
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA): Nonprofit association of over one thousand colleges and universities in the United States and Canada that oversees the rules, regulations, and organization of school athletic programs.
Washington Commanders: An American tackle-football team in the National Football League (NFL) established in 1932; its original nickname, the Redskins, was widely condemned as racially offensive and was retired in 2020.
History
The practice of naming sports teams after Indigenous Americans is more than a century old. However, many sports teams have adopted names from terminology that is much older. According to historians, upon his arrival in the Caribbean in 1492, Christopher Columbus dubbed the peoples he encountered "Indians," mistakenly believing that he had reached India; the term "American Indians" later became the US government's official designation for the Indigenous peoples of North America, and use of the word "Indian" as a description or self-identification became controversial in the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, the term "redskin" appeared in an English dictionary as a description for Indigenous peoples, with the phrase "often contemptuous" added to the definition. According to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the term originated as a reference to the colonialist practice of scalping Indigenous peoples for bounties.
Beginning in the eighteenth century, various amateur, college, and professional sports teams began adopting Indigenous names and mascots, some employing overtly prejudicial names. Others employed terms such as "chiefs," "braves," and "warriors." For example, the name of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team eventually known as the Atlanta Braves originated in 1912 in Boston, Massachusetts, when a team owner belonged to New York City's Tammany Hall political machine, which itself had been named for Delaware chief Tammamend and used a chief in headdress as its symbol. Many professional sports teams using stereotypes and caricatures as their moniker had players from marginalized groups, such as the Oorang Indians football team of the early 1920s, whose head coach was Jim Thorpe, who was of Sauk and Fox descent. The Oorang Indians featured tomahawk-throwing displays during halftime. During the 1930s and 1940s, sports-themed comedy troupes, such as the all-Black Zulu Cannibal Giants, would dress in tribal costumes and body paint and perform for predominantly White audiences.
The Cleveland major-league baseball team was established in 1894 but did not become known as the "Indians" until 1915. The team unveiled a logo depicting an Indigenous person in 1947, designed with yellow skin and a large nose. In 1951 a redesign of the logo featuring bright red skin was unveiled and remained in use for more than half a century, becoming known as the "Chief Wahoo" logo. Also in the 1950s, the Milwaukee Braves (formerly of Boston) began to feature a caricature of an Indigenous man—a live actor known as Chief Noc-a-homa—costumed and adorned with war paint who would emerge from a teepee to dance whenever a team member hit a home run; the iconography moved along with the team to Atlanta in the mid-1960s. In the 1960s a well-known Indigenous–themed professional football team, the Chiefs, was established in Kansas City, and another—arguably the most controversial—relocated from Boston to Washington, DC.
By the beginning of the 1970s, activist efforts were already occurring, often led by the NCAI as well as other Indigenous groups, against sports organizations' and teams' use of names and branding, such as Chief Wahoo, considered offensive. Because of such pressure, several "Indians" teams at the collegiate level—including those at Dartmouth College and Stanford University—changed to less controversial names. Following Indigenous students' and staff members' signing of a petition for the removal of its mascot, Stanford complied in 1972 before choosing to forgo a mascot and adopting just the color cardinal red in 1981. Pressure from students and other stakeholders also prompted Dartmouth's switch to Big Green in 1974. In 1992, St. Bonaventure University dropped the use of the name Brown Indians from its athletics programs, replacing it with the Bonnies.
In 1992 activist Suzan Shown Harjo attempted to have the Washington football team's trademark disqualified based on its offensiveness to Indigenous peoples. A federal court ruled in 2003 that the trademark was not intended to be offensive and rejected Harjo's case. The NCAI also sued the team unsuccessfully in 1999 and 2009.
In 2005 the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned its members from adopting culturally insensitive team names. Some teams successfully appealed the ban, such as the Florida State Seminoles, who cited their strong relationship with the Seminole Tribe. Many Seminole leaders came forward to support the team name during the appeal. Seven other schools likewise obtained tribal support and won appeals to retain their team names. Nevertheless, most universities accepted the ban willingly, while others had changed their team names because of public pressure prior to the passage of the NCAA regulation.
The popular discussion around Indigenous-themed branding also brought increased attention to Confederate- and colonial-themed branding in high school and collegiate sports. Although the University of Mississippi retired its mascot, Colonel Reb, in 2003 and discouraged the use of "Dixie" as its unofficial fight song, the team continued to be known as the Ole Miss Rebels. Similarly, the George Washington University team is known as the Colonials. Some have called for such brands associated with colonialism and slavery to be changed due to their racist associations.
Many professional sports teams and their owners proved less willing than their NCAA counterparts to change names. The Atlanta Braves, for example, retired Chief Noc-a-homa in the early 1980s but made no other changes. The Kansas City Chiefs changed their logo from that of an Indigenous person to an arrowhead in 1963 and later changed their mascot from a White horseman in an Indigenous-inspired costume to an anthropomorphic wolf in 1989 but maintained their name. The Golden State Warriors professional basketball team (whose name dates back to the 1940s) also retained their name, while changing their logo over the decades to feature an image of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, ostensibly named in honor of a Sauk warrior and represented by a somewhat stylized Indian-head logo, resisted calls to change its name or branding. The Blackhawks had, for years, avoided the level of criticism aimed at other teams, in part because the team contributed financially to and had gained backing from the American Indian Center of Chicago until 2019, when the center cut ties with the team.
With several prominent professional sports teams maintaining Indigenous–themed names into the twenty-first century, a heated national debate continued regarding the issue. In Ohio, Cleveland's MLB team began phasing out the marketing and use of the Chief Wahoo logo in 2009 because of a strong push for a branding change. In 2013 the public battle over the name spilled onto television and the internet, when it was alleged that Turner Broadcasting System cameras repeatedly focused on fans who had painted the logo on their faces during a playoff game at Cleveland's Progressive Field. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and fifty senators publicly encouraged the Washington football team to change its name, but owner Dan Snyder dismissed the issue. (Ironically, Cleveland baseball team owner Larry Dolan joined in on the debate over the Washington football team, stating in an interview that, if he were the owner of the Washington team, he would change the name.)
In 2014 the Cleveland team stopped using Chief Wahoo on park signs and players' hats. Protests intensified when Cleveland made it to the World Series in 2016. After negotiations with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, team CEO Paul Dolan announced in January 2018 that beginning with the 2019 season, the logo would no longer appear on uniforms, although for trademark reasons, local-area merchandise would still feature it. At the time, Cleveland team owners continued to argue that the team name was an homage to the region's Oneida history. They also engaged American Indian tribes as part of a goodwill public relations endeavor but maintained that there would be no change in name.
Meanwhile, in 2014 the US Supreme Court weighed in on the naming debate when it rejected the US Patent and Trademark Office's ban on offensive trademark registrations as a violation of constitutional free-speech protections. Then, in an unrelated case in 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that disparaging wording could be trademarked. Thus, sports teams with offensive trademarks could not lose their existing trademark protections, so only social pressure or commercial reasons could force private-sector sports teams to change their names.
Sports Team Name Changes Today
The issue of sports team branding and racial discrimination gained media attention again in early 2020 when the Kansas City Chiefs played in the Super Bowl. Then, that summer, amid widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism, investors pressured several major corporate sponsors to cut ties with the Washington NFL team over its name; those sponsors, in turn, applied pressure to the team ownership. That July the franchise announced it would rebrand itself, retaining only its existing colors, and would play simply as the Washington Football Team until a new nickname was selected. Players were issued new uniforms and helmets featuring their numbers, instead of a logo. At least a handful of potential names were under consideration, and the president of the Navajo Nation recommended the Code Talkers as an option that would honor Navajo service members whose language skills aided the country during World War II.
In the wake of the Washington team's decision, other Indigenous-themed professional sports teams, including the MLB franchises in Cleveland and Atlanta, announced reviews of their own branding. After consulting with fans, players, Indigenous groups, and other stakeholders, Cleveland announced a name change in December of that year, pending selection of a new official name by the 2022 season; their decision to continue using the existing name in the interim drew both praise and criticism. The team also pledged to donate the proceeds of Chief Wahoo merchandise sales to initiatives supporting Indigenous peoples. In 2021 it was announced that the team would change its name to the Guardians following the 2021 season.
By contrast, the Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Chiefs both decided to retain their existing branding and expressed ambivalence regarding the tomahawk chop gesture, which the Atlanta organization had encouraged among fans. The Atlanta team also engaged in dialogue with the Eastern Cherokees and promoted its educational efforts to raise awareness about Indigenous peoples and history through both a ballpark exhibit and an educational foundation. In 2020 Kansas City did move to ban fans attending games from wearing headdresses or face paint referencing or stereotyping American Indian cultures or traditions. The Atlanta team's first appearance in the World Series in over two decades in October and November 2021 further heightened debates about its branding and the tomahawk chop gesture; while Manfred released a statement in their defense, the NCAI issued a countering response that called on the event's broadcaster to not display any instances of the tomahawk chop performed and for the Atlanta team to make similar changes to those made by Cleveland. In January 2022, the Washington Football Team officially announced that its name had changed to the Washington Commanders, and a new logo was unveiled. While some Indigenous activists commended the announcement, many continued to call for Kansas City to follow this example, especially as the team remained a prominent, successful contender in the NFL in the early 2020s.
Several state governments also responded to the movement to change such team names and imagery within their jurisdictions. By mid-2019, a handful of states had restricted and, in some cases, outlawed the use of Indigenous names, symbols, or related imagery for public school athletic teams. A vote by New York's Board of Regents in 2023 resulted in a requirement for all schools with Indigenous-themed names, logos, and/or mascots to initiate a change by 2025, and California followed suit in 2024. Nonetheless, the extent to which state governments could restrict free expression remained open to debate and the use of Indigenous imagery for sports remained widespread.
Issues surrounding culturally and racially insensitive sports team names have largely divided fans and analysts into two camps. On one side are those who believe that the use of Indigenous imagery as the basis for a sports team is an outdated practice. In some cases (like that of FSU), the name of the team stems from a legitimate embrace of the historical presence of certain American Indian groups. However, opponents have argued, even these well-meaning circumstances have given rise to fan behavior—such as face painting, fake war cries, and so-called tomahawk chops—that reduce Indigenous cultures to a stereotype. Many critics have said that the more pejorative terms and stereotypical imagery are examples of overt racism. Social psychology research has suggested such stereotyping can perpetuate bias and harm American Indians' mental health and sense of belonging, and the American Psychological Association and major Indigenous organizations like NCAI have opposed those names and representations.
Others value sports team names for their historical tradition. They have argued that the Illini, the Sioux, and the Seminoles are examples of university sports teams that embrace local Indigenous communities and history in their respective areas. They have maintained that teams with names like "chiefs" and "braves" honor tradition, and supporters have pointed to periodic polls of American Indians that have suggested the majority may not be offended by such names or branding. Furthermore, some have argued, if a major sports team changes its name or brand, the consequences could be significant. Outside of the cost of rebranding an established franchise, some have claimed it is possible that teams would lose fans. Without the brand and fan recognition, sports teams—which provide major economic development resources to the communities in which they operate—could falter, resulting in fewer jobs, tax revenues, and other benefits.
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