View, Review: What’s in a group identify? Imagination, or a scarcity of it

Earlier this week, the Indian Premier League newcomers Lucknow franchise unveiled their identify: Lucknow Super Giants. If group proprietor Sanjiv Goenka is to be believed, the identify was finalised based mostly on a crowd-sourced marketing campaign. Talk about an unimaginative crowd.

Team proprietor, Dr. Sanjiv Goenka, Chairman @rpsggroup unveils the identify for the Lucknow IPL group. 😊👏🏼#LucknowSuperGiants #NaamBanaoNaamKamao #IPL2022 @IPL @BCCI @GautamGambhir @klrahul11 pic.twitter.com/TvGaZlIgFR
— Lucknow Super Giants (@LucknowIPL) January 24, 2022
“Don’t listen to Shakespeare. There’s everything in a name, and we’re waiting for one,” the group’s social media channels declared on January 3, asserting the fan contest. For three weeks, quite a few movies in addition to group mentor Gautam Gambhir — “pehli baar, aap rakhenge IPL team ka naam [for the first time, you will get to name an IPL team]” — referred to as on individuals to drop strategies on their web site.
It took three weeks for the familiar-sounding Lucknow Super Giants to be chosen. The RP Sanjiv Goenka group earlier had a franchise within the IPL named the Rising Pune Super Giants, and observers had rapidly picked up on the play: RPSG’s RPSG. The identify was modified to Rising Pune Supergiant for the group’s remaining season in 2017.
But Deccan Chronicle had lengthy beat them to the initials sport, once they named their group Deccan Chargers. It is high-stakes sport, and the proprietor’s curiosity is paramount. Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad too are a reference to their house owners’ companies.
Hockey India League’s Delhi Waveriders one-upped the above. Putting Waveriders (surfers?) in land-locked Delhi. At least the house owners, The Wave Group, had an excuse. Why are kabaddi group Patna Pirates’ house owners misplaced at sea?

The examples above aren’t any patch on the Kings, Royals, Sultans et al. Reminder: India isn’t a monarchy and princely states haven’t been a factor since 1950 (or 1971, for those who depend the privy purse). Kings XI Punjab tried to tweak the formulation for some time, earlier than switching to… Punjab Kings.
Then there’s Warriors, the Lorem Ipsum, John Smith, placeholder textual content of sports activities franchises. Cricket’s Pune Warriors, badminton’s North Eastern Warriors and Awadhe Warriors, kabaddi’s Bengal Warriors, and hockey’s Punjab Warriors and Maratha Warriors. And these are the Warriors in India alone. Let’s cross the Golden Gate bridge whereas we’re at it.
A big chunk of such fashionable (nonsensical) nomenclature owes it to American sports activities.
There are the geographically-redundant Los Angeles Angels and Philadelphia Phillies. There are Ducks and Pelicans. (When naming after a fowl or animal, shouldn’t the thought be to decide on one thing fierce?)
Loads of weak group names in American sports activities are attributable to groups shifting bases and never altering names. NBA’s Jazz have been based in New Orleans, undisputed dwelling to the music style. The group hightailed to the desert and Salt Lake City, Utah, ensuing within the complicated Utah Jazz.
The Lakers spent 12 years in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the “Land of Ten Thousand Lakes”, earlier than shifting to Los Angeles, California in 1959. The identify doesn’t make a lot sense, however is saved by LA Lakers’ success and the alliteration.

Then there are the names that don’t make sense however have logical origins. Denver Nuggets usually are not sponsored by KFC. San Francisco 49ers didn’t select random digits. Both names are references to the historic gold rush within the American West.
There’s no Hogwarts in Washington. The identify Washington Wizards was a results of the house owners feeling uncomfortable with the franchise’s unique identify ‘Bullets’, given the implied violence in a metropolis that was affected by excessive crime charges. The new identify too generated controversy as ‘Wizard’ is a rank within the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan, and Washington has a big African-American inhabitants. It wouldn’t be the one offensive identify in American sports activities. Till not too long ago, the NFL had groups referred to as ‘Redskins’ and ‘Indians’.
NBA’s Detroit Pistons did the naming factor effectively. The membership originated in Fort Wayne and was named after car magnate Fred Zollner’s piston firm. And once they moved in 1957, they moved to Detroit, the automotive capital generally known as ‘Motor City’. That Isaiah Thomas and the Bad Boys have been a machine and ran roughshod through the 80s made it even higher.

Pune Pistons, from the now-defunct Indian Badminton League, thus made sense, with town’s standing as one of many car hubs of India.
There have been comparable flashes of creativity elsewhere. There are Kings, Royals, Sultans and Warriors in each Caribbean Premier League and Pakistan Super League. But there are additionally native references.
CPL had a franchise referred to as the Antigua Hawksbills, named after the Hawksbill sea turtle native to the west Atlantic. The identify introduced deal with a critically endangered species. The group went extinct in 2014.

There are the Jamaica Tallawahs. Tallawah (nothing to do with MS Dhoni) is the Jamaican twist on ‘stalwart’, which means the strong-willed and courageous.
In PSL, there’s the Lahore Qalandars. Qalandar, ‘a title in Sufism’, is an ideal match for town that homes the most important Sufi shrine in South Asia. Also, within the Peshawar Zalmi, the suffix is a Pashto phrase which means youth.
The Premier Hockey League was a uncommon win in that regard. The competitors’s four-year existence coincided with the darkest hour of Indian hockey, with the group failing to qualify for the 2008 Olympics. But there was a semblance of making an attempt to construct a reference to a metropolis’s heritage and followers. For Bangalore Lions, there have been Sher-e-Jalandhar. For Hyderabad Sultans, Chennai Veerans. And with Orissa Steelers, they struck gold. Odisha, in fact, is the very best metal producing state within the nation. The league ceased in 2008, IPL got here into existence and seemingly set the template for sports activities group names in India.
Falling again on the nation’s identify after failing to provide you with something unique, nevertheless, deserves a point out.

NFL’s Houston Texans (a state, on this occasion) not less than play to a rivalry with Dallas Cowboys. And NHL’s Montreal Canadiens not less than infused the Quebecois flavour with the French spelling.
What’s the excuse for calling an IPL group Mumbai Indians? Are the remaining Kyrgyztanis? But hey, it might be worse. At least they didn’t run a three-week contest beforehand.