It's Gotta Be Da Symbol

I remember when the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies entered the NBA and choose their names, they were congratulated by marketing experts. The reasoning was that by choosing animal names, they could easily create a nice recognizable logo that could be put on all kinds of products. Remember, this was the mid-nineties, when Michael Jordan was at the height of his fame, and every teenage boy on earth had at least one item of clothing with the Chicago Bulls logo on it. These marketing experts believed that the Bulls' marketability was due to their colourful, recognizable, easily reproducible logo.

That was the point I realized that most of the self-appointed experts commenting on things in the media are idiots. Really, they expected us to believe that the ubiquity of that symbol was due to the bull himself, with no credit apparently going to that Jordan guy, or the Nike marketing machine.

...and upside-down, it looks like an angry robot reading a book

But there is something to be said for a symbol's ability to, you know, symbolize. I mean, I'm sure the 90's Bulls could have used the poop emoji as a logo and still would have sold a billion shirts and hats, but that's assuming it's a recognizable poop emoji. If a team has a plain, forgettable logo, its hard to convey their fame and adoration into merchandise sales. As an example, the New York football Giants and San Francisco baseball Giants have both won multiple championships in recent years, but their lack of real logos have prevented them from becoming popular on clothing.

This all came to mind recently because the Raptors - in their latest attempt to turn the page on their sorry franchise history - have adopted a new logo, and it's a basketball with the seams shredded, presumably by a Raptor's claws. So rather than show the raptor, it shows indirect evidence of the raptor's presence. It's clever. Not quite Hartford-Whalers-negative-space-H clever, but pretty clever. But the point is, the logo doesn't have a raptor, the distinctive aspect of the team. Those marketing experts from twenty-years ago would be horrified.

I'm not really sold on it either. It's nice and simple and reasonably attractive, but not real distinctive. As many fans have been pointing out, it looks quite reminiscent the symbol of the Brooklyn Nets, who are not only a hated rival, but also one of the ultimate how-the-hell-do-we-get-a-logo-out-of-this nicknames.

I've found a number of fan-made logo proposals on the net from the last few years. Some are amateur, some urge new nicknames altogether (especially reviving the "Huskies" name.) But some are actually pretty good. Good enough that I'd choose them over the new logo.