Avon baseball team holds naming contest
Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram
AVON — There’s a new team in town, and it needs a name.
That’s why Avon Professional Baseball, the new Frontier League expansion team, is having a “Name the Team” challenge. Beginning Monday, fans will be able to submit their team name ideas online at the team’s Web site at www.avonprobaseball.com.
All suggestions must be submitted by Oct. 20, at which time the top five to 10 names will be posted on the Web site for fans to vote for their favorite. The person with the winning entry will win season tickets and merchandise and will be recognized at a home game next summer.
The team plans to unveil its new name and logo by mid-November.
Already, some suggestions have been made, such as the Lake Erie Walleyes. Entrants should remember that the name should lend itself to something that can be visualized.
“We think we’re going to have the good, bad and ugly come through,” said Nicolle Meyer, a spokeswoman for the team. “We might also give prizes for the bad names.”
There’s a lot of alliteration in some other names in the Frontier League, such as the River City Rascals, Florence Freedom or Kalamazoo Kings.
Anything to do with Avon doesn’t need to be incorporated in the idea, but participants might want to think about some connection to Lorain County or Northeast Ohio, Meyer said.
Sometimes fun names are the best, she said, adding that the Lansing Lugnuts are extremely popular.
One team called itself the Montgomery Biscuits, she said, with a biscuit mascot with a tongue resembling a stick of butter.
“We may not do anything that crazy,” Meyer said.
The team has hired Plan B. Branding, a San Diego-based creative ideas company, to take the ideas of the finalists and develop them into a brand complete with logo, mascot and uniform designs.
Plan B. hit a home run with the Clearwater Threshers. Its logo is a thresher shark circling a baseball. Some $100,000 of merchandise was sold before opening day. Billboards around town had a swimming shark and the cryptic words “Clearwater Beaches Are No Longer Safe.”
“We’re looking for fans to tell us what they’re proud of and what will make a splash,” Jason Klein of Plan B. said.
Every suggestion should have an explanation of why that name has significance for this area, he said.
Avon Professional Baseball is the newest expansion team of the Frontier League, an independent professional league with 12 teams throughout the Midwest. The team will open its inaugural season in May 2009 in a new 5,000-seat stadium being built at Interstate 90 and state Route 611.
Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram October 4th, 2008 in Local and State. Popularity: 1% |
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