Could Warriors soon be sharing their nickname?
In what’s been a long, lost season for the Golden State Warriors already, they may now be in danger of losing the exclusivity of their nickname.
The NFL’s Washington club announced Monday it will ditch the original nickname it’s kept for 83 years that so many found not only to be offensive to Native Americans, but essentially just racist branding.
According to many reports, the team’s most popular — and maybe most likely — re-branding choice is the Washington Warriors. Some say the name Warriors seems to have a slight edge over the Red Tails, a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen.
And, as a Warriors spokesman confirmed Sunday night, if Washington owner Dan Snyder wants to be called the Warriors and the NFL approves, there’s nothing the NBA or Warriors can do about it. Since it’s a different sport and different league, there’s no recourse for the Warriors, just ask the Giants — San Francisco, not New York, which adopted its nickname 40 years after the baseball team first did in 1885.
Washington coach Ron Rivera, a former Seaside High and Cal football star, told the Washington Post he’s working with Snyder to come up with a name to honor the military as well as Native Americans. If that’s the criteria, what better way than to join Golden State and become the Warriors, defined as “a brave or experienced soldier or fighter” and a term entrenched in Native American lore?
Still, finishing with the NBA’s worst record and then having to share its nickname just as the franchise gets ready to celebrate its 75th anniversary, makes for quite a rough patch for our Warriors.
Golden State, unlike the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves, has managed to avoid criticism for the Native American link to its franchise nickname. Displaying a bridge as the focal point of your logo is a great way to deflect criticism. But, truthfully, it’s mostly because it’s been nearly 50 years since Golden State’s logos or uniforms included any Native American imagery. The Warriors stopped displaying a Native American headdress on their logo in 1969. Their warm up suits still featured the headdress until 1975, but that’s said to be more attributable to budget-conscious team owner Franklin Mieuli’s desire to reuse gear.
If Washington and Snyder decide to become the Warriors — he trademarked “Warriors” years ago for his prospective arena league team — it would mark the first time in nearly 60 years an NBA team has shared a nickname with an NFL squad. Not since the NBA’s Chicago Packers joined Green Bay’s Packers in 1961 have the NFL and NBA had similarly named teams.
Sharing nicknames across the four major professional sports leagues — NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL — is more common than one might imagine. There are currently six nicknames being shared by two teams:
CARDINALS: St. Louis (MLB) and Arizona (NFL); JETS: New York (NFL) and Winnipeg (NHL); KINGS: Sacramento (NBA) and Los Angeles (NHL); PANTHERS: Carolina (NFL) and Florida (NHL); RANGERS: New York (NHL) and Texas (MLB); GIANTS: San Francisco (MLB) and New York (NFL).