Utah team nickname/colors/logo, mascot (and related marketing)

[JMCx4]

outlaws sounds good to an outsider like me. i know you will all think this is stupid but utah has rocks & stars so rockstars? please no h8te needed.

How 'bout pity instead?

 

[Brodie]

Utah Rockstars would fit the hilariously inappropriate music themed tradition of other local teams

 

[No Fun Shogun]

So how is Utah Yeti ouf of the picture because of cooler mugs or something but Utah Mammoth is a possibility with Colorado Mammoth lacrosse team around?

Yeti by itself is at least a national brand, whereas Mammoth is inherently qualified by whatever city/state identifier you want to put in front of it.

I agree that the notion that Yeti having grounds precluding a hockey team from using the name as well seems totally bunk to me, though. But no point worrying about that, barring Utah having a tantrum and just sticking with Hockey Club for a few years until they can get the branding that they really want.

 

[aqib]

Outlaws was also in the USFL -- the original, not the recent lower level version.

Good catch. I forgot about them.

 

[red devil]

 

[No Fun Shogun]

My take is that the Mammoth logo is by far the best. HC's looks like an aping of what the Wild logo is going for, and Outlaws' is about the epitome of a random team generator in an EA NHL game create a team mode.

 

[Martin Veillette]

 

[Yukon Joe]

SO Utah HC is the "Yeti" without calling themselves the Yeti. Fair enough. It reminds me a lot of the Kootenay/Winnipeg Ice logo - the head is just pointed more to the side and not as much towards the front. Given that the team rebranded to the Wenatchee Wild maybe that's not such a big deal, but if they're really sensitive about trademarks that could be a concern.

Outlaws seems like the real outlier here - the logo looks quite generic, and doesn't go with the black-and-blue colour scheme.

The Mammoth - eh it's fine. Looks good even.


My money is still on Tuah HC, more so after seeing the logo.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

Outlaws best name of the 3. Mammoth best logo.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Let's be clear, if they go this route, the Hockey Club with a Yeti logo is pretty clearly a placeholder for them to try to get the rights to be the Utah Yeti at some point in the future.

 

[Brodie]

Dire, dire stuff

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Honestly? Mammoth is the only one of those logos I'd save in a fire. Outlaws is far, far, far too generic of a logo that it honestly feels a bit insulting. EA Sports has better generic create-a-team logos and most of those are pure shit. HC is a few other logos crammed together in an ultimately unsatisfying manner. Mammoth actually looks like a proper logo, at least. Not great, but not the kind fans will be asking to be updated within a handful of years.

So much untapped potential dragged down by a pretty shoddy process. Design by committee never f***ing works.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Let's be clear, if they go this route, the Hockey Club with a Yeti logo is pretty clearly a placeholder for them to try to get the rights to be the Utah Yeti at some point in the future.

Maybe, maybe not.

What it reminds me is of the Baltimore Colts. No - not THOSE Baltimore Colts, but the CFL expansion franchise in Baltimore (this was pre-Ravens). They named themselves the Baltimore Colts - and were promptly slapped down by the NFL in a lawsuit (the logo though was completely different).

So they named themselves the Baltimore Football Club, or Baltimore CFLers. Nevertheless the fans would chant "Colts!" in that first season. In the second season though they went with the similar name "Stallions", and kept their logo.

The difference of course is that the name "Colts" held a heck of a lot of special meaning in Baltimore back then, which I doubt the name Yeti does in SLC.

So it could just be to see if the fans organically go with the name Yeti or not. Or if some other name fits. I mentioned it looked similar to the WHL's Ice. Or Bigfoot. or Sasquatch - or whatever else. Maybe Harry/Hairy - I dunno.

 

[LadyStanley]

 

[sneakytitz]

After seeing that Yeti logo, I wish they could have used that name. That is a solid logo with a neat tie-in to the Jazz.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I agree that the notion that Yeti having grounds precluding a hockey team from using the name as well seems totally bunk to me, though. But no point worrying about that, barring Utah having a tantrum and just sticking with Hockey Club for a few years until they can get the branding that they really want.

So I don't think it's that Yeti Coolers, LLC could prevent anyone else from ever using the four letters "YETI". After all, the Cooler company didn't invent the word.

Rather though that the Hockey Club would be restricted in how it used the name, presumably too much so for their liking.

Trademark law all comes down to preventing confusion in the marketplace. So if the HC was named "Yeti" they could only do so in ways to ensure that there's no confusion. Presumably they would always have to use the word "Utah", as in "Utah Yeti" and never just "Yeti". Or they'd have to use the full logo, and not just the name. Or things like that.

Plus, if no deal was reached, it would take litigation. The HC would "win" to one degree or another - there's no way the Cooler company could prevent the name from being used at all - but given how important merchandising and marketing is in pro sports they almost certainly didn't want the uncertainty of not knowing for months or a year or more of knowing how to use their own name.

 

[aqib]

So I don't think it's that Yeti Coolers, LLC could prevent anyone else from ever using the four letters "YETI". After all, the Cooler company didn't invent the word.

Rather though that the Hockey Club would be restricted in how it used the name, presumably too much so for their liking.

Trademark law all comes down to preventing confusion in the marketplace. So if the HC was named "Yeti" they could only do so in ways to ensure that there's no confusion. Presumably they would always have to use the word "Utah", as in "Utah Yeti" and never just "Yeti". Or they'd have to use the full logo, and not just the name. Or things like that.

Plus, if no deal was reached, it would take litigation. The HC would "win" to one degree or another - there's no way the Cooler company could prevent the name from being used at all - but given how important merchandising and marketing is in pro sports they almost certainly didn't want the uncertainty of not knowing for months or a year or more of knowing how to use their own name.

What's funny is that if you go to the Yeti website they have mugs for every NHL team. Except Utah...

 

[oknazevad]

Most online sources I've looked at give the plural as "yetis."

Do you have a source for your claim that the plural is "yeti?"

Merriam Webster, Oxford Dictionaries, Random House, HarperCollins. Checked four dictionaries before I made my claim. None list "yetis".

 

[rojac]

Merriam Webster, Oxford Dictionaries, Random House, HarperCollins. Checked four dictionaries before I made my claim. None list "yetis".

I have only double-checked Merriam-Webster so fair but it does not list yeti as the plural. It does not list a plural at all. For example, if you look up sheep in Merriam-Webster, you'll find a line that explicitly list s sheep as the plural. There is no such line in the entry for yeti.

 

[Brodie]

Yeti by itself is at least a national brand, whereas Mammoth is inherently qualified by whatever city/state identifier you want to put in front of it.

I agree that the notion that Yeti having grounds precluding a hockey team from using the name as well seems totally bunk to me, though. But no point worrying about that, barring Utah having a tantrum and just sticking with Hockey Club for a few years until they can get the branding that they really want.

The problem isn't that there was no way for them to secure the trademark, it was almost certainly the case that any merchandise that they sold That conflicts with merchandise sold by the cooler company would have to find some work around such as just using the word Utah for example to prevent confusion. And it happens to be the case that the cooler company sells quite a lot of merchandise

Think about the amount of stuff in any given teams in arena store. Maybe 50% of that stuff couldn't be sold with just the Yeti branding without a waiver from the cooler company.

 

[oknazevad]

Exactly. Even things like the souvenir cups one gets with a large soda in the arena would run into trademark conflicts with the company known for making cups with the word "Yeti" on them. Considering how basic that is, they probably decided it's just not worth it after all.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Exactly. Even things like the souvenir cups one gets with a large soda in the arena would run into trademark conflicts with the company known for making cups with the word "Yeti" on them. Considering how basic that is, they probably decided it's just not worth it after all.

It's not quite that simple.

Consider the "Stanley cup" - that is the cup made by the Stanley corporation, not the NHL's championship prize.

There's no issue with the Stanley corporation selling big drinking cups that say "Stanley" on them - because they market them as "Stanley tumblers".

However, given that Yeti Coolers, LLC is a NHL merchandising partner, there is probably a desire not to go to legal war with them.