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I haven't even thought twice about the name. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are in St Petersburg FL.
And starting this year, they will now be known as the Tampa Bay Rays. Just FYI.
As for the Rangers, there's a history behind the nature of the nickname that's pretty obvious. The Dallas Rangers wouldn't have any kind of a ring to it.
The Green Bay Packers used to play 3 or 4 home games at County Stadium in Milwaukee. It gets down to it, it doesn't matter what the name of the team is, if they're a good franchise that has talent, makes good draft choices, has good management and a little luck along the way, they're going to be successful. And if they don't have those things, again, it doesn't matter what the name of the team is, they are going to stink the place up. Kansas City Royals were one of the most successful baseball franchises in the mid 70s to mid 80s. Then the owner wealthy owner dies, they lose their leadership, the teams start to smell the place up and the next thing you know, they're a franchise that is one of the laughing stocks of baseball. Doesn't matter what their name is, they stink. So when I move to Dallas and head out to the ballpark, they'll be my hometeam (except when the Royals come to town). The Cowboys on the other hand, will never replace my Kansas City Chiefs. Sorry guys. Where's my scorebook?
Geez, pbergen, you've raised a bunch of questions I daresay not many of us have even thought about!
As someone else already said, renaming the Texas Rangers the "Dallas Rangers" wouldn't make much sense because of history. I never thought about the connection between a team's name versus the city or state they are in, though. Maybe the Rangers would be endearing to many more fans if they'd win once in awhile. And people here are not going to care as much as long as our beloved Dallas Cowboys remain here. As far as your explanation of the origin of the NY Rangers name, that's interesting, I'd never heard that before.
The Dallas Stars name doesn't follow the same identification with city/state like the rest of our teams. I'm sure you know that 10 years ago or so they were originally the Minnesota North Stars and dropped the "North" when they came south. I remember when the Dallas Morning News (was the Times-Herald gone by then?) had a full page of hockey rules and explanation of the game when they moved here.
I always thought the name "New England Patriots" interesting because it uniquely identifies an entire region of several states. It's a great name, too, it fits just like our own teams (except for ex-yankee hockey teams).
No one cares about the Texas Rangers, and changing their name to make it meaningless won't help matters. If anything, it would hack off whatever fans the team has across the state. Dallas isn't always looked upon kindly by the rest of the state.
This is a jinxed team - Google "David Clyde" for the very first of a long line of bad personnel moves. The Rangers seem guaranteed to come up on the short end of any trade they are part of.
In the present day, they're a crummy team in a crummy division in the crummier league, with a nice ballpark (I'll give them that) in a crummy location (for those in Dallas and especially the north suburbs, where the $$$ is concentrated).
Some days I think the Dallas Stars hockey team has more fans than the Rangers.
Never heard about anyone wanting to change the name. Never bothered me.
And i never heard that comment about Dallas.
Yes, the Rangers seem to be jinxed to have a winning team but i am a loyal fan and always will be. I know of many people that cheer for the team no matter what. Also the heat hasn't been a problem for me. Texas Stadium is bad for the extreme temps. I think many people hate Jerry Jones for moving da boys to Arlington and for way he has treated some key players in the past namely Tom Landry.
I don't look at the Rangers being more of a Ft.Worth team at all. I see it as a Dallas team.
kind of an offbeat question here, but i've been wondering about this for a while and was hoping some of you could give me a few thoughts on this matter:
do you guys (dallas-area sports fans) ever wish that your baseball team were named the "dallas rangers" rather than the texas rangers? has there ever been a groundswell of support or a grassroots campaign in the DFW metroplex to officially rebrand the franchise as being from dallas, given that it's the core city of the region?
and yet, the cowboys don't even play in the city of dallas; as with the giants, jets, and redskins, they've played in a suburb outside of the city proper for years while retaining the core city/metropolitan area designation in their moniker. even after they move into their new stadium in arlington, the cowboys won't be dropping the "dallas" part of their name, despite being closer to fort worth than dallas. so proximity to one city over the other isn't an issue.
if the 'boys can do this, why don't the rangers consider it as well, considering that they'll be playing next door? would they genuinely offend a large part of their arlington and fort worth fanbase by doing so? because i feel that the benefits of identifying as a dallas team would outweigh the potentially hurt feelings of a few suburban and fort worth residents - but then again, i don't live in texas so i could be totally wrong on this. just my opinion as an outsider.
thanks for any responses!
Well for one thing, the Rangers don't represent the whole state just because of the name, and I know you've already seen that on this thread.
And as a native of Fort Worth, I and alot of people I know would be offended. Most Arlington residents wouldn't care since they're getting the Cowboys next year. And some residents of Ft. Worth residents jokingly call them the "Ft. Worth Cowboys" since they will be in our county, but they will always be the DALLAS Cowboys.
Now don't start thinking that I'm whining, but the only thing we have in sports that Dallas doesn't have is the Texas Motor Speedway, and sports commentators think that's in Dallas, too. So the last thing we need is the "Dallas" Rangers.... for that reason, and because it just doesn't have the same ring to it, like a previous poster said.
I do however hate that a MLB ballpark is in the suburbs. It needs to be in the city. That park would do wonders for Downtown Dallas. Even moreso than the a new football stadium considering that baseball is very intimate with urban neighborhoods. I think, Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, Fenway Park, Pepco Park, Dodger Stadium, Minute Maid Park.........See the pattern. A downtown stadium would be much better for the team than a team that is out in the suburbs.
Now don't start thinking that I'm whining, but the only thing we have in sports that Dallas doesn't have is the Texas Motor Speedway, and sports commentators think that's in Dallas, too.
Yes, they do, isn't that a shame? It's like the city of Fort Worth doesn't exist! I don't know how many programs I've seen on tv where they will be talking about Dallas and then show some landmark or area of Fort Worth without even specifying where it is. In other words, they just leave you with the impression that it's in Dallas.
Geez, pbergen, you've raised a bunch of questions I daresay not many of us have even thought about!
As someone else already said, renaming the Texas Rangers the "Dallas Rangers" wouldn't make much sense because of history. I never thought about the connection between a team's name versus the city or state they are in, though. Maybe the Rangers would be endearing to many more fans if they'd win once in awhile. And people here are not going to care as much as long as our beloved Dallas Cowboys remain here. As far as your explanation of the origin of the NY Rangers name, that's interesting, I'd never heard that before.
The Dallas Stars name doesn't follow the same identification with city/state like the rest of our teams. I'm sure you know that 10 years ago or so they were originally the Minnesota North Stars and dropped the "North" when they came south. I remember when the Dallas Morning News (was the Times-Herald gone by then?) had a full page of hockey rules and explanation of the game when they moved here.
I always thought the name "New England Patriots" interesting because it uniquely identifies an entire region of several states. It's a great name, too, it fits just like our own teams (except for ex-yankee hockey teams).
haha gotcha. thanks to you and everyone else here for giving me some feedback on this. i hope this was apparent from the start, but i wasn't trying to ruffle any feathers with my original query; it was just something i'd been wondering about for a while, especially in light of the florida marlins' recent announcement that they'll be moving from a stadium in the suburbs to a new baseball-only facility in the city of miami proper in a few years. to coincide with the move, the team will be changing its name to the "miami marlins".
so it got me wondering whether the ownership, management, or fans or the texas rangers had ever brought up a similar sentiment. as i've mentioned, i've never been to the state of texas, much less the DFW area, and so i'm completely unfamiliar with how people in your area identify with your local baseball team and with the city of dallas vs. the cities of arlington and fort worth. hence the original post.
i live in nyc, and five out of our nine local teams play in stadiums/arenas located in the suburbs. only two (the ny rangers and ny knicks) play in manhattan, while the mets play in queens and the yankees play in the bronx. the giants, jets, nets, and devils play in northern nj (about 6 miles west of times square/midtown manhattan) and the islanders play way out on long island, over 25 miles from midtown.
out of all the suburban-based teams, the giants and jets are the only ones who aren't hurt at all by it and have no problems identifying as an nyc team; in fact, the "ny" in their team names actually refers to the entire ny metropolitan area rather than the city of new york proper - because unlike dallas, houston, la, or miami, the nyc metro area stretches out over three (some would even say four) states, with the common denominator being that all of these suburbs and small cities grew up around and in direct relation to nyc proper. half of nyc's suburban population lives in the northern half of the state of nj. so while some people in nj grumble about the giants and jets not having "nj" in their names and will go out of way to refer to the teams as the "jersey giants" or "jersey jets", that hasn't hurt support for those teams at all - both teams have huge fanbases that stretch throughout large areas of ny, nj, and connecticut.
the nets, devils, and islanders have problems with attendance and smaller fanbases, though. basketball and especially hockey simply aren't as popular as spectator sports in the ny area as football and especially baseball, so having more than one team in each sport really hurts the newer, less established teams. case in point: the knicks have been an absolute joke for a while now, but they still get more press than the nets, who had a really nice run (including 2 nba finals appearances) since 2001. the devils won 3 stanley cup championships in a 9 year period and are still one of the better teams in the league, and the islanders won 4 straight stanley cups in the early 80s, but their fanbases are tiny compared with the rangers, who other than the early 90s have been inept or mediocre for the most part.
the nets and devils also are hurt by the fact that they identify as "nj" teams, despite playing right next door to the giants and jets and being located only 6 miles from midtown manhattan. (the devils just recently moved to an arena down in newark, but that's still only 10 miles from downtown manhattan.) fact is that people in the ny area are extremely territorial, meaning that very, very few people from nyc proper will root for a team in nj, while hardly anyone in nj or nyc will root for a team out on long island (the islanders). meanwhile, many residents of northern nj or long island root for the knicks and rangers, which further limits the potential of the devil, islander, or net fanbases.
i really feel that had these teams played in/identified with nyc proper from the start, they might have had a better chance to capture a larger fanbase from throughout the region. but as it stands, they basically operate as small-to-mid market teams even though they're smack dab in the largest market in the nation. very, very odd.
fwiw, i agree with everyone that the rangers would be best served by WINNING more than anything else. look at the new england patriots - any notions of losing or instability or relocation to other cities is far removed from the public consciousness now that they're a juggernaut.
Well for one thing, the Rangers don't represent the whole state just because of the name, and I know you've already seen that on this thread.
And as a native of Fort Worth, I and alot of people I know would be offended. Most Arlington residents wouldn't care since they're getting the Cowboys next year. And some residents of Ft. Worth residents jokingly call them the "Ft. Worth Cowboys" since they will be in our county, but they will always be the DALLAS Cowboys.
Now don't start thinking that I'm whining, but the only thing we have in sports that Dallas doesn't have is the Texas Motor Speedway, and sports commentators think that's in Dallas, too. So the last thing we need is the "Dallas" Rangers.... for that reason, and because it just doesn't have the same ring to it, like a previous poster said.
i hear ya on this. check out my most recent post for some perspective on how nyc/nj-area teams self-identify and how that affects their respective fanbases.
sometimes people in nj (mainly nj politicians, but also some residents) complain that nyc gets all the credit when teams that play in nj do well. case in point: the ny giants just won a super bowl, yet virtually no props were given to the state of nj by nyc or national media even though the giants play there. personally i think this isn't a big deal, since giants stadium is in a suburb of nyc only a few miles outside of the city, but a few people definitely did get a little upset about this. fortunately the ny giants ownership is keenly aware of the psyche of its fans on both sides of the hudson river, so they ended up organizing a victory rally inside giants stadium for nj residents immediately following the championship parade through lower manhattan earlier in the day. it allowed both sides of the river to feel good about themselves even though IMO it's all pretty silly - the giants represent the entire region, and nyc (manhattan especially) is the center of metro area.
Well, I'm glad they held that rally in Giants stadium. Some may think it's petty or whatever but if it were my team, the Cowboys, then I understand how the nj people feel.
Your explanation in your previous post of the ny/nj teams kind of boggled my mind! I didn't realize there were so many teams up there. Not that I really keep up with any sport besides football.
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And people here are not going to care as much as long as our beloved Dallas Cowboys remain here. As far as your explanation of the origin of the NY Rangers name, that's interesting, I'd never heard that before.
