Eskimos changing team name

[adb]

I expect this all may be moot.

As soon as the Feds confirm that there will be no funding for the league, which I am told will happen soon, we will be calling the team Edmonton Extinct.

That would suck. Although I think I agree with Dave Naylor on the point ( which he expressed in an article months ago) that if the league were to fold that some reincarnation of it would pop up with a totally different business plan with drastically reduced costs. At least that's my hope.

[adb]

I didn't think there would be a spike in Eskimos merchandise. I thought that because of the name change there would be a drop. Find this to be a bit surprising...https://www.tsn.ca/edmonton-cfl-team...name-1.1498501

[Hugoagogo]

I didn't think there would be a spike in Eskimos merchandise. I thought that because of the name change there would be a drop. Find this to be a bit surprising...https://www.tsn.ca/edmonton-cfl-team...name-1.1498501

Yeah, I'm surprised as well. I figured that a lot of the fans would at least wait for clear out pricing.

[Hammer24]

That would suck. Although I think I agree with Dave Naylor on the point ( which he expressed in an article months ago) that if the league were to fold that some reincarnation of it would pop up with a totally different business plan with drastically reduced costs. At least that's my hope.

I'd be from Missouri on that. A reincarnation on a business model with drastically reduced costs comes across as one with drastically reduced salary cap. That hints to me at drastically reduced level of talent and calibre of play. For me my season ticket price of roughly $75/game for the Lions represents about 10% of my overall per game costs as I live 800km from BC Place. I can't justify the travel for anything less than the quality I see in today's CFL. It would make more sense for me to pay triple the ticket price plus extra travel costs to go to Seattle for Seahawk games. I'm not even sure I'd bother watching a cost reduced watered down version of the CFL on TV.

Out on the left coast the Lions struggle to get back up to 20K. For a lesser version I think 5K would be a struggle and of course ticket prices would need to be at minimum cut in half from CFL pricing. Not a whole lot of gate revenue to be had there.

[Sectionq]

Doesn’t roll very well off the tongue though. Edmonton Esker

Like the theory but the execution sucks

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Express is prob top 3 right now ain’t it.. there isn’t THAT many type of words out there begining with E

Empire, express, elks, explorers , engineers might be the best 5 and they have ruled out empire iirc..

Bit of a mess.. I don’t want to but u feel we would be getting a better option or 2 if it didn’t have to be EE

I am not happy they had to change the name but I get it and will accept it. The direction of the team since Rhodes took over, then with how the last few seasons was a big factor in us cancelling our seasons tickets. I didn't go to a single game last year for the first time in maybe 30 yrs. Just didn't work out and my interest level has dropped. But if they change the colors or the EE logo, that would be really hard to take and might be the final nail in the coffin for me.

I can't speak for others but it wouldn't shock me if I wasn't alone. Losing the colors and the EE would just be too much.

[cmbuk]

Same as Eagles. Its a two syllable word. I guess it would roll off the tongue better if we had a 3 syllable word that starts with an E so it would be the same as Eskimos such as the names suggested by 56Parkies but I guess we'll agree to disagree on that.

For what it’s worth I like the name eskimos.....

Sad times .. no disagreement mate... it’s gonna suck whatever we go with..



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I am not happy they had to change the name but I get it and will accept it. The direction of the team since Rhodes took over, then with how the last few seasons was a big factor in us cancelling our seasons tickets. I didn't go to a single game last year for the first time in maybe 30 yrs. Just didn't work out and my interest level has dropped. But if they change the colors or the EE logo, that would be really hard to take and might be the final nail in the coffin for me.

I can't speak for others but it wouldn't shock me if I wasn't alone. Losing the colors and the EE would just be too much.

No need to change colours..,

I do think we’re pigeon holding ourselves though just to keep the EE. Now I LOVE the EE logo.. I’m just not a fan of any of the options banded about.. to a point where empire is the best one..

[Hugoagogo]

I'd be from Missouri on that. A reincarnation on a business model with drastically reduced costs comes across as one with drastically reduced salary cap. That hints to me at drastically reduced level of talent and calibre of play. For me my season ticket price of roughly $75/game for the Lions represents about 10% of my overall per game costs as I live 800km from BC Place. I can't justify the travel for anything less than the quality I see in today's CFL. It would make more sense for me to pay triple the ticket price plus extra travel costs to go to Seattle for Seahawk games. I'm not even sure I'd bother watching a cost reduced watered down version of the CFL on TV.

Out on the left coast the Lions struggle to get back up to 20K. For a lesser version I think 5K would be a struggle and of course ticket prices would need to be at minimum cut in half from CFL pricing. Not a whole lot of gate revenue to be had there.

I hear you loud and clear on this. I hope there are ways to reduce the cap without diluting the talent. You could take a huge chunk of money off each team's top five guys and still field a quality product. If I was living in Vancouver, I'd have Lions tickets myself. My travel isn't as crazy as yours living in Victoria, but costs for ferries and hotels add up.
I don't think I'd buy season tix to anything other than the CFL myself. Personally, I would rather watch a Canada/US women's hockey game vs a regular season NHL game. I realize the talent isn't as good, but for me it's a case of quality of entertainment.

[Sectionq]

For what it’s worth I like the name eskimos.....

Sad times .. no disagreement mate... it’s gonna suck whatever we go with..



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No need to change colours..,

I do think we’re pigeon holding ourselves though just to keep the EE. Now I LOVE the EE logo.. I’m just not a fan of any of the options banded about.. to a point where empire is the best one..

Realistically though are you going to be "this is awesome" for any name whether it starts with an E or not? I know I won't be over the moon about any name, doesn't matter what it is. I am almost 43, Eskimos is all I know. I have a lot of good memories associated with Eskimos and now the name is gone. So I am not going to really love any name they pick but picking an E name which lets then keep the EE logo just makes it palatable.

[cmbuk]

Realistically though are you going to be "this is awesome" for any name whether it starts with an E or not? I know I won't be over the moon about any name, doesn't matter what it is. I am almost 43, Eskimos is all I know. I have a lot of good memories associated with Eskimos and now the name is gone. So I am not going to really love any name they pick but picking an E name which lets then keep the EE logo just makes it palatable.

Yes either way it’s gonna suck..

[ben_the_eskimo]

I'm warming up to the name "Elks".

-It's a nod to a moment in the teams history

-Starts with E, could sub in for "Esks" easily in chants and such

-Has a very Northern Alberta feel to me, Elks are powerful, majestic creatures

-Isn't already used in any other major sports leagues that I know of

-Is not too obscure for the general public to wrap their heads around

-I've never been a fan of Singular Nouns for team names, Jazz, Heat, Wild, Avalanche etc. (Which all the other suggestions seem to be)

-And lastly, I feel it has a lot of potential for marketability and creating a fun game day experience, I'm thinking like an Albertan wilderness spin on the Bengals Jungle theme in Cincinnati capped of with a Bull Elk call. Then you have all sorts of more aggressive imagery to work with in terms of butting heads/locking antlers and things like that. You could easily design an Elk mascot in the same style as Nanook with the same facial expression. Plus the third uniform could feature sweet Elk antler decals on the helmets that would look really cool, and as some have mentioned, the potential for selling things like foam novelty antlers and such is huge.

Elks is the name I'm getting behind I think.

[bone]

I hear you loud and clear on this. I hope there are ways to reduce the cap without diluting the talent. You could take a huge chunk of money off each team's top five guys and still field a quality product. If I was living in Vancouver, I'd have Lions tickets myself. My travel isn't as crazy as yours living in Victoria, but costs for ferries and hotels add up.
I don't think I'd buy season tix to anything other than the CFL myself. Personally, I would rather watch a Canada/US women's hockey game vs a regular season NHL game. I realize the talent isn't as good, but for me it's a case of quality of entertainment.

I think any attack at the salary cap has to be coupled with a fairly low max salary provision and maybe a progressive max salary system.

I'm not sure what would be an appropriate number but perhaps you cap the maximum salary at somewhere around 3-5% of the cap, with maybe one or two franchise player exclusions capped at somewhere between 7-10%.

Those at the top end of the scale will still see the worth in playing here even though their max payday is less, it's still pretty good. It would allow teams a better opportunity to keep their best 1 or 2 players and not get into a bidding war without knowing what the likely max dollar amount would be.

Anything that drops the league minimum makes it less worthwhile for players to even try coming up here risking injury and ending all of their NFL potential. This is why they need to reign in the money of the top 10 players of the league.

And before people point at a league like the NHL where it can be 20% of the cap for max salary, the NHL has less than half the roster size CFL has, and with an 80+ Million Cap, there still 60 million to spread amongst the other 22 players so no one's going hungry.

CFL you take off 20% of $5M, you now only have $4M to spread amongst 45 or more other players (1-game IR players need to count as well). You're already at the point where there is less than $100K average for each remaining player.

[bone]

I'm warming up to the name "Elks".

-It's a nod to a moment in the teams history

-Starts with E, could sub in for "Esks" easily in chants and such

-Has a very Northern Alberta feel to me, Elks are powerful, majestic creatures

-Isn't already used in any other major sports leagues that I know of

-Is not too obscure for the general public to wrap their heads around

-I've never been a fan of Singular Nouns for team names, Jazz, Heat, Wild, Avalanche etc. (Which all the other suggestions seem to be)

-And lastly, I feel it has a lot of potential for marketability and creating a fun game day experience, I'm thinking like an Albertan wilderness spin on the Bengals Jungle theme in Cincinnati capped of with a Bull Elk call. Then you have all sorts of more aggressive imagery to work with in terms of butting heads/locking antlers and things like that. You could easily design an Elk mascot in the same style as Nanook with the same facial expression. Plus the third uniform could feature sweet Elk antler decals on the helmets that would look really cool, and as some have mentioned, the potential for selling things like foam novelty antlers and such is huge.

Elks is the name I'm getting behind I think.

I also think it lends itself to nice potential rebranding opportunites once people accept the name 3-5 years from now. I'm sure a graphics artist could find a way to design a elk shaped logo somehow stylized with the traditional EE for a cool third jersey or helmet concept.

Not sure what you can do for future imagery with Empire or the various action word proposals out there.

[widowmaker]

I'm warming up to the name "Elks".

-It's a nod to a moment in the teams history

-Starts with E, could sub in for "Esks" easily in chants and such

-Has a very Northern Alberta feel to me, Elks are powerful, majestic creatures

-Isn't already used in any other major sports leagues that I know of

-Is not too obscure for the general public to wrap their heads around

-I've never been a fan of Singular Nouns for team names, Jazz, Heat, Wild, Avalanche etc. (Which all the other suggestions seem to be)

-And lastly, I feel it has a lot of potential for marketability and creating a fun game day experience, I'm thinking like an Albertan wilderness spin on the Bengals Jungle theme in Cincinnati capped of with a Bull Elk call. Then you have all sorts of more aggressive imagery to work with in terms of butting heads/locking antlers and things like that. You could easily design an Elk mascot in the same style as Nanook with the same facial expression. Plus the third uniform could feature sweet Elk antler decals on the helmets that would look really cool, and as some have mentioned, the potential for selling things like foam novelty antlers and such is huge.

Elks is the name I'm getting behind I think.

I feel like that level of violence would be far too upsetting for most people.

[nafnikufesin]

I also think it lends itself to nice potential rebranding opportunites once people accept the name 3-5 years from now. I'm sure a graphics artist could find a way to design a elk shaped logo somehow stylized with the traditional EE for a cool third jersey or helmet concept.

Not sure what you can do for future imagery with Empire or the various action word proposals out there.

Not without Disney suing, anyway.

[ben_the_eskimo]

I also think it lends itself to nice potential rebranding opportunites once people accept the name 3-5 years from now. I'm sure a graphics artist could find a way to design a elk shaped logo somehow stylized with the traditional EE for a cool third jersey or helmet concept.

Not sure what you can do for future imagery with Empire or the various action word proposals out there.

Totally agree.

I think Elks has a ton of potential, and it's only one letter change from Esks.

[danlaurin]

Totally agree.

I think Elks has a ton of potential, and it's only one letter change from Esks.

I have to agree as well Elks seems the best to me

[Deathsdoorstep]

Totally agree.

I think Elks has a ton of potential, and it's only one letter change from Esks.

Still hate it. LOL!

[ben_the_eskimo]

Still hate it. LOL!

I still hate that we’re changing to begin with but of all the suggestions floating around this feels like the best fit by far to me.

What do you not like about it?

[bombervu]

Edmonton Honor, could play up the eh!

[boydo]

I’d take Elk over Eagles.

[Hammer24]

Totally agree.

I think Elks has a ton of potential, and it's only one letter change from Esks.

Has to be singular though.....Elk......which is also plural. Only time I've ever heard "Elks" folks are talking the BPOE variety.

[Hammer24]

I hear you loud and clear on this. I hope there are ways to reduce the cap without diluting the talent. You could take a huge chunk of money off each team's top five guys and still field a quality product. If I was living in Vancouver, I'd have Lions tickets myself. My travel isn't as crazy as yours living in Victoria, but costs for ferries and hotels add up.
I don't think I'd buy season tix to anything other than the CFL myself. Personally, I would rather watch a Canada/US women's hockey game vs a regular season NHL game. I realize the talent isn't as good, but for me it's a case of quality of entertainment.

I can relate to your pain too Hugo. I lived on the island for my first 37 years, the last 20 on the other end of the rock where it was close to 3 hours drive just to get to Departure Bay. The inland highway didn't come to be until 4 years after I moved to PG. The killer for both of us is the hotels. I quite often stay at the HoJo on Granville Strip. Even it as a 2.5 star runs $270/night in summer. I usually fly unless I procrastinate and miss out on the reasonable fares. Even a $500 airfare is platable considering it takes 2 tanks of fuel at $250-300 and 17 hours behind a steering wheel. Your ferry costs will equal about half of my fuel costs so we aren't that much different. I usually save my driving trips for when they have back to back home games and use them as bookends around a visit back home to the Comox Valley. When I fly I can walk out my front door and in just under 3 hours can be checking into my hotel in Van.

[Deathsdoorstep]

I still hate that we’re changing to begin with but of all the suggestions floating around this feels like the best fit by far to me.

What do you not like about it?

If we have an opportunity to rebrand, I'd prefer a hard nosed football team to have some thing more...well...badass. This is a team and a league that does not attract youth. Elks just isn't going to cut it. IF the CFL survives 2020 they will need to give themselves the best possible shot at a comeback.

[widowmaker]

I’d take Elk over Eagles.

Elk is tastier.

[56Parkies]

Has to be singular though.....Elk......which is also plural. Only time I've ever heard "Elks" folks are talking the BPOE variety.

Tell that to Toronto hockey fans, that you can't have an incorrect plural....

[ben_the_eskimo]

Has to be singular though.....Elk......which is also plural. Only time I've ever heard "Elks" folks are talking the BPOE variety.

According to the Googling I did both ‘Elk’ and ‘Elks’ are acceptable when describing a group of Elk (Elks lol).

So even though ‘Elk’ seems to be the most commonly used by far I think ‘Elks’ is in keeping with the somewhat quirky nature of CFL team names that I find charming, and is also historically in line with the name the Esks used for that one season in 1922.

[ben_the_eskimo]

If we have an opportunity to rebrand, I'd prefer a hard nosed football team to have some thing more...well...badass. This is a team and a league that does not attract youth. Elks just isn't going to cut it. IF the CFL survives 2020 they will need to give themselves the best possible shot at a comeback.

Fair enough.

I tend to find that teams trying too hard to sound badass end up coming across as if they’re depending on capitalizing on a fad as a cheap substitute for character. It often feels like a lame marketing ploy used in the absence of history and substance and usually ends up sounding dated soon after (what sounds cool today doesn’t usually sound cool ten years from now).

I’d prefer to stay away from that trap and stick with something that sounds strong, simple, and classy because I think you have a better chance of standing the test of time that way.

That’s just my opinion though.

[Esks4ever]

Fair enough.

I tend to find that teams trying too hard to sound badass end up coming across as if they’re depending on capitalizing on a fad as a cheap substitute for character. It often feels like a lame marketing ploy used in the absence of history and substance and usually ends up sounding dated soon after (what sounds cool today doesn’t usually sound cool ten years from now).

I’d prefer to stay away from that trap and stick with something that sounds strong, simple, and classy because I think you have a better chance of standing the test of time that way.

That’s just my opinion though.

That works for you and me and probably most here, however the Esks need to attract the younger generation with this new name and rebrand.

[ben_the_eskimo]

That works for you and me and probably most here, however the Esks need to attract the younger generation with this new name and rebrand.

I get that for sure, and I totally agree with you. But I'd also like to see as much connection to the past as possible, while still moving forward into the future. I think Elks does that by opening up a whole slew of new imagery that can be used where as the restrictions around the name Eskimo was actually a hindrance in terms of usable imagery for us in the past.

I'm sure my kids would love a pair of gold novelty Elk antlers lol.

[Angelus]

I don't know how anyone can be okay with Elk. That is just awful.