CLEVELAND, Ohio – How did the Cleveland Indians become the Cleveland Guardians?
In this story, there are quotes from the team’s Friday press conference with Tribe owner Paul Dolan and president of business Brian Barren. But much of the information in this story came from MLB sources I contacted later.
THE END OF THE CHIEF
In retrospect, the team probably should have dropped the name when it dumped Chief Wahoo on January 29, 2018.
Teams have what Barren calls “a three-legged stool.”
1. A letter mark: For the Tribe, that’s the Block-C.
2. A word mark: The nickname, the Indians.
3. The logo: When Chief Wahoo was benched, they had nothing to replace him. The Block-C didn’t work. Nor did the script ‘I’ they rolled out several years ago. They are not logos, they are letter marks.
A good logo is worth millions to a franchise, driving merchandising sales. The Blue Jay for Toronto or a monk swinging a baseball bat for the San Diego Padres.
“With the sunset of Chief Wahoo, that three-legged stool became two-legged and that’s tough to sit on,” said Barren.
It was more than an image problem, the key point was as Paul Dolan believing the name was “the right thing to do.”
But after losing the Chief Wahoo, they had no clue what type of logo would work with the Indians’ name in the current political climate.
WHY THE URGENCY?
“The hardest part was the decision to change the name in December,” said Dolan. But to pretend the team wasn’t working on the name change before that is incorrect.
It began with a phone call from Dolan to Barren a few days after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 – and the civil unrest that followed. Dolan wondered if it was time to change the name. Barren said he wasn’t sure, but it was time to look at it.
The team quietly began meeting with a variety of Native American groups on the national and local level, at least six of them. On July 2, 2020, the NFL’s Washington Redskins announced they were dropping their nickname, partly because of pressure from corporate sponsors.
There were members of the Tribe front office who favored the name change for social reasons for several years. The team also didn’t want their corporate sponsors to feel pressured to drop advertising from special interest groups.
In terms of major-league sports, Cleveland is smallest market with teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB. Corporate sponsors can easily switch from the Tribe to the Browns or the Cavs. That also was a consideration about the name change.
Thirty hours after Washington announced it was dropping its name, the Tribe followed with a tweet saying it was investigating a name change, but no decision had been made.
Cleveland Indians president of business operations Brian Barren stressed the team wanted to keep the same color scheme and script. John Kuntz, cleveland.com
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Dolan and the front office faced these three questions:
1. Should they change the name?
2. If so, change it to what?
3. Does the new name work in terms of branding, marketing, the fans, etc.?
Once the Tribe tweeted on July 3 about a possible name change, it was hard to go back to the Indians – although Dolan and Barren insist no final decision had been made. Nonetheless, the Tribe had a leadership group headed by Alex King, Nicole Schmidt and Jason Wiedemann who began to work seriously on what it took to change an MLB name.
Dolan and Barren were hearing from friends in other businesses warning them to “go slow” as they changed a name that had been in place for 106 years.
Dropping the Indians name was painful, but it was even more challenging to find a suitable replacement. The team was weary of the cultural wars. The Tribe was like a second nickname, but it aligned too closely with the previous name.
One of the “Guardians of Traffic” sculptures on the Hope Memorial Bridge photographed July 23, 2021. The work was done by sculptor Henry Hering and architect Frank Walker in 1932.John Kuntz, cleveland.com
TYPES OF NAMES
The Tribe put together categories of names:
1. Animals: Tigers, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Rays, etc.
2. Colors: White Sox, Reds, Red Sox, etc.
3. Characters/objects: Twins, Padres, Brewers, Angels, etc.
As they talked to fans and civic leaders about a possible new name, they first asked what people think when they hear the word “Cleveland.”
“We heard things like loyalty, pride and resiliency in being from Cleveland,” said Barren. “They’re protective of our city. They’re protective of the land and everything about it. Those all became part of what Guardians really started to evoke from an emotional standpoint.”
They wrote down these words: Pride. Resiliency. Loyalty. Protective.
“We asked which of these potential brands reflect those attributes to what the fans (say) are important,” said Barren.
That knocked out animals and colors. It left objects/characters.
THE BRANDING ISSUES
There were some people pushing for the Spiders.
“Spiders was an interesting consideration early on in the process,” said Barren. “There were some pros and cons to it. On the con side, you had some teams that struggled on the field. There were also some great Spiders teams. ... But the last time we had a Spiders major-league baseball team, it wasn’t necessarily a good thing.“
The Cleveland Spiders were 20-134 in 1899. But a key factor was the University of Richmond has the Spiders nickname. That created branding issues. It could be expensive.
The Guardians, Spiders and Rockers seem to be the first three names rumored. The Rockers were the name of the former WNBA franchise in Cleveland. Then there are the Colorado Rockies in the National League. All that was a negative.
A FRESH NAME
“We wanted to find a launching point where it’s a clean slate,” said Barren “We’ve got a lot of room to grow with Guardians moving forward.”
While the guardian statues on the Hope Memorial Bridge in downtown Cleveland were part of the inspiration for the name, the team liked how the “Guardians” reflected what they believe Clevelanders think of themselves.
The team had to work out something with Marvel comics. The only significant pro team called “The Guardians” is the New York Guardians of the XFL, a football league that didn’t even play last season.
“You’re not going to find a name that someone’s not using today,” said Barren. “You’ve got to work through agreements with others.”
Those agreements are like toll booths, and they were fewer on the road to the Guardians than many other names under consideration. That’s part of the reason there was no fan vote. Names fans would want possibly wouldn’t work in terms of trademarks.
They became serious about Guardians about eight to 12 weeks ago, and they began working on making it a reality.
“Getting final clearance on the name (was the last piece before the announcement),” said Dolan, who wanted the name to stay private until the team announced it and put out its message first.
Jose Ramirez as imagined wearing a Cleveland Guardians jersey.
DON’T CHANGE EVERYTHING!
Some fans have wondered why the team has come back with same red, white and blue color scheme. Also, the script for Guardians is very close to Indians.
“It was important to the fans to keep the color scheme,” said Barren. “We’ve had it for more than 80 years. We’ve had the script for more than 75 years.”
Indians and Guardians in script looks very close on the front of the uniforms. They made some small changes from the Block-C to the Guardian-G, but it’s barely noticeable.
This is a billion dollar business. It is expensive to change team names, which is why they didn’t want to take any chances. As one source told me, the team “wants a name that will last 100 years. That cuts down on your options. We can’t do this every five years.”
Cleveland Guardians "Fastball" logo.
ABOUT THE LOGO
The Tribe says it went through more than 100 logos. They really like the Cardinals logo, the two red birds on the bat. So they wanted the new Guardians logo to begin with a ball or bat. They settled on a baseball. Then they added the wings from the Guardians on the bridge.
The letter “G” in the logo on the ball is a the protection and defending theme they heard from fans.
These things take time. Also, teams have more than one logo. The Cavaliers have three. The Cavaliers spent 17 months on their last logo.
So the current logo is the first, but there probably will be others.
MAKE A DECISION
The team didn’t want the name issue hanging over it in 2022. But they needed at least six months to begin producing merchandise and change signage at the park. If they waited much longer, it was possible things would not be ready for next season. Announcing it now also allowed fans to vent and eventually become more accepting of the name.
They knew no matter when the name became public -- or what name was chosen -- many fans would be angry. They are still hurt by losing the name of the team of their youth.
The team doesn’t care if fans wear Tribe gear to games this year or in the future.
“I’m 63 years old,” said Dolan. “They’ve been the Indians since I was aware of them, probably 4 or 5 years old. We’re not asking anybody to give up their memories or the history of the franchise. They will always be there and for people my age.”
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