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The Cleveland Spiders?

Wood Hall

Wood Hall

Team Manager
Jan 26, 2015
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Cleveland will stop using the "Indians" nickname next season, be the "Cleveland Baseball Team" for one year and then come up with a new nickname in 2022. Early teams in Cleveland were known as the Spiders and there will undoubtedly be some push to adopt that nickname.

Thoughts? I've always loved being the only Spiders in college and major-league professional sports ( I think there is a minor-league hockey team called the Spiders).
 
Team names reflect admiration for the qualities of the the chosen namesake. Nothing disparaging. What's going on now in the Woke World defies logic.
 
They better not come for our name, but honestly at this point I'd be shocked if they don't.
 
KE Spider said:
Team names reflect admiration for the qualities of the the chosen namesake. Nothing disparaging. What's going on now in the Woke World defies logic.
Click to expand...
What if the people supposedly being "admired" by the nickname don't want that kind of "admiration," and believe it is disparaging to their culture?

Professional franchise owners are among the most conservative people in the country. I hardly think they are members of the "Woke World," whatever that means.
 
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ChoppinBroccoli said:
Cleveland Rocks.

It works on many levels.
Click to expand...

I'd laugh if they actually went w Rocks but hey go for it Cleveland.

I certainly prefer they not get the Spiders but if so they'd probably immediately become my favorite American League team. And they'd crush it with logos and branding while the long tenured Spiders like us can't even purchase anything with the spider logo standalone.

FWIW my "inside" source says Spiders is the choice, obviously that could be wrong or something changes. If you look at the polling the Spiders is the clear favorite. Of course might not be the year for polling.

Maybe U of R and our friends at Spyder apparel will put some pressure on them to consider others.

There is also a thread on the bball board from the summer on this topic.
 
I have it on good authority that they are going with the "Cleveland Stink Bugs" instead.
 
I really prefer for us to be the only Spiders. So that said, I hope that our lawyers are proactive in this regard and reach out in advance instead of throwing up their hands after the fact and saying "oh, there was nothing we could do."
 
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PalmTreeSpidUR said:
I really prefer for us to be the only Spiders. So that said, I hope that our lawyers are proactive in this regard and reach out in advance instead of throwing up their hands after the fact and saying "oh, there was nothing we could do."
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Yes. But hopefully r lawyers r the backup counsel to the Spyder lawyers.
 
From the article above

In December, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office preliminarily rejected Love’s filing for a various reasons, including that his application was incomplete and his mark could be confused for the University of Richmond’s Spiders.
 
So they swapped IN for GUAR. Guess they couldn't give up on the Dians.

I was expecting it to go Spiders, I think there was a lot more potential for that name to take off. But it's a W for us. Gift basket going out to Spyder legal department asap.
 
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Agree, they really dropped the ball. Spiders would have given them a ton of marketing options. Instead they named themselves after a couple statues on a bridge.
 
I don't particularly like or dislike the name, though I am not sure what they are supposed to be guardians of. But I am happy to still be the only sports Spiders!
 
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Eight Legger said:
Agree, they really dropped the ball. Spiders would have given them a ton of marketing options. Instead they named themselves after a couple statues on a bridge.
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If you live in Cleveland, they are far more than "a couple statues on a bridge." Just as Lee, Jackson and Stuart are more than "a couple statues on a street" to many Richmonders.
 
I get that they're 90 years old and everything, just seems like a weird thing to hold up as the most significant part of a city that's been around a long time. But you're right, I'm not from there. Maybe that's what Clevelanders are most proud of.

They should have called themselves the Cleveland Progressives. It would have fit with the change they were trying to make, and Progressive Insurance is one of the largest employers there and already sponsors their field. They could have that annoying spokeswoman's face on their hats and everything.
 
Good find. I'm truly stunned by that. How can we lay claim to that nickname? How many teams in the country are called the Wildcats? The SF Giants and NY Giants both exist. The Arizona Cardinals and St. Louis Cardinals do too. You can go on and on. Whatever the case, I'm glad they were scared of us.
 
Teams are much more cognizant of protecting their trademarks and brands than in the days before merchandise sales, etc., became such big-money items.
 
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Eight Legger said:
Good find. I'm truly stunned by that. How can we lay claim to that nickname? How many teams in the country are called the Wildcats? The SF Giants and NY Giants both exist. The Arizona Cardinals and St. Louis Cardinals do too. You can go on and on. Whatever the case, I'm glad they were scared of us.
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You can bet that Adidas, along with other sports licensing groups that are prevalent today would have been in the courts
in a heartbeat, even though we are a small school.
No one wants a precedent setting ruling in these times, that could cause chaos in many branding issues.
 
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But what claim do we have legally to the nickname Spiders? I guess my point is that every team has a nickname and there are dozens upon dozens of them that are shared. Are the Chicago Bears going to court against Baylor and Missouri State for using their nickname, or is VCU suing Rhode Island, Fordham, the LA Rams, etc? Just not quite understanding how we can own the Spiders nickname to the extent that no one else wants to use to it. (Not that I'm complaining...)

If someone else wanted to call themselves the Richmond Spiders, of course we'd have a legal case. But the Cleveland Spiders? I don't see how that would infringe upon anything of ours.
 
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I don't entirely understand it either. Nonetheless I am glad their management/lawyers decided they didn't want to bother challenging us.

Also it cannot hurt us if word gets out that they didn't pick the Spiders because we already exist:)
 
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Eight Legger said:
But what claim do we have legally to the nickname Spiders? I guess my point is that every team has a nickname and there are dozens upon dozens of them that are shared. Are the Chicago Bears going to court against Baylor and Missouri State for using their nickname, or is VCU suing Rhode Island, Fordham, the LA Rams, etc? Just not quite understanding how we can own the Spiders nickname to the extent that no one else wants to use to it. (Not that I'm complaining...)

If someone else wanted to call themselves the Richmond Spiders, of course we'd have a legal case. But the Cleveland Spiders? I don't see how that would infringe upon anything of ours.
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I understand what you are saying, but things have gotten tightened down far more in recent years because of the sale
of team products and the money that is made off of the sales. If a school tried to change its name to Rams today, it wouldn’t be so cut and dry.
 
AnnapSpider said:
I understand what you are saying, but things have gotten tightened down far more in recent years because of the sale
of team products and the money that is made off of the sales. If a school tried to change its name to Rams today, it wouldn’t be so cut and dry.
Click to expand...
Has anything changed legally? That would explain a lot if so.
 
Here's another one:

"The rest of the opposition comes from people who were fans of a different option, mostly “Spiders.”

and, a few sentences later,

"It does seem like issues with the University of Richmond ruled out the “Spiders” nickname, although the fact that the name “Spiders” also represented one of the darkest periods in baseball history was also a problem."

 
The very worst performance in baseball history: The Spiders in 1899 finished in 12th place, last in the NL. After losing 40 of their last 41 games, they had a record of 20–134 (. 130). Their record is still the worst in Major League Baseball history.
 
And in 1966, the Spiders College Football team had the longest losing streak in the nation at the time.
Fortunately history doesn’t always repeat itself. LOL. 🤣
 
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