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Ruwisc · 09-06-2019, 11:18 PM

OMAHA THUNDER
Logos/Uniforms (Imgur)

This is the smallest media market covered yet in this series; smaller than New Orleans, and about two-thirds the size of Milwaukee (the smallest in modern MLB). So, why would you want to put an MLB team in Omaha? Good question. I can think of a couple of reasons. In major sports, it's nearly uncharted territory. Obviously no teams are there now, and the only major team the city has ever had was the bizarre timeshare with the NBA's Kansas City-Omaha Kings. MLB is a bit unique among the USA's four major sporting leagues in that, until 2016, there weren't any cities where baseball was the only game in town. (With the move of the Chargers to LA, the Padres are now alone in San Diego.) Introducing a small market where baseball would be king is good for storytelling purposes.

In addition, Omaha has a ton of baseball history built up already. There have only been 73 editions of the College World Series, and 70 of them have been played in Omaha. It occupies a truly unique place in our baseball landscape and although an MLB team wouldn't be a slam dunk I'd be more comfortable with a team there than in a lot of cities of similar size. It would also have built-in rivalry potential with Kansas City, which is right down the river, and it's close enough to other Midwestern cities that rivalries would crop up organically.

We had some mentions earlier in this thread of the New Orleans Baby Cakes, and the modern trend of team names in minor league baseball being outlandish for seemingly no reason. It's not a totally new development, nor do I think the Storm Chasers name is a bad one (it's a totally acceptable minor league team name), but I have always associated the terrible team names that came later, most notably the Baby Cakes and the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, with the Storm Chasers' rebranding in 2011. Coming into that season, the then-Omaha Royals (then and now the KC's AAA farm team) were moving to a new ballpark on the outskirts of town and picked a new name and identity to go with their new location. This idea of picking a new, fresh name and look to be more unique and stand out from the parent club, in my eyes, seemed to spark an avalanche of teams in the high minors doing the same thing. Many of them whiffed, as mentioned, but the Storm Chasers seem like they were largely a success. I say that as a person who's never set foot in Nebraska, but that's how it seems. I was at the MLB Winter Meetings a few years ago, and took the opportunity to see a talk given by the Storm Chasers' GM from the time (I wish I could remember his name) and although he touched on a lot of topics he spent a few minutes on the rebranding process. A really fascinating thing to hear about from the source.

So, I aim not to totally overhaul the Storm Chasers and start from scratch, but to make changes to it until it seems like it could be a major league team. I decided to change the name mostly because it's long - Thunder is a little snappier and it fits the theme (one of the semifinalists for the team's name in 2011 was Thunderbolts, so we're not falling far from the tree), and I felt the thunder and lightning portions of the Storm Chasers logo set were stronger bases than the tornado logo anyway.

The strongest logo in the Storm Chasers' set, in my opinion, is the O-bolt, and that can obviously stick around with the switch over to Thunder. Much of the team's primary logo has been kept the same, but I think the text, with all its lightning bolt bells and whistles, looks much better standing upright than it does in italics. The shorter name allows us to squeeze the letters of OMAHA closer together, another plus. The obvious biggest change is the switch from navy to purple, and making the gold golder - it makes sense to me that an Omaha MLB team would try to avoid blue if possible to stay out of the Royals' chromatic territory. Plus, any opportunity to introduce more purple to MLB is an opportunity worth taking right now, since only the Rockies use it.

A few different options for a secondary logo, with two versions of the O-bolt. The second O-bolt is the cap logo. We've also got two different versions of a T-bolt, which is not part of the Storm Chasers' identity.

Jerseys and caps:

Four jerseys and just one cap - the purple looks pretty good over all four tops, I'd say. I haven't gone with really bright colors for too many of these teams, but this is certainly an opportunity for it. I especially like how the gold uniform came out - I didn't have it previously & mocked it up just because I was making this post, but I think I'm gonna have them use it on the road going forward.

--------

And that's it for Omaha! Not sure where I'll be going next, but I have some free time over the weekend so you should see something else out of me soon.

09-06-2019, 11:18 PM	#9
Ruwisc All Star Reserve Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Southwestern Illinois Posts: 610	OMAHA THUNDER Logos/Uniforms (Imgur) This is the smallest media market covered yet in this series; smaller than New Orleans, and about two-thirds the size of Milwaukee (the smallest in modern MLB). So, why would you want to put an MLB team in Omaha? Good question. I can think of a couple of reasons. In major sports, it's nearly uncharted territory. Obviously no teams are there now, and the only major team the city has ever had was the bizarre timeshare with the NBA's Kansas City-Omaha Kings. MLB is a bit unique among the USA's four major sporting leagues in that, until 2016, there weren't any cities where baseball was the only game in town. (With the move of the Chargers to LA, the Padres are now alone in San Diego.) Introducing a small market where baseball would be king is good for storytelling purposes. In addition, Omaha has a ton of baseball history built up already. There have only been 73 editions of the College World Series, and 70 of them have been played in Omaha. It occupies a truly unique place in our baseball landscape and although an MLB team wouldn't be a slam dunk I'd be more comfortable with a team there than in a lot of cities of similar size. It would also have built-in rivalry potential with Kansas City, which is right down the river, and it's close enough to other Midwestern cities that rivalries would crop up organically. We had some mentions earlier in this thread of the New Orleans Baby Cakes, and the modern trend of team names in minor league baseball being outlandish for seemingly no reason. It's not a totally new development, nor do I think the Storm Chasers name is a bad one (it's a totally acceptable minor league team name), but I have always associated the terrible team names that came later, most notably the Baby Cakes and the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, with the Storm Chasers' rebranding in 2011. Coming into that season, the then-Omaha Royals (then and now the KC's AAA farm team) were moving to a new ballpark on the outskirts of town and picked a new name and identity to go with their new location. This idea of picking a new, fresh name and look to be more unique and stand out from the parent club, in my eyes, seemed to spark an avalanche of teams in the high minors doing the same thing. Many of them whiffed, as mentioned, but the Storm Chasers seem like they were largely a success. I say that as a person who's never set foot in Nebraska, but that's how it seems. I was at the MLB Winter Meetings a few years ago, and took the opportunity to see a talk given by the Storm Chasers' GM from the time (I wish I could remember his name) and although he touched on a lot of topics he spent a few minutes on the rebranding process. A really fascinating thing to hear about from the source. So, I aim not to totally overhaul the Storm Chasers and start from scratch, but to make changes to it until it seems like it could be a major league team. I decided to change the name mostly because it's long - Thunder is a little snappier and it fits the theme (one of the semifinalists for the team's name in 2011 was Thunderbolts, so we're not falling far from the tree), and I felt the thunder and lightning portions of the Storm Chasers logo set were stronger bases than the tornado logo anyway. The strongest logo in the Storm Chasers' set, in my opinion, is the O-bolt, and that can obviously stick around with the switch over to Thunder. Much of the team's primary logo has been kept the same, but I think the text, with all its lightning bolt bells and whistles, looks much better standing upright than it does in italics. The shorter name allows us to squeeze the letters of OMAHA closer together, another plus. The obvious biggest change is the switch from navy to purple, and making the gold golder - it makes sense to me that an Omaha MLB team would try to avoid blue if possible to stay out of the Royals' chromatic territory. Plus, any opportunity to introduce more purple to MLB is an opportunity worth taking right now, since only the Rockies use it. A few different options for a secondary logo, with two versions of the O-bolt. The second O-bolt is the cap logo. We've also got two different versions of a T-bolt, which is not part of the Storm Chasers' identity. Jerseys and caps: Four jerseys and just one cap - the purple looks pretty good over all four tops, I'd say. I haven't gone with really bright colors for too many of these teams, but this is certainly an opportunity for it. I especially like how the gold uniform came out - I didn't have it previously & mocked it up just because I was making this post, but I think I'm gonna have them use it on the road going forward. -------- And that's it for Omaha! Not sure where I'll be going next, but I have some free time over the weekend so you should see something else out of me soon.