If you think owning a sports team is hard, try naming one

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. North Carolinians supporting Gastonia’s baseball team had a confusing summer. One day they were cheering for the Gastonia Bolognia.

A few weeks later they watched the Galactic Dinos take the field. Then they were there for the Garden Gnomes. Altogether, the new entry into the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball tried out eight different monikers over the 2024 season.

The team was experiencing a highly managed identity crisis. “We didn’t want to rush the final name," said Lauren Muni, vice president of marketing at Zawyer Sports & Entertainment, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based owner that founded the team. Managers instead christened the team as the inoffensive Gastonia Baseball Club, crowdsourced thousands of name ideas from the community, then designed entire brands—logos, jerseys, the whole shebang—for the top eight, which were showcased at “What if" games throughout the summer.

Seven would only be used once. Taking the crown? The Gastonia Ghost Peppers, featuring a tyrannical-looking spicy mascot. Several sports leagues in the past few years have expanded team rosters, while other teams have rebranded.

Those in charge of the naming process are finding that satisfying the whims of fans and in-house lawyers is anything but easy or quick. “We probably went through hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of names," said Amy Scheer, senior vice president of operations at the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which played its first season with six new franchises across the U.S. and Canada in 2024.