Meet the 30

Hey everyone, Commissioner here. In the Road to v1.0 post I mentioned that the 30 franchises were getting real identities and that it deserved its own post. Well, this is that post.

Until now, the teams in Front Office Hoops were just some names and a couple of color codes. But as of v1.0, every franchise has been given a full identity system: their own logos, wordmarks, alternates, uniforms, court designs, even their own scoreboard treatments. Now not everything is used in the game currently, but I am planning on including them soon. Anyways, in that process a few teams also picked up some new team names along the way; some good, some bad, and some ugly.

Every league that you create is generated fresh, so these teams technically don’t have any actual history. But we’re going to ignore that. That history is yours to write. What each team does have now is a name that I can stand behind, and tbh I spent an unreasonably long amount of time on these so I’m gonna walk you through all 30, division by division.

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division

Starting off in the East with the old port cities.

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  New York Skyline: New York got named after the thing you picture when you think of New York. The main logo is literally the Manhattan skyline tucked inside the ball, and the blue and orange comes straight off the city's flag.
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  Boston Navigators: Boston was a port town way before it was ever a sports town, so the Navigators name comes from that sailing history. The compass rose logo works at pretty much any size too, which mattered way more than you'd think once it had to fit on scoreboards and jersey tags.
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  Philadelphia Ironforge: Early America got built in Philadelphia's workshops, so Philly is now the Ironforge. The crest is an anvil under a spark burst, and their home floor is The Foundry. The whole brief here was basically just blue-collar.
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  Toronto Northstars: Toronto needed a name that could work for a team that's really all of Canada's team, and Northstars just fit: the star you navigate by, pointed north. There's a bit of CN Tower in the logo if you look closely, and the red and black keeps that hockey-town feel, which Toronto kinda is anyways.
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  Brooklyn Bridges: This one was almost too obvious to pass up, so I didn't. The wordmark arches like a suspension bridge, and the whole identity is black and steel gray with no mascot and no cartoon. Brooklyn felt like the team that didn't need to decorate.

Central Division

The Central is the industrial division, so these names honestly kinda wrote themselves.

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  Chicago Ironclads: The Ironclads are named after the iron-hulled ships that used to work the Great Lakes. Chicago needed to feel heavy and cold-weather, and they kept the red and black, because some things about Chicago basketball just shouldn't change.
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  Detroit Engines: Detroit is the Motor City, so the team naturally is the Engines. The M in the logo is built out of actual pistons, which is the kind of detail I'm hoping people notice on the small versions.
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  Cleveland Sentinels: Cleveland's logo is a lighthouse on a shield, for the lights that have been guarding the Lake Erie shore for 150 years now. Sentinels just felt right for a city that sees itself as a keeper of things.
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  Indianapolis Speed: Indianapolis runs the second most famous race in the world (Monaco is definitely #1 and I will take no further notes), so the team is the Speed. The crest borrows from the Brickyard (there's a little nod to the yard of bricks at the start/finish line). They play at The Circuit, obviously.
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  Milwaukee Cream: Milwaukee's nickname is the Cream City, and no, not because of dairy; it's for the pale cream-colored brick the city was built out of. The logo leans all the way into it with a vintage label roundel in forest green and cream that looks like it came straight off a delivery truck in 1948.

Southeast Division

Heading south now, where the weather did most of the work for me.

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  Miami Tropics: Miami is the only team in the league with sunset colors, going from burgundy into orange, and the logo is a firebird with a very intentional 1960s postcard vibe. It's the loudest palette of the 30, but Miami can pull it off.
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  Atlanta Torch: Atlanta's official city symbol is the phoenix, since the city burned down and rebuilt itself even bigger, and they also lit the Olympic flame for the whole world back in 1996. Torch covers both. The flame sits inside what the design docs call an 'ignition halo', and tbh I haven't been able to call it anything else since.
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  Charlotte Coronets: Charlotte is the Queen City (named after an actual British queen), so the Coronets just wear the crown itself, with a C cut right into the middle of it. The teal and violet keeps a little thread back to the colors Charlotte basketball is known for.
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  Orlando Tempest: Central Florida gets hit by lightning more than anywhere else in the country, and the summer storms basically run on a schedule. That's where the Tempest comes from. The logo is a storm swirl in blue and silver, easily one of the cleanest in the set.
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  Washington Union: Washington needed a name that worked in the capital without turning into a civics lecture, and Union gets that done. The logo is a U woven together like a seal in red, white, and blue, and their home floor is Union Hall.

Western Conference

Northwest Division

The Northwest turned into the geography division; all 5 of these teams are named after landforms or weather.

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  Denver Peaks: Denver plays a mile above sea level, and the Peaks are gonna make sure nobody forgets it. The logo stacks the Rockies into a mountain range in midnight blue and gold, and the arena is just called The Peak. The whole identity is altitude.
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  Salt Lake City Arches: The Arches get their silhouette from the natural stone arches out in Utah's red-rock country. Navy and evergreen, with a logo that's basically a landscape photo boiled down to two shapes. I wanted at least one team that felt like a national park, and this is the one.
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  Portland Cascades: Portland is named after the mountain range that walls the city in green. The logo squeezes a pine tree and a waterfall into the letter P, which might be the most Pacific Northwest thing possible.
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  Minneapolis Headwaters: The Mississippi actually starts up in northern Minnesota as a little stream you can walk across, and Minneapolis is the first real city it runs through. Headwaters is one of the weirder names in the league, and that's exactly why I kept it. The logo branches out like a river system in lake blue and spring green.
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  Oklahoma City Gale: Oklahoma City sits in the middle of the windiest stretch of the country, so the Gale's logo is the ball itself spun up into a cyclone, in sky blue and orange. Simple idea, and it reads instantly at any size.

Pacific Division

The Pacific has the league’s only shared city, but we’ll get to that.

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  Los Angeles Sunsets: One of the LA teams gets the glamour. The Sunsets are purple and gold with an art-deco sun dropping behind horizon lines, easily the most movie-poster logo of the bunch. They play at The Boulevard, of course.
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  Los Angeles Freeways: The other LA team is named after the freeways, because if you've ever lived there, you get it. The crest is an interstate shield in red and blue, and the arena is The Interchange. I wanted the two LA identities to be complete opposites: one is the movie premiere, the other is the drive to get there.
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  Bay Area Currents: This one kept a regional name since the Bay has never really belonged to any single city. The logo puts a bridge span over a rolling wave in blue and gold, and Currents pulls double duty as both the ocean kind and the electric kind.
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  Sacramento Canopy: Sacramento is the City of Trees, with one of the biggest urban tree canopies in the country, so the team became the Canopy. The logo folds a spreading oak into a purple S, and their home floor is The Grove.
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  Phoenix Embers: Phoenix is already a fire name, so the team goes one layer deeper: the Embers, the glow that starts the fire. The logo is a flame-tipped E in desert orange and violet, with colors pulled straight from an Arizona dusk.

Southwest Division

And last up, the Southwest.

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  Houston Launch: Houston is Space City, so the team is the Launch. The H-L monogram is drawn to look like a rocket sitting on the pad, in mission-patch red and gray, and the arena pretty much had to be The Launch Pad. There was really no second option.
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  San Antonio Siege: San Antonio has been a fortress town ever since the Alamo, and Siege is the rare team name that's an event instead of a thing. It also conveniently starts with an S, which meant I got to keep the SAS abbreviation, so that worked out. The logo is a fortress tower in silver and black, and home games go down at The Garrison.
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  Dallas Frontier: Dallas sits right where the settled South used to end and the open range began, so the Frontier carry a bison on the crest in big-sky blue over navy. Out of all 30, this is the one that feels like it's been around since 1950.
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  Memphis Soul: Memphis is the Soul, named after the studios that changed American music forever. The logo is a vinyl record with a soundwave cut through the grooves, in Memphis blue and midnight. It's the only identity in the league built around a sound instead of a place, and honestly Memphis earned that.
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  New Orleans Brass: The Brass are named after the brass bands that lead every parade in New Orleans. The B in the logo is shaped like the bell of a horn, in navy and antique gold, and if you've ever watched a second line roll by, you know exactly what this one is going for. Granted, I've never watched a second line roll by or visited New Orleans before, but that's what I've been told.

Pick a side

So that’s all 30. When v1.0 lands in August these identities are gonna be all over the game, and one of these teams is going to end up being yours.

The question I actually want answered: which one are you taking to a title first? Tell me over in r/FrontOfficeHoops, I read everything.

The beta is live, free, and runs right in your browser: frontofficehoops.com.