Second – I love how you say – “Sports teams are named after CITIES, not States” – then list two exceptions. Of course you left out New Jersey Nets and New Jersey Devils. Not to mention that if the Nets move to Brooklyn – they aren’t going to carry a city’s name – they are going to carry a borough name -and be called the Brooklyn Nets. Brooklyn is no longer a city and hasn’t been for 100 years. Just because in GENERAL sports teams carry the city’s name, doesn’t mean they have to.

As for getting revenue from the teams – in general sports teams cost more than the revenue they generate. What sports teams do is bring notoriety to a state or city. While corporations spend 100′s of millions of dollars to get their name on a stadium to sponsor, what do you think is the effect of having a city or state name on the teams uniform. What do you think is the affect when the Giants do their press conference and the backdrop is coverd with “NY” When the announcers say New York this or New York that or when they list the game as “so and so at New York” – that is publicity and free advertising for the city. Read – Major League Losers: The Real Cost Of Sports And Who’s Paying For It

When people wear a Giants jersey or hat or shirt, and it has NY on it – - everyone says “New York” – they’re walking billboards for New York. Yeah – it’s the logo for the Giants – but what comes to mind first is NY. It is even MORE powerful when the team wins the Super Bowl like the Giants did. When a team is a winning team with a extremely popular sport, it brings even more prestige. It is free adverting which helps tourism and respect.

Codey forgave the Giants 100′s of millions of dollars in back payments to the old Giants Stadium in deals with the new stadium and many other deals that basically counteract the revue that the state gets by hosting the teams, this is true for most cities/states that build stadiums to attract teams. Yeah – the Giants and Jets are paying for the stadium – but it’s New Jersey that is footing the bill for all the improvements to transportation, etc.

Anyway – if a team mostly names themselves after a city, then why not call themselves Newark – instead of New York – which is the largest city in New Jersey and is closer than New York? Before you say that Newark is a minor city, Newark is the 68th largest city in the US with 290,000 people. Only roughly 30,000 less than Cincinnati, 11,000 less than New Orleans, 10,000 less than Pittsburgh, more than Buffalo and what about Green Bay that has the Green Bay Packers? They only have a population of 100,000 people. And don’t say that Newark has such bad crime so why would any team want to call themselves Newark, because in terms of violent crime stats of cities larger than 250,000, Newark ranks 30th in violent crime per 100,000 people in 2008. What cities are worse?

1) St Louis – 2,072.7
2) Oakland – 1,968.4
3) Memphis – 1,925
4) Detroit – 1,924.1
5) Baltimore – 1,588.5
7) Philadelphia – 1,441.3
8 ) Cleveland – 1,428.8
9) Nashville – 1,395.5
10 Atlanta – 1,388.9
15) Miami – 1,344.7
19) Indianapolis – 1,204.3
27) San Fransisco – 995.3
30 Newark – 950.7

All the above cities, except Newark have teams who proudly carry their names. As I have always said – reality if meaningless – perception is everything. And this is a prime example of when I ask people – why don’t our teams just call themselves Newark and people respond – “why would a term want to be associated with a crime infested city like that?” Well because they do it with cities that have WORSE crime than Newark. That list doesn’t even include all the cities that have worse crime and yet have teams – I left out Buffalo and others. And going back to minor cities – who the hell knows anything about Green Bay?

Contrary to what you think, this issue of team names has nothing to do with some inferiority complex – it has everything to do with getting credit and recognition for what New JERSEY has. It also doesn’t stop there. When Earth Day had those world wide major concerts, the one New JERSEY hosted in the Meadowlands was marketed as New York. They even went so far as to promote the Meadowlands on their website as Meadowlands NY. American Idol had the so-called New York auditions in New Jersey at the Meadowlands – but marketed as the New York Auditions and even made a New Jersey contestant pretend to the TV audience that she had to get to New York to attend. When Sean Hannity promotes his Freedom Concert that takes place at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson NJ, he promotes it as New York. I knew someone who attended this year and they were outraged that when he came on stage he said – “Hello New York” – she said people yelled back – “you’re in New Jersey”. His response and so many ignorant people is – “New York? New Jersey? Same thing” Great Adventure is 60 miles south of New York.

New Jersey and New York aren’t the same – and we have a right and responsibility as citizens of OUR state to make sure that it gets promoted. So you can say that it is because of some perceived inferiority complex, but I would like to see New York host things and have it marketed as being held somewhere else.

What a bogus argument from someone who never let facts get in the way of a rant. Sports Franchises are named after CITIES, not States (O.K. rare exceptions the New England Patriots and the old California Angels who are now LAA). New Jersey is STILL getting all the revenue from these teams, that’s why they buit these stadiums to keep them in Jersey. New York doesn’t get a royalty because a team whould rather be known as the New York XXX rather than the Secacus XXX.

Typical NJ inferiority Complex