Sponsored Little League Teams vs. Pro Teams Vs. Others

August 15, 2023 10:12 AM

In my Little League in the 90s all teams were sponsored by local teams with their logo on there (i.e Marson Coal, Tanner Lumber, Shields Insurance). The players, coaches and families all called the team by the sponsor name and you had a degree of pride. I found out later of course this was not universal, that many places use logos/names from Major League teams. Our town was a not rich and in Appalachia.

Two part question: 1) Did youth teams that you played on use the similar sponsored naming -- when and where? 2) Are teams in your area still doing this and where? 3) Other than pro names and sponsor names, what other name options did youth teams use (if there are multiple teams in a league, rather than one that was based on age)?

posted by sandmanwv to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (27 answers total)

Mine used both, in the late 1980s, early 1990s. We had a sponsor and were the Indians, as in Cleveland Indians. Same logo, but the shirt was purple. The sponsor's name was on the back of the shirt in place where ones last name would go. My little sister was a Yankee when she played. This was for little league baseball.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:32 AM on August 15, 2023

Dothan, Alabama, from 1994 through at least the year 2000, teams were all named after their sponsors for city youth baseball. Don't know if that's a Thing anymore.
posted by isauteikisa at 10:41 AM on August 15, 2023

Best answer: It seems all I do these days is coach youth baseball (in West Lafayette, Indiana) and we indeed have local sponsors for all of our rec league teams. Honestly, I love it...such a small community vibe.
posted by griseus at 10:43 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

80s- Midatlantic.

We had team names based on local businesses and used those as the team names. I remember yelling LET'S GO CENTRAL AVENUE MERCHANTS! during baseball games.

It seems the structure is different now. Looks like we have neighborhood regionals, like National and American. The fields where I used to play seem to use the Nationals W. The name of the park begins with W, but I cannot find anything on their site about affiliation.
posted by oflinkey at 10:43 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Even in my childhood (suburban Philadelphia, 90s) I can recall examples of:

* Pure sponsor names, ie, "We're the Smith Chiropractic team")
* Totally different team names in the spirit of pro or college names but intentionally avoiding actual major league names ("We're the Supercats, they're the Blue Lizards.") - sometimes chosen by the kids.
* A combination (I'm pretty sure my sister's basketball team was something like "The grasshoppers" but they were also sponsored by a local sandwich shop.)

I know friends who had little league teams with major-league names, but they came from areas without a local major league team. I can't speak for other cities, but here, we have a lot of very strong sports fandom and a lot of people have opinions about major league team names and you'd stand a high chance of, eg, "No child of mine is playing for the DODGERS!" I don't think this is a hard and fast rule, just probably less common in cities where major-league identification is stronger.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:44 AM on August 15, 2023

1) In '70s SF south bay area, we had sponsors and their names were on the uniforms (like The_Vegetables noted), but the teams did not go by the name of the sponsor (e.g. we went by the Tidal Waves or Braves rather than Shakey's Pizza). 2) From what I see on social media, the naming is the same situation now there. 3) HOWEVER, in the early '00s in the East Bay, my boyfriends' kids team names were 100% chosen by the kids and had no connection to pro team names (but these were soccer teams, not Little League). Go Fairy Jets! Go Lemons!
posted by queensissy at 10:50 AM on August 15, 2023

Both the regular kid LL or the “pipeline to the Major Leagues with a few alumni getting drafted every year” rich guy league in my northern LA County city had real teams as their names. Although everyone in the rich guy league had W.S. Hart Baseball logos on their hats, but that was just the league name.

My friends in Costa Mesa are in a LL where all the teams are named after SoCal universities.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 10:54 AM on August 15, 2023

Portland Maine - here is a list of all the Portland Little League team names from 2017 (most recent I could find easily). They're all local businesses.
posted by anastasiav at 10:58 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

In Colorado Springs, for the first four years, 9-11, my team was sponsored by The International Woodsmen of the World — it’s funny, but my actual memory is 'Woodmen of the World', but that can’t be right. I do have a visual memory of looking at one of the T-shirts which is detailed enough to be able to read it, but in that memory the shirt has a wrinkle that obscures the end of the word.
posted by jamjam at 10:58 AM on August 15, 2023

I played Parks softball growing up in the 90s in suburban Wisconsin. Our teams were always named after MLB teams but had local sponsor logos on the back.
posted by notjustthefish at 11:08 AM on August 15, 2023

In my experience:

- me, Philly suburbs, late eighties/early nineties, team named after some local company.
- my kid, Atlanta suburbs, early twenties, named after actual pro teams. (I don't think anybody got to be the Braves; I don't remember which team names they used in her league but they mostly seemed to be teams that wouldn't get a strong reaction here. My kid was on the Royals.)
posted by madcaptenor at 11:11 AM on August 15, 2023

Arizona, now. All the kid’s teams are called some version of Diamondbacks (Red Diamondbacks, Blue Diamondbacks) including my favorite, “Los Serpientes”. We still have local sponsors - grocery stores, contractors, etc.
posted by chuke at 11:17 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

I played Little League in Western Canada in the late 80s/early 90s. Our teams were sponsored and we had their logos on our uniforms, but we weren't referred to by the sponsor's name. Every team had a name after a big league club. (I played for the Cardinals, the Mets, and the Brewers in different years.)

My son plays now and they have a smaller logo on the back of their uniforms but their team names are more neighourhood / subdivision based. I don't think I could even tell you who sponsored my son's team. Instead, each subdivision has a team name and number (so, Neighbourhood 1, Neighbourhood 2 etc) and most of those areas had a team name as well (e.g., the North City Nationals).
posted by synecdoche at 11:24 AM on August 15, 2023

Also Arizona, in the early 90s...local "little league" but not official Little League. Every team had an MLB name and were referred to only by that name. Some teams stuck together over years and moved up in age groups (I was a Dodger from I think age 10-15). We had local business sponsors whose name appeared on the shirt backs but no one ever referred to them. The businesses liked getting the little plaques though.

I always wondered how MLB viewed this sort of thing. We bought hats from a licensed supplier but the shirts were generic cursive in MLB team colors.
posted by mullacc at 11:25 AM on August 15, 2023

In early 80's Missouri our small town little league teams were all sponsored by local businesses. Mine was Radio Shack. Which I guess were franchises--I think most of the other teams were home grown businesses. Anyway, the logo was on the jerseys and hats. In our town's system little league was 3 seasons and you played on the same team for all three seasons. Sponsors came and went I suppose but my team was Radio Shack the whole time.
posted by sevenless at 11:39 AM on August 15, 2023

I played city parks and rec ball in southwestern Ohio in the late 80s, and we were exclusively sponsored. I played for Mobile Mechanic and Little Caesar's Pizza, among others.

My kid just started playing this summer, through actual Little League in New England, and the teams all had MLB names. She was the Diamondbacks.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:39 AM on August 15, 2023

Chico's Bail Bonds, Bad News Bears.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:52 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

My mid-Atlantic little league baseball team in the 80s was named after the sponsor but my soccer team was not.
posted by Candleman at 12:18 PM on August 15, 2023

To add to my earlier answer: the more casual league I played for had all teams, no one got worked up because they played for the hated Giants or Athletics, because if you were that much of a baseball fan you sent your kind to the Hart league.

That league had kids whose dads were playing or played the bigs, so not sure how they handled who got to be on the Dodgers/Mets/Padres/Indians/etc and represent their dad's current or former team. Only kid I knew for sure who played there while his dad was also active was Todd Zeile's, and he wasn't on the Mets when his dad was.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:45 PM on August 15, 2023

In the 2010s in rural NH, my kid's little league did this same as The Vegetables. Major league team name and color for the front of the T-shirt, sponsor name on the back above the number, no personalization. The sponsors bought those t-shirts, mainly. Everyone wanted to be sponsored by the local seafood restaurant, because that team got a free post-season dinner celebration.
posted by shadygrove at 12:57 PM on August 15, 2023

Youth hockey in Bellevue, WA in the mid '70s was all sponsor-named teams. I played for Eddie Bauer, Lee Johnson Chevrolet and Sambo's (I know, I know).

When I switched to soccer because all the ice rinks got torn down, it was not sponsor-named (Lake Hills "Spirits" was my team).
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 2:01 PM on August 15, 2023

I played on USAF bases, then coached county run youth baseball and basketball for years as an adult. Never had a sponsor. I suspect government run leagues don't do sponsors.
posted by COD at 2:06 PM on August 15, 2023

In my early 90s Chicago suburb little league, the teams were all named for business sponsors. (A team picture from one year is still on display at an ice cream place I go to occasionally.) No major league logos or names. And no name besides the sponsor.
posted by Xalf at 2:27 PM on August 15, 2023

Suburb of Columbus Ohio, ‘60s and early ‘70s, little league teams were named after what we then called Indian tribes, I played on Huron one year , Piute [sic.] another. The older leagues were called Big 8 and Big 10 and the team names were an odd mixture of various colleges or universities that had no correlation to any actual conference. I played on Penn State.
Moved to Raleigh NC in 1972 and the teams were sponsored by local businesses.
My son's teams in the ‘90s in Wilmington NC were also sponsored by local businesses.
posted by pasici at 2:36 PM on August 15, 2023

In-town rec soccer teams and, I believe, rec baseball and softball teams (as opposed to travel teams), in my small city in western Massachusetts have local business sponsors. I don't remember how we referred to my kid's rec soccer team a couple years. It might have been by the business sponsor name or it might just have been my t-shirt color, but definitely wasn't by the name of a major league team.
posted by ElizaMain at 2:49 PM on August 15, 2023

Massachusetts, first half of the ‘00s - named after local businesses.
posted by Seeking Direction at 3:42 PM on August 15, 2023

Late 80s/early 90s girls slow pitch softball in Ohio with local business names. The town paper would also write short paragraph recaps for each game if the coach submitted the highlights, adding to the sponsor's ROI (my sports administration degree insisted on that tidbit).

My friend's elementary school kids in Fairfax, VA play baseball where everyone wears a Nationals cap and their t-shirts are different colors.
posted by icaicaer at 5:01 AM on August 16, 2023