Las Vegas announces new UFL team name: The Locomotives! Wait, what?

After months of eager anticipation mild interest, the UFL has announced the team name of their Las Vegas franchise. We are the Las Vegas Locomotives! You read that correctly, the Locomotives. As it turns out, Las Vegas was established in 1905 as a railroad town. Who knew! Here is a quote from league commissioner Michael Huyghue:

“It was critical for us to select team names that we felt best reflected the local community while simultaneously defining the personality of the team,” said Commissioner Huyghue. “Las Vegas was originally established in 1905 with the opening of the Salt Lake, San Pedro and Los Angeles Railroads. We wanted to honor the vast history of the city and the intrinsic benefits that this innovation provided to the community.”

Honoring the history of a city or region is a wonderful concept. Doing so in a town like Las Vegas is a very poor decision. Nearly everyone I know in Las Vegas is originally from somewhere else. It is the nature of our city. Very few people are true natives, and those who are seem to hold no real sense of pride in their city or community. Choosing a name based upon how a transient city was founded shows an extreme lack of knowledge of who actually make up the residents of Las Vegas.

Let's move along to the team colors. The UFL has selected Blue, Silver and White as the official team colors for the Las Vegas Locomotives. Normally, there would be nothing wrong with this color combination. However, it again shows the lack of research and understanding put in to this decision. Las Vegas is not a football town, but we do have some fans. Most of those are fans of UNLV football. The team will also play on UNLV's home field, Sam Boyd Stadium. UNLV's school colors are Scarlet and Gray. UNLV's hated rival, University of Nevada - Reno's school colors are, wait for it: Silver, Blue and White.

You're trying to establish a fan based, most of which will come from the UNLV football fans and you're asking them to wear similar colors to their most hated college rival? Brilliant. It's like establishing a new NFL team in Columbus, OH., and selecting Maze and Blue as the team colors. Not to mention that Sam Boyd Stadium looks like this:

There is already talk that the name will be shortened to Las Vegas Locos. Probably just wishful thinking, but at this point I'm not sure anyone cares. Las Vegas is starved for some kind of professional sports team. Even a "minor league" football team such as the UFL is providing could have been the start of something wonderful for the local sports loving community. Sadly, I feel that due to an exceptional lack of judgement, todays announcement will do nothing but prolong our city's craving for a real professional sports team.