The Indians will change the name of their franchise, the New York Times reported Sunday night.
The Indians had announced in July that a “thorough review” would take place regarding the franchise name. They did not commit to a name change at that time, though it was always very likely getting rid of the Indians moniker would be the end result.
The Times report indicated a more formal announcement could come within the next week, and that the team plans to stick with the Indians name and uniforms in 2021 before potentially shifting away from them in 2022.
One option could be to proceed without a team name, as the Washington Football Team has done, until a new name can be selected and implemented, the Times reported. The next team name is not yet known, but some of the more popular options include “Spiders,” “Guardians,” “Blues” and several others pertaining to music or aquatic themes.
The Indians dropped the Chief Wahoo logo from their uniforms and from view of the playing field before the 2019 season, though they retained the trademark and rights to the logo in part to disallow others to use it on a larger scale.
Cleveland’s baseball team has gone by the Indians nickname since 1915.
