The Sports Teams Of Star Trek: Never Bet On The Redshirts
This article is more than 2 years old
Naming sports teams is generally a pretty bland affair. How many teams need to be named cougars, wildcats, eagles, or some other equally generic moniker? (Really, Oklahoma City? You stole an NBA team with a perfectly good name, decided to change it, and the Thunder is the best you could come up with?) If we’re of the same mind, you also might think they should look to different source material to find future mascots.
For instance, what if team owners started looking towards, I don’t know, let’s say Star Trek for inspiration when it comes to picking a name? That could be fun. We’re talking about a multi-million-dollar franchise, and many of the folks who can afford to own these teams are often huge nerds. Take Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, for example. He owns the Seattle Seahawks, the Portland Trailblazers, and a freakin’ science fiction museum, for goodness’ sake.
The Trek universe has some worthy candidates for mascot-hood, and artist Mitch Palmer has mined the franchise lore to come up with a few possibilities. In addition to clever names, he has also come up with accompanying logos, just for the hell of it.
My personal favorite is the Redshirt Expendables. They never win much as a team, but you really have to hand it to them for giving it their all every time out on the field. The Tribble Troublemakers is also pretty good, and the name says it all. Some are more fearsome, and more situationally appropriate, like the Romulan Warbirds, or the Bat’leths of Qo’nos. Those are much more likely to inspire fear in the opposing team. No one is scared of the Cadets.
