The Las Vegas 51s (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) are rebranding in 2019 after a move to a new Summerlin ballpark, and a leading name for the team is the Las Vegas Aviators.
The team is owned by Howard Hughes Corp., so an aviator name makes sense: Howard Hughes made his earliest rep as a pilot and designer of aircraft, and his biopic was The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese. The team has been running a name-the-team sweepstakes, where fans can suggest names and a winner selected in a random drawing among all entries. (No, the winner doesn’t need to suggest the winning name, in a twist on a normal name-the-team contest.) From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Team president Don Logan, who said he didn’t know about the trademarks until Monday, said this was done in an effort to prevent cybersquatting and that Aviators remains in the mix, along with four or five other names. A representative from the Howard Hughes Corp. did not return a call for comment.
“There’s a bunch of names submitted. One of the top submissions was the Aviators. And when you look through those and some of the other names, that will still remain nameless, apparently one of the things that people do, they call it cybersquatters, so we’re trying to prevent cybersquatters from getting it,” Logan said. “What they do is they go guess what your name might be and then when you want to buy the domains and stuff, you’ve got to pay them for it. There’s companies that do that so in an attempt to head off cyber squatters, that’s why they did it and that’s why nobody knew about it.”
Speaking of the new Summerlin ballpark: you can track construction progress here via webcam.
Rendering courtesy HOK.
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