The recently completed NBA Finals featured a first in the four major American team sports: two teams (the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder) whose names were mass nouns, rather than plurals. It’s not surprising, since each team’s name is 20 years old or less.

Over the past 20 years, several new pro sports teams have eschewed traditional names for different and distinctive monickers (the Thunder and Heat, Minnesota Wild, Charlotte Bobcats, Tampa Bay Lightning, Columbus Blue Jackets). Creative, colorful and even sponsor-themed names are a regularity in Major League Soccer, where few teams have a basic pluralized name.

Whether the Utah Jazz finally decide to choose a name more fitting of their geographical location, or the NFL grants Los Angeles an expansion team, the next pro sports team name will be needed sooner than later. Maybe it will be traditional, in the vein of Tigers, or maybe it will be cutting edge, like the Wild. Who knows? What say you — let your voice be heard and tell us what team name you favor.

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