Raiders' Mark Davis believes NFL 'out to get him'

I can’t speak to what the team was like before the change. That was before my time. But the term Jazz is highly associated with New Orleans, certainly not with Utah. At the time, they probably should have switched names. Now, the team is popular in Utah.

I think the owner offering to sell the name was mostly joking. I don’t remember the context and details.

That’s why we have the AAA baseball Albuquerque Isotopes and not the Albuquerque Dukes. The old team moved and the name went to Oregon (named for city’s founder, the Duke of Alburquerque).

From what I read, when the team moved to Oregon it ditched the “Dukes” name and called itself the “Beavers.” It seems like that when the new team relocated to Albuquerque it could have tried to purchase the old name if it had wanted to. Do you know anything about whether there was any consideration of that or if they just went with the new name from the get-go?

I thought they were from Springfield?

That’s where the stupid name came from.

1 Like

As I recall the events, another team moved here immediately after the Dukes left (in 2000-2001). The prior team owner included the Duke’s name in the deal, pissing off a lot of local folks. The Oregon team offered to sell the new team the name, but it was reported that the asking price was way too high for AAA. The new team moved on and held a naming contest, and selected Isotopes. The Oregon team then offered a substantially lower price, but commitments had already been made using the Isotopes name (including rebuilding the stadium).