Surprisingly, something that gets brought up a lot from people around the league is the history of every teams identity. Why is this there mascot? What is this based of off? Where did that idea come from?
Below is a little bit about each team's brand that aims to answer those questions... Just for fun.
Toutle Lynx
When the franchise was first established there were no teams with the color red in the league yet. Because of that, the Lynx nearly became the first, but elected instead to go with lime green. From the beginning owner JoLynn McCully knew she wanted the mascot to be some kind of cat and considered just about every species.
When it came time to build the Lynx logo the Ohio University Bobcats image was used as template. The Lynx are one of the only teams left in the league to have never changed their primary logo since expansion.
Washougal Wrecking Crew
Up until just a few days before the announcement that they were joining the league, the Wrecking Crew were all set to instead be called the "Boomers" with team colors of teal and yellow. For still unknown reasons the full scale change was made at the last second.
Once Wrecking Crew was decided upon, team owner Aaron Deister narrowed down the logo image to two options, the current one they have today and another one of a skull with crossing tools, similar to what's pictured to the right. Did he make the right choice?
Ubbelohde Hill underdogs
Almost every week it seems like somebody tries to call the JAL out on a typo error, saying the underdogs "u" isn't capitalized, but they're wrong...
Since the franchise's inception the "u" on underdogs is intentionally under cased - It's the official way to spell the team name. (The only time it's not is when all caps are used, like in the current logo) u-dogs owner Cathy Woodruff had this idea from the start, saying after all, it would emphasize the team's name as "underdogs."
Up until JAL 13 the u-dogs had always been purple, but they've shifted away in recent seasons because Woodruff said it wasn't fierce enough. Now they don a crimson red that is almost identicle to the shade of Alabama's.
Anaheim Storm
Does any part of the Storm logo look familiar to you? Like you've seen it before somewhere? That's because you have, and it's the lightning bolt the cloud is holding, which is a differently colored Chargers logo. Originally the team's logo was going to be simply a set of angry eyes, before team owner Kyle Koopman changed his mind.
San Francisco Cobras
Some find the Cobras look to be boring and others find it to be great. The simplicity of the Cobras black and white color scheme was created by the original owner and founder of the franchise Brock Johnson, who based the idea off of the Brooklyn Nets. Since Brock, 2 others have owned the team, but neither has ever considered adding a real color.
Cowlitz Bambinos
Of all the 12 teams, the B's have by far the most detail woven into their whole aroma. The word Bambinos was chosen as a nod to the movie Sandlot, a baseball film staring a bunch of young kids. By definition the word "Bambino" means "a young child" so it all makes sense. Also a nod to the classic movie is their mascot of a bull mastiff dog that resembles the protagonist "The Beast" in the story.
Other than that co-owner Hunter Whitten took his time deciding between the color scheme of red and gold or green and yellow. Ultimately the first won out and the shades matched the 49ers. When the team got uniforms in JAL 13 though, they added dark grey to the look and now more closely resemble the Buccaneers.
West Coast Waves
West Coast probably has the simplest logo. It's a style that hundreds of sports teams have done before them, but the woven together letters look never gets old. Of the colors, team owner Anthony Nusbaum initially wanted to be green and blue but switched to orange instead after more thought. The color shades are identical to the Miami Hurricanes.
After JAL 14 Nusbaum considered changing the colors to dark blue and light blue for a couple days but eventually retracted, deciding that a change after just one season would be a little excessive.
Missouri Express
From the start franchise owner Garrett Blain knew he wanted his team name to have something to do with Cowboy culture. Among a fairly large list of potentials he came up with "Outlaws" and "Rebels" were two of the finalists alongside "Express" before selecting the latter.
When the colors were being put together they were originally going to be the same as the Atlanta Falcons, but somewhere in the process the red got much brighter. For some time now Blain has considered adding yellow to the mix of colors to look more like his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs, but obviously hasn't pulled the trigger on it yet.
The team's alternate logo which was the main feature on their original uniforms and is on the back of their current ones was an idea taken from what Texas A&M does.
Columbia Bison
Before being named "Columbia" the Bison's location name was almost both Cowlitz (this was before the Bambinos were in the JAL) and Cascade by original owner and founder Kevin Johnson.
The color scheme was inspired by Notre Dame, who's football uniforms are some of Kevin's favorites ever. Oddly enough, even though the Bison and the Los Angeles Rams have pretty similar looks the Rams were not used as inspiration at all in the development.
Castle Rock Rapids
The Castle Rock "Evergreens." That's almost who the Rapids were when Julie Johnson established the franchise. From the start she wanted some type of outdoorsy object to be the mascot, and when she decided on Rapids she copied the Mariners colors of blue and teal.
Bay Area Fog
Founder and co-owner Darren Ayoub took longer than anybody to decide the name of his franchise, and his choice the "Fog" will forever be a classic in the league. Ayoub wanted the name to be something that resembled the Bay Area, and went through countless options. After selecting "Fog" Ayoub said quote "It's kinda b**chy but I like it."
As you can tell the logo was modeled after the Golden State Warriors, but that's not why the colors are blue and gold. Ayoub's attending college, the Cal Bears are the reason why he selected them. The exact colors shades were actually made equal to the Indiana Pacers.
Northwest Mafia
Of course when you're named the Mafia you do anything you can to resemble The Godfather movie and that's exactly what they did with the official team script font.
Team founder and co-owner Taite Kleine says purple was chosen because when the Mafia were joining the league the underdogs had just switched over to red and there wasn't a purple team anymore.
Another thing many people don't know is that before choosing "Northwest" as the location name Kleine almost went with "Yakima," the location of where he is currently attending college.
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