Roots Derby

So I read this article by Bob Pockrass, ESPN's NASCAR writer. It basically says that NASCAR has chased money and left smaller tracks that have a history in NASCAR feel disconnected from the NASCAR world with their local short track series. He talks about how Winston did a lot for the small tracks and you still see Winston logos around these tracks, 15 years after they left the sport.

http://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/19110879/nascar-embracing-roots-racing-sport-needs-most

It's a good article, and brings up a good point. Every time they run a short track race, just like this weekend at Bristol, the drivers and fans love it and want more gritty short track racing. The truck series runs at Tony Stewart's dirt track Eldora every summer, and it's a fun event and when that gets ran, people say that a weeknight race would be very cool to see in the top series. Brad Keselowski is a big proponent of this, and would be considered the poster boy of the weeknight race movement.

So in my typical fashion, I ran with an idea. I had huge plans, but couldn't come up with much graphics outside of a logo. Think of this as a big connected series with my race track restoration concepts. Did you know the day after the MLB All Star game is the only day of the year there isn't any scheduled game of the big 4 sports? I would want to take advantage of that.

Introducing the Roots Derby.

So this is a mix of the Winter Classic and the Kraft Hockeytown events. The tracks listed above hosted the Cup series at one point, near .5 miles long, and all are in the Southeastern USA, or close to Kentucky, a trip that would be manageable on a short week. Each year, the host track would be announced and on a  rotating basis would host a single cup race for the first time in decades. The idea would be that renovations up to spec to give these tracks as close to a cup facilities they can, and letting the track keep most of those things. That includes fences, SAFER barriers in the turns, and pit walls when needed. No repaving or anything, just the simple fixes and a fresh coat of paint. NBC Sports could broadcast out of a mobile studio, instead of the equivalent of a high school football media center. Put up some port o potties, have food trucks to help concession lines, and use some of the space around the track for merchandise.

Also split the cost of a new leaderboard branded with Monster logos.

 (This is Talladega, but very similar to what most tracks have)

Well what about seating? I've looked at the capacities, and most of these are around 10,000. I propose decent sized temporary grandstands, like a street circuit. Why? Well there's a few reasons. A track like Gresham Motorsports Park doesn't need 40,000 seats permanently, but would take a small expansion. NASCAR tracks also make more TV money than ticket money, something there would be an explosion of when you only have to compete against the WNBA and the AAA baseball All Star Game. Most, if not all of these tracks are in big spaces of land, so temporary seats would be easy to accommodate. Not to mention, these tracks don't have the amenities to host much more fans than they can already. Lastly, you won't have people driving from out of town for a Wednesday night race, so mostly locals would be at this event.

That brings me to another point, this race would be 300 laps. Segment wise, 75-75-150. Bristol and Martinsville run 500 laps, which is great but just so long. More and more people are advocates of shortening races, and this would be a good platform to do this. A 500 lap race on a weeknight would take forever, especially if there is a delay.

Cup would take up the whole day on the track. Do practice during the day, qualifying at about 6, and race at 7:30. The day before would be all to the local promoters. Asphalt racing pales in comparison to dirt tracks on a weekly basis. My idea is to have a Stock Showcase, a televised appetizer to the event the next day. This would be where the track makes most of it's money. Have locals get some spotlight and possibly a doorway to the better series. The main event purse would be significant, something a lot of small time racers would value. I don't imagine a back marker NASCAR team offering a ride in the Roots Derby due to NASCAR licensing, but hey maybe a streamlined process could get these guys in.

Finally, financials. Split the Roots Derby cash between the promoters, NBC Sports, and whoever else gets a cut(me, it was my idea after all). Ideally, this should offset the couple million it'd take to renovate the track. The track would have a decent nest egg to possibly renovate media centers to get a legit shot at hosting some form of NASCAR on the regular.

I think that's it! A lot to take in after about 3 weeks of planning. If you're somehow brought here from twitter or whatever, check out this big thread where I have a fictional track company and I renovate tracks.

http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/103202-raysoxs-racetrack-restoration/

Death to the Block S

Pop quiz! What team does the above logo belong to?

Time's up, the correct answer is Stanford, Michigan State, and Syracuse

While there's nothing wrong with the logo, It's hard to believe this many teams got a patent.Anyways, I decided to create logos for those 3 teams revolving around the letter S and their team name.

Stanford's S sometimes has a nice little tree on it. So I decided to create a logo where they're together. I wanted to make a diamond shape, but realize that hey duplicating the top bit looks a lot like a tree. I connected the branches and added a trunk.

I started this concept MONTHS ago. The only progress I had was an MS alternating because I had another letter to play with. I played around with some stuff, and added a nose plate in the negative space of the S. This evolved into a Spartan helmet. The more I played with it, the more it evolved. It became an M-S-U logo,

 This one is an orange

Puerto Rican Soccer League

So a little background into this project. Football Manager is a great game, and the Editor program that comes with it is also great. Last winter, I figured it out, and created a mod where I could do Promotion/Relegation in the US leagues. I picked Puerto Rico FC for the sole purpose of using the youth system to make Puerto Rico a better national team. Bayamon FC was a semi pro team that was in the lower leagues, so I could use them to get first team minutes.

It is really hard with 2 teams to do this. The in-game editor lets you pull up any player, and edit them to your liking, essentially. This includes moving to other teams. I not only was a successful manager, but basically acted as a pimp/commissioner trying to get players to places where they could actually play. There were a handful of independent teams in Puerto Rico, who weren't attached to a league. I used them to try and keep players for 3 years to gain citizenship. I didn't play long enough to see many players not on my team gain citizenship and get called up to the national team.

Fast forward to last week. I was playing a different save and wanted to check editor for something. I ended up looking to see how many teams were based in Puerto Rico. The answer is 25. That's not entirely too many for one league. I moved Bayamon FC to the league, who were marked as a US team since they're in our pyramid. I figured a super league consisting of the 14 Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Puerto Rico, the 7 independent teams, and any other team that I could find. The teams play everyone once, then the league splits, and the two sets of 13 plays another round against each other. The total of 37 games is around the amount most leagues play.

I started adding to the logos that already existed in a massive logo file someone put together. There were teams with blurry logos, there were teams with bad logos, and there were teams where I couldn't  even find logos for.

My goal in this save is to become the Puerto Rican national team manager, just to remain impartial. The job opened in 2017, but I wasn't considered because I didn't have experience. One team fired their coach 4 games in, I took over and finished 3rd in the league. So the league is in it's offseason and I'm thinking that there are a lot of really bad logos. In previous FM saves, I've had my concepts as the graphics in game, and it just didn't feel as immersed. But I felt that if I replaced them all, I could really make the game better.

Here are the current logos in order

Quintana, Bayamon, Maunabo, Roosevelt, Rio Piedras, Spartans, Vega Alta, Puerto Rico United, River Plate PR, Criolles Caguas, Carolina Giants, Fluminese, Huracan, Sevilla PR, Tornados de Humacao, Atletico San Juan, Guayama, Yabucoa, Brazilian Soccer Academy, EFBR, Isabela, Leones, Koricanacha, Universitarios, Fenix, and finally Yabucoeña.

As you can see, there isn't a lot of great logos here. I wanted to place them on a map, and ended up making little icons for a google map. I based my logos after of Spanish teams, mostly. Their logos are so simple and wording isn't necessary. So without further adieu, here is the league.

NO CHANGES

Couple of teams with logos that would hold up.

Bayamon

 River Plate

 Roosevelt

 Sevilla

Quintana

Then the rest

Criolles de Caguas - My team. They have an Italian style crest now, so I deleted some initials, and put a fleur de lis in because Criolles translates to Creoles

BSA - A mash up of Manchester United and Chelsea, with a little bit of Brazilian national crest.

Gigantes de Carolina - The city's flag has some of those shapes featured in the flag of Brittany, so I matched the flag, and put a crown on the top.

EFBR - There isn't much about this team I can find out, other than the logo having a sword on it.

Fenix SC - I love these colors together, and it was just a matter of making a phoenix logo to throw on a crest.

Fluminese - I made this crest the same as their "parent" club, but with the C as a G.

Guayamo FC - For the team whose name is spelled wrong on the game, their crest is pretty simple with a badge and their initials.

Tornados de Humacao - The crest of the city has a bundle of arrows, and the flag is the same pattern as the crest. I threw an H and the year on for good measure.

Caguas Huracan FC - My favorite logo. I used a free font I found on a diamond, and threw some geometric hurricanes on there. 

Isabela - Their crest features a lot of gradients, a rooster, and stripes. I did a similar look to Bradford City using the rooster that is on the city's crest.

Koricancha - The only thing I could use for this team was their city's flag, so I repurposed an Adelaide United concept I did featuring it.

Leones - Ponce is the 2nd biggest city in Puerto Rico, so I wanted a big mean crest for them. I used a lion head from an Orlando City concept I did before.

Leones de Maunabo - Had to use a different lion, so I did a regal lion on the best colors in the league.

Puerto Rico United - I absolutely used the QPR lettering for this, but I wanted simplicity for a team representing the whole country.

Atletico Rio Piedras - This team had a blurry city crest as their logo so I made them rock some yellow and black checkers. This logo was from my American Premier League series.

Atletico San Juan - Used the cute little sheep on the city crest as the main part of this logo.

Spartans - Their current logo is pretty good, just simplified it a little.

Universitarios - I could not find anything about this club online, but they were orange on football manager. The placeholder logo I used was the Universitarios logo for the team in Peru. The logo is a circle with a red U in the middle. I made it orange and called it a day. I changed it slightly and made it a U in a hexigon.

Vega Alta - In what could be the worst logo in the league, I made a logo similar to Real Betis with the city flag and a VA that is the same shape.

Yabucoa - This city's flag is this weird abstract flag in cool colors. I did a look similar to Villareal's crest, featuring the lime green in their logo.

Yabucoeña - From the same town as above, but with more purple in the form of  Grenada's crest.

That is it! here is a map to bring it all together. I will post screenshots of the game when I upload them all.

If by some chance a Puerto Rican club is reading this, hit me up we might be able to make your team look better.

Seattle Mariners Rebrand

I posted this on my Behance, but I felt like I should post it here too!

One of my least favorite brands in the MLB is the Seattle Mariners. I feel like their current brand is too cluttered with outlines, and doesn't represent a bold identity. This concept stems from an idea I've had for a while, adopt the color scheme the other pro teams in Seattle use. I was going for a bold refresh of a past identity, similar to the Houston Astros.

Los Angeles Clippers Rebrand

Really quick concept here. Total, it took about 4 hours to complete start to finish. The new logos are god awful. Very rarely do I see a logo that makes me want to completely rebrand them to cleanse my palette, but it happened yesterday.

A Clipper is a fast ship. There is imagery in there, but they never use it. I started sketching a logo in class yesterday of a wavy circle with a ship peaking into frame and some sails going out. I made it pretty quickly on my computer after some tweaks. I want people to realize what it is after looking at it after a while. The script is the Toledo Mud Hens font with some thick outlines. I also didn'[t want to bunch up the set with a bland LA logo, so what I did was make LA in maritime alphabet letters to put under the back collar.

The jerseys are new too. I never do basketball concepts, so I didn't have a template. I made a basketball one from my soccer template. Nike is taking over the NBA contract in a few seasons, so I made sure I used them. The home and away are based on the Louisville March Madness uniforms this year. The alternate I chose light blue over navy because it would be more unique.

From the Sox Drawer - BC Lions

So for LITERALLY years, I've had an idea to rebrand the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League. Look at animal logos in the Pacific North West. The Canucks and Seahawks both have sleek logos with references to traditional Native American, or First Nations art. The style is very straight with patterns and flairs that make it seem like it could be made of wood.

The BC Lions' logo isn't great. It's iconic, but not great. So I went ahead and made this yesterday. I went step by step, snapchatting the results. The first attempt was very blocky and hardly resembled a lion. I couldn't just take a lion from aboriginal art, well because, there isn't any. Not even mountain lions. So I looked at other animals, so eagles and wales. I picked up a few things from there. I went and looked at lion logos, so Detroit's came up. I realized that I may have to be sleeker than originally planned, but as long as it's bold and sharp. I did the head shape first, then added more details. The mouth is flat and angular, like the Seahawks and Canucks. I did a dark Shadow on the neck and jaw. Then white around the mouth (and has been nicknamed Colonel Sanders because of it). Eyes are one of my weak points, and I drew an eye after looking at some for other animals and came out with an eye that matched. I threw in a few shapes that I noticed in the art I saw, and I was done with the head.

The BC was the Baylor font that I really love. I wanted something that was different than the one they had, but could still be modern and evoke movement. I put the BC on the bottom of the head and placed it so the detail wold remain, and be as tall as it is wide. I may do some uniforms, but wanted to post these logos that I've had in my head for so long.

From the Sox Drawer - Alabama State Hornets

There's so many logos I've done but haven't shared for whatever reason. I have been thinking that it would be really cool to show off some of the nicer ones to the public, because outside of tumblr, and the people I did them for, no one has seen these.

So last year around November, I got an email out of the blue. It was a guy who had played baseball at Alabama State. He was emailing me because he wanted me to put a logo package for ASU together because, well, they don't have a great identity. He wanted a few logos, a font, and some jerseys. I told him I was game because this was such a great opportunity.

In my head I wanted to do a cool, one color logo, like Texas or Kansas State. I figured that on yellow or black, the hornet's stripes could still have similar effects. But the black really didn't agree with me and I had to settle with an outline. I talked to our good friend Doug, who I see as a great mentor, and he was just saying how it wasn't working. I finally decided I should start again.

I loved the shape, but going forward it needed to be more realistic. Bold lines, correct anatomy, and multiple colors. So I took apart the shapes that made the previous look. I went one by one making shadows and highlights in addition to the small details. I added an eye, some legs, and Power Ranger looking thunder bolts to the tail. All of this resulted in one of my favorite logos I've ever done. I made an ASU monogram, and a full font for them. Then finally, I made a football uniform using the striping pattern.

But eventually I sent the whole thing to the guy(who was legit, I found him on their baseball roster), and he never got back. He wanted it around New Years and I think I got it done before then, but I still have this really nice logo that ASU is willing to buy from me!