Bravos de León

31

The previous logo for los Bravos de León featured what appeared to be a member of the Guamare nation wearing what appeared to be a hybrid between a traditional Guamare headdress and a batter's helmet. Their new logo features just the team name.

If this was an American team called the Braves (I'm sure you can figure out on your own that Bravos is simply Spanish for Braves), I'd assume it was an attempt to remove Native American imagery from the logo. And maybe it is here. I have no idea if there's a similar movement to do away with such imagery in Mexico. I will note that there's not a lot of such imagery in Mexican sports these days. The only professional teams in Mexico with names inspired by indigenous names are this team and los Olmecas de Tabasco in LMB, los Bravos de Juarez in Liga MX (soccer), and los Yaquis de Obregón in Liga Mexicana del Pacífico (minor league baseball). This team and los Olmecas just use wordmarks for logos, and los Bravos de Juarez use a horse. Only los Yaquis actually show an indigenous person in the logo. Is this because teams are going out of their way to avoid indigenous imagery, or just coincidence given that there are only four teams with indigenously-inspired names in the first place? Or is the fact that there are only four such teams itself evidence that teams are avoiding this sort of thing?

Hell if I know. The closest thing to a clue I have is that los Bravos de Juarez use a horse in their logo, which definitely comes across as "We didn't want to just use a wordmark but we also didn't want to offend anyone by putting indigenous imagery in the logo". Then again, the Charlotte Checkers have a bear in their logo and it's not because anyone finds board games to be offensive.

Anyway, there's not a lot to say about the logo. Not only is it just a wordmark, but the wordmark is about as generic as it gets. It's another wordmark written in the same font you'll see used for junior high and high school teams across the U.S. Even if the team is trying to avoid indigenous imagery, I feel like it's got to be possible to use more interesting lettering. Heck, just use the wordmark from the old logo with the person removed.

But really, wordmarks are boring logos. If you're that worried about indigenous imagery, change your name. And if nobody in Mexico regards indigenous imagery as problematic, go ahead and use some indigenous imagery.

Final Score: 31 points.
Penalties: Script, 7 pts; Letter, 24 pts.
Bonuses: None.