By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
It’s no secret Howard Hughes Corporation, owners of the Las Vegas 51s, is considering re-naming the Pacific Coast League club to “Aviators” when Summerlin’s master developer moves the Triple A team to a new ballpark in Downtown Summerlin in 2019.
Howard Hughes Corp. is a land development company, but its namesake was known for films and aviation. So, if the 51s are re-branded into the Aviators, it would be a reference to the legacy of Howard Hughes, who owned undeveloped land in Las Vegas and the surrounding desert environs.
Aviators is a safe minor league team name, reminding me of the old Seattle Pilots (which moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers in 1970) and the Anchorage Glacier Pilots of the independent summer Alaska Baseball League.
But Aviators certainly is not as funny, colorful and irreverent as some other team names out there in the minors such as Isotopes, Blue Wahoos, Flying Squirrels, Baby Cakes, IronPigs or Chihuahuas. (The Isotopes and Chihuahuas are also in the Pacific Coast League.)
I don’t expect Texas-based Howard Hughes Corp., which has a strong corporate personality and is not known for its irreverent ways like Zappos for example, to come up with an off-the-wall minor league team name for its baseball product at the new $150 million ballpark, next to the Golden Knights’ training center along South Pavilion Center Drive in Summerlin.
Case in point: A minor league baseball team owner that happens to also be a land developer with more than $1 billion in revenues in 2017 came up with the name, “Reverence,” for one of its latest neighborhoods off the 215 western beltway.
Howard Hughes Corp. also came up with this name for a housing area not too far from Charleston Boulevard in Summerlin: Affinity.
When you’re a company coming up with tony housing development names like Reverence and Affinity, you’re probably not going to call your ballclub the Flying Scorpions or the Terrible Tortoises.
The 51s invited fans to offer suggestions for a new team name. But in the end, the team owner will sign off on the new name. That’s different from the naming ways of the new soccer team that shares Cashman Field with the 51s. Soccer team owner Brett Lashbrook put the decision of naming the team in the hands of local fans and they — not the owner — came up with Las Vegas Lights FC.
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These days, the 51s are discounting their ball caps and merchandise and preparing for the final 14 games at Cashman this season. The Howard Hughes Corp.-owned team will also have a different parent Major League Baseball team, as the New York Mets decided to end their relationship with Las Vegas.
On April 9, 2019, the new-branded 51s will play their first regular-season game at their “Las Vegas Ballpark” (the naming rights deal was a stunning $80 million payment by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to Howard Hughes Corporation. )
Here’s the 2019 schedule at “Las Vegas Ballpark.”
The 51s are advertising their new ballpark on highway billboards, asking for people to pay deposits for seats. And here’s a sign at Howard Hughes Corp.-owned Downtown Summerlin promoting the Howard Hughes-owned ballpark.
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