Vegas Team Name Speculation: Baseball Edition

Note: This is a non-hockey post but ties into the work I did looking into possible names for the team that became the Vegas Golden Knights and the NHL’s probable future Seattle franchise, so I’m publishing it here anyway.

The Las Vegas 51s of Minor League Baseball’s Pacific Coast League are adopting a new name next season to coincide with their move into a new stadium.

I hadn’t been paying much attention to this as I’m not much of a baseball fan, especially not of minor league teams on the other side of the country and not affiliated with any of my local teams.  The tools that I developed while attempting to determine the name of the eventual Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle’s seemingly-inevitable expansion team are still running, still focused on Las Vegas, and hit on something interesting today.

Yesterday, June 6, a lawyer with The Howard Hughes Corporation – owners of the 51s and their new ballpark in Summerlin, NV –  registered a total of sixteen domains related to the Las Vegas Aviators.

Additionally, a related Twitter handle – @lvaviators – shows as having been registered in June of 2018.  That account has yet to Tweet or update their profile but has a name of “Las Vegas Aviators.”  Ownership of the handle cannot be confirmed.

If this is indeed the team’s future identity, the name Aviators would tie in to Howard Hughes himself and the pilots at nearby Nellis Air Force Base.

As far as I can tell, The Howard Hughes Corporation has not registered any other baseball-related domains.

The full list of Aviators-related domains is as follows:

aviatorsdowntownsummerlin.com
aviatorslasvegas.com
aviatorslv.com
aviatorsnevada.com
aviatorssummerlin.com
downtownsummerlinaviators.com
lasvegasaviatorsbaseball.com
nevadaaviators.com
summerlinaviators.com
thedowntownsummerlinaviators.com
thelasvegasaviators.com
thelvaviators.com
thenevadaaviators.com
thesummerlinaviators.com
vegasaviators.com
vegasaviatorsbaseball.com

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Update, 6/10 1:30 PM: It would appear that there is a Facebook account for this new team name, too, as @TheLasVegasAviators is classified as a “Sports Team.”  There’s also an Instagram user with the name “lasvegasaviators.” Of course, this could be someone not affiliated with the team.

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Update, 6/11 2:00 PM: After SportsLogos.Net picked up our story, I was inspired to give the USPTO database another check.  It turns out that a ton of trademarks for Las Vegas Aviators were registered on June 6, the same day as the domains were acquired.  The trademark database usually takes a few days to update, so it’s not a surprise that we didn’t see this sooner.