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Nobody asked my opinion of the Broncos' new look, but one of the pleasures of punditry is that I don't have to wait for such questions.
The new jerseys look like what you'd see on the Acme Gear & Sprocket slow-pitch softball team, but maybe the plan is to save on cleaning costs, since the dark blue won't show grass stains as much.
The new helmet logo is an improvement, at least in a graphic-arts sense. The stylized snorting mustang is cleaner and simpler, and in such matters, clean and simple is generally a virtue -- the CBS eye, the Nike swoosh, etc.
Then again, once people get used to something, their
minds are hard to change. RCA once adopted something clean
and simple, a stylized rendition of its initials, and found
that the public loved the old drawing of faithful Nipper
sitting next to the antique gramophone, listening to his
master's voice.
As for semiotic analysis, several comments in Thursday's
Post caught the essence of the new helmet logo right away.
The old one had the horse inside a big D,
thereby
containing the Broncos inside a city whose name starts with
D.
Among the 100 largest cities in this republic, that
limited the Broncos to Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Des Moines
and Dayton. Dallas and Detroit already have football teams,
and Des Moines and Dayton are probably too small to support
teams (both are larger than Green Bay, but Green Bay draws
heavily on nearby Milwaukee), and so, as long as the
D
was part of the logo, the Broncos were essentially
chained to Denver.
Now, though, the D is gone. Those wild and free-roaming Broncos are no longer contained within the D corral. Moving the team to a more generous venue will thus be simpler for Broncos owner Pat Bowlen if he doesn't get his new stadium, or if the new stadium happens to be in Aurora or Arvada.
Given that the make-over was done by high-powered experts, the removal of the D can be no accident. Bowlen was trying to sneak it past the public, but alert Post readers caught it right away.
And if Denver really wants a Superbowl victory someday, maybe the best course is to wish Bowlen godspeed as he moves to a city that will give him a new stadium with more skybox suites to rent to millionaires. Then Denver should follow the Green Bay course.
The Packers are owned by their fans. The club was
incorporated in 1923 as a non-profit corporation,
intended to promote community welfare.
There are 2,000 stockholders, and no one can own more than 20 of the 4,500 shares. Shares cannot be traded, and no dividends are paid.
The team could move only if the corporation were
dissolved, and in that case, nobody could get more than $25
a share. All other proceeds would go to Sullivan-Wallen
Post No. 11 of the American Legion for the purpose of
creating a soldiers' memorial.
In other words, nobody would profit personally by moving the Packers out of Green Bay, and so the team stays in town, where it supports its own stadium improvements, instead of taxing people who make $18,000 a year to provide facilities for people who make $3 million a year.
And this naive and backward community ownership apparently works, since Green Bay won the professional football championship this year.
That happened often in my youth, before I grew up and quit caring about such folderol, and it struck me that maybe Newt Gingrich has succeeded, and we really are caught in a time warp, reliving those carefree times.
The Yankees win the World Series. Then the Packers take the NFL championship. Although memory said that this occurred annually way back when, it actually happened only once. The Yankees swept the series in 1961, and in early 1962, the Packers defeated the New York Giants.
Thus smart bettors should put their money on the Boston Celtics, also champions in 1962, even if the Celtics are currently at the bottom of their conference and boast a worse record than even the Nuggets.
And in hockey, if this time warp holds, the Avs won't get another Stanley Cup this year -- it will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs, also at the bottom of their division.
So the odds should be long and profitable, and if anybody actually tries these wagers and wins big money, I hope they'll remember me.
Meanwhile, if I were a betting man, I'd bet on Bowlen getting a new stadium in Denver, after the usual posturing about how he wouldn't move the team, but he might have to sell it to someone who would move it, even though Denver fans have been very supportive, etc.
When the election comes, he probably plans to announce that he'll bring the beloved old uniforms back if only Denver will give him a sweetheart deal on a new stadium. The new look is a bargaining chip, and it's a tough game, hustling the public treasury.
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