The Washington Wizards Logo

 

The Washington Wizards basketball team, that was founded in 1961, and was first known as the Chicago Packers. Just like their logos, they have             gone through a lot of name changes as the years went by, such as the Chicago Zephyrs, Baltimore Bullets, Capital Bullets, and even the Washington Bullets. They then decided in 1997 that they were going to officially name the team the Washington Wizards. The team’s primary colors were originally blue, brown, black and white. Then it later changed to blue, gold, black and white. Now the colors have completely changed to red, white and navy blue.

 

 

Between 1963 and 1997, the team was known as the “Bullets” so there logo was the word bullets on bold font, but the two letter L’s in the word bullets were actually hands that were either catching or throwing a basketball. Throughout the bullets era there have been changes to either the color or the shape of the hands. In the 1974 version the hands were much thicker than the ones in the 1987 version. Between 1997 until now the team is well known as the wizards, and the logo has also gone through changed as well. The color change was the biggest difference to the logo because it was originally orange, blue, black and white. The orange part, which was the basketball was changed to gold during the 2007 season.

 

Abe Pollin was the owner of the team when the logo was made to be the bearded wizard. He has owned many of the original Washington teams such as the Washington Capitals, which was the national hockey team for Washington, and the Washington Mystics, which was Washington’s WNBA team. Shortly after Abe Pollin’s friend, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had passed away there was a name the team contest that was help and the public got to name the team and they got to choose from Wizards, Dragons, Express, Stallions, and Sea Dogs. The team is now owned by Ted Leonsis. Even though this team only has one championship that dates back to 1977, the team has a lot of potential to go for more runs in the upcoming seasons due to their young talent.

 

I feel like this teams logo has gone through the most dramatic changes from their original logo because when they were founded there name and logo was based off of “zephyrs” which means “a soft gentle breeze”and being part of the “Windy City”, I don’t think you’d want to be a soft gentle breeze in the aggressive, competitive sport of basketball. Even though the teams logo has changed, the fans have not. 

 

19611962

https://worldsportlogos.com/washington-wizards-logo/ “The team that played the first season was called Chicago Packers (it was named in honor of the Chicago meat industry), and the second season was represented by Chicago Zephyrs (zephyrs is a kind of wind, also known as a harbinger of both sunny and rainy weather – it depends on the direction). In the summer of 1963, the team moved to the warm territories.”

 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Washington-Wizards “Founded in 1961 as the Chicago Packers, the team relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1963 and became the Bullets. In 1973, after moving to Landover, Maryland, they played a season as the Capital Bullets, and in 1974 they became the Washington Bullets, a name they kept until 1995, when owner Abe Pollin renamed the team the Washington Wizards because of the violent overtones of the word bullet.”

 

https://sportsteamhistory.com/washington-wizards