NLL News: The San Diego Seals?

Shortly after the National Lacrosse League awarded a new franchise to the city of San Diego, the team announced a guess-the-name contest where fans could guess what the team would be called for a chance to win one out of ten prizes. Our very own Marisa Ingemi might have scooped everyone though, as yesterday she Tweeted that multiple sources told her that the new team in San Diego would be called the Seals.

As many people know, Marisa absolutely smashed it this summer with regards to NLL news. Indeed, she was the first to report that the NLL was going to expand to Philadelphia and San Diego back in July, so we know her sources are point. While the formal announcement is coming tomorrow, there are some more clues to support Marisa’s Tweet from yesterday.

Earlier today Jack Goods (@GoodsOnSports) of Buffalo News Sports, Tweeted out a great find by John Hoffman (@Corporal763). Hoffman posted on the IL Indoor forum page some logos filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office. These logos appear to be the primary and secondary logos for the new San Diego franchise. Indeed, the picture of the seal with a lacrosse stick & ball in his flippers was a dead giveaway.

Here is a closer look at the potential logos. The last one is my favorite.

After I saw Jack’s Tweet, I went onto the USPTO ‘s Trademark Search page to look for whether or not a San Diego Seals trademark was filed. After I put in “San Diego Seals” in the Basic Word Mark Search, up popped two results and one of them was indeed a mark for the San Diego Seals (Serial Number: 87649727).

It appears that the application was filed on October 18th. The owner of the mark is the National Lacrosse League. The application states that the mark will be used for clothing and for “providing a website featuring information relating to the sport of lacrosse.” While this isn’t definitive, applying for a trademark is a bit of a process and attorneys cost money, so I doubt the NLL filed this mark as a head-fake or to fool everyone.

While we still have to wait until tomorrow for the formal announcement, it looks like there is an extremely good chance that the new team in San Diego will be called the seals. I don’t know about you guys, but I love it! Seals are awesome, they are like dogs that live in the ocean.

Anyway, looking forward to the formal announcement tomorrow. Your move, Philadelphia!!