Trying to save Face(book): Meta-style rebranding campaigns for sports teams and figures

Facebook tried to go full pivot yesterday with a rebranding of its name. For those of you who haven’t figured out that Facebook is a bottomless pit of frustration, despair, bigotry, misinformation, etc. and deleted your account — or forgot your login and don’t have access to your college email anymore (now I feel old) — Mark Zuckerberg was apparently late on the uptake, too, so don’t feel too bad. Actually, do feel bad and do delete your account.

I’m not sure if Meta is a good choice, and I’m even less sure why you would dress like a Bond villain and announce your plan for world domination before you’ve got Daniel Craig in a compromising position. ( Phrasing.)

I’m no Don Draper but my suggestion would be a less ominous approach. Don’t announce it, just change the name to Flowr at 5 p.m. on a Friday and hope no one notices their F icon changed to a daisy. Shit, maybe I am Don Draper.

So, since you asked for it, and it is 5 p.m. on a Friday, here are a few free ideas from Sterling Cooper Draper Beckwith on which sports teams/figures need a rebrand.

When your stench is so foul that even one of the best players in the world can’t keep you from choking, you need to rethink more than uniforms. From Donald Sterling to… well I guess this is just about Sterling. Embrace Los Angeles. The red, white and blue colors are as out of place as their strange black court design.

They tried a subtle nod to the Latino population with their City jerseys, but maybe lean into that more with a new name and color scheme. I hesitate to even make suggestions, so I won’t. I said they were free, I never said they were finished. If the pivot is to something more representative of LA, though, Steve Balmer shouldn’t be picking it or announcing it. (So many jokes, so little room for error.)

I feel bad for Jets-Mets fans, and they’ll probably get mad at me about that the same way they get mad at Yankees fans who don’t hate the Mets. (To quote Draper, “ I don’t think about you at all,” which hurts even worse.) Both teams don’t have to rebrand, just one of them so they don’t rhyme anymore.

I’ll let their fans pick which one should have to change for the unintentional comedy of that inner turmoil. Even though I think it’s pretty clear the Jets would be the loser, don’t underestimate the rancor Mets faithful has for their own team, but I’ll go with Jets because they’ve been worse this decade.

How about the New York Bog? For whatever reason I like non-plural names, it’s better than New York Swamp, they could keep the green unis and it also has an apt double meaning. (Bog in the UK also means toilet.)

I don’t even know if Cowboys fans like Jerry Jones. He’s probably the most visible owner in American sports, right? His Dallas counterpart Mark Cuban is up there, but if you’re not the most famous owner in your own city you can’t really argue for the top spot.

My case for Jerry is… people don’t like him. If we did Jerry Jones word association, most people’s response would be, “Uh… uh… piece of shit!” They wouldn’t be wrong, but no one wants to be thought of as fecal matter. May I suggest something friendlier, with less baggage?

Perhaps Larry or Terry?

As in, “Hey, Rog, Larry Jones here. Just wanted to let you know that our weekly call is canceled. … Yup, your balls are still intact, but I’ve got a 1:30 tee time with Satan, ’Cubes and Kroenke so we’ll have to do a visitation next week. … Uh-huh. … Sounds good. … Hate you, too.”

They already dropped the racist moniker, so they’re clearly open to suggestions unlike a litany of other franchises. I’m not patting Dan Snyder on the back; his team’s name was so abhorrent they couldn’t use the “we’re honoring Native Americans” excuse anymore.

I think he’s going for a European soccer club approach with the Washington Football Team look. If he wanted to do that, he should’ve opted for club instead of team, but that’s like 300th of the list of things he should’ve done.

My suggestion, since they seem intent on “honoring” someone, is change the team name to Washington White People, and let Native Americans design the logo and mascot and pick a nickname. Let’s see what they come up with. There aren’t really slurs for white people; the closest I can think of is cracker or white trash, but I don’t get offended by either. (I am white.)

However, if you want a recommendation, my Native American friends, it would be to switch the team name to the Washington Racists, because if your end goal is to piss off white people, just call them racists.