The Alliance of American Football is getting closer to kick off and this week makes it feel a little more real as the league unveiled the names and logos of all eight teams competing in their inaugural season. Season one of the AAF is set to begin the week immediately following Super Bowl LIII this coming February.
With a schedule beginning in the winter and running until the early Spring, it makes sense that all eight teams are located in the southern half of the United States with Salt Lake City, Utah the furthest north.
The teams, in alphabetical order: Atlanta Legends, Arizona Hotshots, Birmingham Iron, Memphis Express, Orlando Apollos, Salt Lake Stallions, San Antonio Commanders, and the San Diego Fleet.
A look at all their logos:
Joe Bosack designed all eight team logos as well as that for the league, hence why they all look amazing.
We’re hoping to do a deeper dive into the team’s logos with a special feature next week, so in the meantime we’re going to keep things brief…
Atlanta Legends for Martin Luther King, Hank Aaron, the Olympics et al as the inspiration for their name:
Arizona Hotshots for the elite teams of wildland firefighters, quite likely inspired by the memory of the nineteen firefighters killed in Yarnell, Arizona battling a wildfire there in 2013
Birmingham Iron for the iron industry which was once big in the city, “strength, endurance, and unwavering power”
The Memphis Express for the fact the city is “fast, strong, and never settles”, could also (unofficially) be a nod to Federal Express who has their headquarters in the city:
Orlando Apollos for the “God of the Sun” because Florida has a lot of it, and the Apollo space missions which were the “conqueror of the moon” and blasted off from nearby (as it was known then) Cape Kennedy, Florida
Salt Lake Stallions are “wild and untamed like the great land” and were able to “carry to the tops of the mountains and along the shores of the Salt Lake”
San Antonio Commanders for “Military City USA”, for “honour, duty, and sacrifice”
San Diego Fleet for “firepower, teamwork, ingenuity”, the “greatest fighting force the world has ever known”, San Diego is home to both a U.S. Marine and U.S. Naval Base
The inaugural Alliance of American Football season begins on February 9, 2019; the ten-week regular season will be capped off with two rounds of playoffs, the championship game expected to be played the last weekend of April.
