Triple-A Syracuse Mets announce intent to ditch parent club’s brand

The Syracuse Mets, Triple-A affiliate of—you guessed it—the New York Mets, announced a rename-the-team contest that signals their intent to rebrand. The S-Mets will accept submissions from fans through August 31, with plans to announce 10 finalists September 2. Another round of voting will take the number down to five by September 14.

For most of Syracuse’s history, the local club has been known as the Chiefs, with the first such team being established in 1934. Multiple franchises at various classifications of Minor League Baseball used the name Chiefs off and on through 1996, with brands rooted in Native American imagery. In 1997, the team, then the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, rebranded as the Sky Chiefs with a plane-themed brand. The franchise then reverted to the name Chiefs from 2007 to 2018, this time with a brand based on the rail industry.

The Major League Mets purchased the team before the 2019 season and named it in their own image, but after the sale of the team to Diamond Baseball Holdings in December of last year, the team’s seventh season as the Syracuse Mets will be its last.

With the name change, the rapidly decreasing number of affiliated Minor League Baseball teams named for their parent clubs will drop from 10 to nine—less than eight percent of 120 clubs. The remaining holdouts include five teams at Single-A (Dunedin Blue Jays, Palm Beach Cardinals, St. Lucie Mets, Salem Red Sox, and San Jose Giants), one each at High A and Double-A (South Bend Cubs and Springfield Cardinals, respectively), and two at Triple-A (Iowa Cubs and Worcester Red Sox).