My God, It’s Full of Stars: Sugar Land Skeeters rebrand as Space Cowboys

The Triple-A baseball team in Sugar Land, Texas, made it official today after the news leaked last week, they’re now the Space Cowboys. The new identity, unveiled this afternoon, features an astronaut whose visor is reflecting a field of stars, and who is wearing a cowboy hat and bandanna—paying tribute to both the cowboy culture and the aeronautics industry prominent in the area.

Of course, the space theme in the new look is not just about the fact that NASA’s Johnson Space Center is just a moon jump away. The rebrand comes just one year after the team went from the ranks of unaffiliated professional teams to being the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, just 20 miles away. As such, the team’s new color palette includes the parent club’s orange and black, along with a couple different blues.

Additional marks include an angled SL with a large orange star (or possibly a lens flare) outlined in light blue and filled with stars, as well as a rocket ship set against a design that hints at but is not quite the Texas state flag.

The new identity replaces the Sugar Land Skeeters brand that the team used from its inception in 2012 as an independent team in the Atlantic League. The Skeeters played through 2019 in the Atlantic League, did not play in 2020 because of COVID, and then played one season in the Triple-A West in 2021 before today’s rebrand announcement.

They’ll make their home debut as the Space Cowboys Tuesday, April 12, against in-state rivals the Round Rock Express.