Jacksonville Jumbo Shrmp

119

Often a team name is well-suited to its city, and that's a good thing. Often a team name is ill-suited to its city, and that's a bad thing. But it's not often that a team name is well-suited to its city, and that's a bad thing. This is one of those times.

Jacksonville is one of the largest cities in the country. To be specific, it's the twelfth-largest in terms of population, and the largest in the Southeast. I know what you're thinking: that can't be right. Atlanta's got to be bigger, right? Heck, is Jacksonville even the biggest city in Florida, given the presence of Miami? But it's true. Jacksonville has a population of 950,000. Atlanta's is only 499,000. Miami? 442,000.

Of course, these numbers aren't telling the whole story. These are city populations. When we think of how big cities are, we're usually thinking about metropolitan populations. If you look at those, Jacksonville suddenly gets a lot smaller. While Atlanta and Miami both have metro populations of roughly 6.1 million, Jacksonville's is only 1.6 million. When you rank the metropolitan areas by population, Jacksonville is all the way down at 39th in the country, and 9th in the Southeast.

I could bore you with a thorough explanation of why this is the case, but it basically boils down to two things. One, most cities that have been big for a long time got penned in by other cities long ago such that they can't increase in area. Two, state laws make it difficult in some states for a city to increase in area even when it isn't penned in like this, but Florida's annexation laws are fairly lax. As a result, back in the 1960s Jacksonville annexed the entire county it was located in. As a result, over half of the Jacksonville metro area is in the city of Jacksonville, whereas less than a tenth of the Atlanta and Miami metro areas are in those cities.

That's what makes this team name well-suited. Given how large the city of Jacksonville is compared to the metropolitan area of Jacksonville, "jumbo shrimp" isn't a bad way to describe Jacksonville. But calling a city a jumbo shrimp isn't exactly a compliment, is it?

All of this isn't the reason the team chose the name, of course. They chose it because, um...well, I'm sure they had their reasons. Maybe the shrimp caught off the coast of Florida are bigger? That wouldn't surprise me, given that the water there is warmer, but not being a fisherman (shrimperman?) I really don't know how these things work. Whatever the precise reason, it's got to be food related, because that's pretty much the only reason anyone cares about shrimp. And as I've said before, naming teams after food is just weird. Team names are supposed to be intimidating. As a general rule, things you eat aren't very intimidating. Shrimp certainly aren't.

And the logo? Pretty much what one would expect: an anthropomorphized shrimp with steroidal arms and bared teeth. The shrimp is shaped like a "J", and while I'm penalizing that I have to admit it's a bit clever (in fact it's the only positive thing I have to say about the logo). They've also added a little bit of water to the logo; I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I'm sure the name seemed like a good idea at the time as well.

Final Score: 119 points.
Penalties: Alliteration, 5 pts; Letter, 24 pts; Humanoid, 30 pts; Cartoon, 47 pts; Name, 10 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: Graphic, -9 pts.