Bull-ish Football Fans in San Antonio Embrace New Logo & Brand

After much anticipation, the XFL finally rolled out its new brand identities for each franchise. There have been some mixed reviews about certain logos and brands, but for the most part, most of the XFL faithful have bought in.

It’s best not to focus on what we can not change but rather embrace what change brings.

Once announced in July that the “Alamo City” would have a new professional football team, most fans hoped for a logo or brand the city of San Antonio could wrap its arms around.

It was quite the opposite initially. I have personally spoken with fans who questioned if the XFL did their research before picking the name because, in their eyes, the only affiliation they could tie the nickname to was the XFL co-owner Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Johnson has been outspoken about how the state of Texas has contributed to his professional wrestling career and his love for football. Of course, it’s a straightforward assumption because Johnson has a Brahma bull tattoo on his arm, but I believe it is much deeper than that.

If you look at each franchise, the city’s initials are part of the prominent crest in the logo. The Brahmas logo is creative and distinct. The XFL could’ve easily used the silhouette of a bull or the horns of a bull, but they didn’t. Instead, they decided to use their vision to create something special for a city that hasn’t hosted a professional football team since 2019.

When creating something new and innovative, consumers, or in this case, fans, want to feel a sense of ownership. Creating an identity or logo that hasn’t been used or recycled gives fans that sense of ownership.

Now let’s break down the best part of the reveal, the color scheme.

Yes, the Brahma’s will don the black and yellow because of Coach Ward’s Hall of Fame career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but what makes this color scheme attractive is how fans could use this to their advantage when packing the Alamo Dome come February.

Traditions for fans are used all across sports, whether it is Penn State with their “white out” games or Florida State using their “War Chant” to rattle the opposing teams. Traditions from fans create the cliche home-field advantage.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to see the Brahmas adopt the use of the “terrible towel’?

Imagine 20,000 fans rising to their feet during a third-down play, and all the opposing team can focus on is a sea of yellow towels waving in the air as the decibels inside the stadium continue to rise. That would be a sight worth seeing.

What about the name of the fan zone? What about the preferred hashtag or mantras? The game-day costumes, signs, etc.

All these things are why the XFL flexed its creativity muscle when developing the logo and brand for San Antonio. It allows fans to use their creativity and imagination to create their traditions.

So at first, maybe the name didn’t ring the bell right away, but that’s normal. But the fact is, the XFL provided fans of the Brahma’s a blank canvas to create their vision of what professional football should look like in the Alamo City.

And that’s what most fans want, is to be heard. The XFL is doing just that by allowing fans to choose their game-day experience. Only a few professional leagues do that. So we should applaud the XFL for allowing their fanbase to do so.