Instead of Power what would you prefer

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Lol. As if that is how it would have played out.

The advocates of the Pirates branding have this ideal in their head of how it would have turned out but the reality is that it would have been a total disaster given the types of decisions being made at the time and the people making them.

Think less Captain Blackbeard and more Captain Feathersword.

I have no doubt we would’ve ballsed it up initially but we could’ve corrected it later like the Buccs did.

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The Port Adelaide Panther is an actual urban legend.

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I've not read the thread but I hope I'm the 1000000th person to simply say PAFC
 
Lol. As if that is how it would have played out.

The advocates of the Pirates branding have this ideal in their head of how it would have turned out but the reality is that it would have been a total disaster given the types of decisions being made at the time and the people making them.

Think less Captain Blackbeard and more Captain Feathersword.
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Did like this bit:

"pirates often wanted to avoid "a violent melee with the ships that they attacked" in order to keep their costs down."

Maybe El_Scorcho is onto something here.
 
Thought I'd posted this in this thread but there's another thread going with similar topics...

 
Maybe we should name ourselves the redlegs... That way in 40 years time Norwood joins the AFL we can tell them they can't wear there traditional Guernsey and must change there nickname.
It’ll be South Adelaide Panthers who join the AFL in 20 years time!
 
The Power is a great nickname. I also like the Suns and Giants. Better than just another animal nickname.

Do these threads seriously need to come up every year?




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By marketing ourselves like an NFL franchise?

Yes? NFL Franchises are pretty good at finding the balance between needing to have non-negotiable heritage stuff front and centre while also presenting themselves as cutting edge, modern organisations.

Lol. As if that is how it would have played out.

The advocates of the Pirates branding have this ideal in their head of how it would have turned out but the reality is that it would have been a total disaster given the types of decisions being made at the time and the people making them.

Think less Captain Blackbeard and more Captain Feathersword.

We got a total disaster anyway, ultimately. A much more insidious disaster because we're now stuck with this boring, garbage identity that will be basically impossible to move on from. It's a constant thorn in our side and the opportunity cost over the journey is enormous.

If we'd entered as the Captain Feathersword Pirates it would be much easier to move to something good than what we've got now. As it stands, we'd still be better off just ripping the bandaid off and making the change (to Pirates or just dropping Power) because despite the initial backlash that would no doubt come from parts of the supporter base, nobody is going to wish we were still called the Power in 10 years. It'll just be a quirk of our history.
 
I have no doubt we would’ve ballsed it up initially but we could’ve corrected it later like the Buccs did.

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Absolutely. Or the Dockers.

In fact we did balls it up and correct it later ourselves, but we just put a ceiling on how good we could be with our initial choice of nickname. I don't even mind the teal as a tertiary colour, it goes well with black and white and was a very obvious choice in the 90s given Freo had taken purple. But the nickname is hard to change and it succks.
 
Yes? NFL Franchises are pretty good at finding the balance between needing to have non-negotiable heritage stuff front and centre while also presenting themselves as cutting edge, modern organisations.

Perhaps. I don't think it would have worked in an AFL context though. We still live in 'clubland' and any notion of being a 'franchise' is looked down upon. (which was evident in your retort about Big Bash branding)


We got a total disaster anyway, ultimately. A much more insidious disaster because we're now stuck with this boring, garbage identity that will be basically impossible to move on from. It's a constant thorn in our side and the opportunity cost over the journey is enormous.

I don't think it's as bad as you think it is. There is a very real possibility that we'd be in the exact same situation if we were called the Pirates. In other words the issues that are the biggest concern for the identity of the club have nothing to do with the nickname.


If we'd entered as the Captain Feathersword Pirates it would be much easier to move to something good than what we've got now.

It's only a hypothetical, but I would dispute this very strongly.

It's my assertion that if we'd originally gone in as the Pirates, then the franchise would now no longer be connected to PAFC. The identity issues we had would have been magnified by such a significant amount that the split would have been too great to mend.

This issue is not just about branding. There were a whole raft of things that had to occur for our transition into the AFL to be successful. There were things that needed to happen, but they needed to be balanced with what could happen, (eg what was allowed, what we could afford, what made sense, etc), and the strategy was aimed at getting the most that we could get considering the incredibly unique situation we were in. Power, as tenuous as it is, still has a link to our SANFL days. It's why it was chosen.

Since we're talking hypotheticals, if we had gone in with the Prison Bar guernsey and the Power nickname, I don't think anyone would be calling for us to be renamed as the Pirates. Not even you. This shows that the issue is less about comparing the various options of nicknames and more about building an identity that includes the preAFL history. I've said this before; the Power strategy was a sound one, it was the execution of the various components that let it down.

I've always maintained that the dogs breakfast that we started with was definitely a case of too many line cooks crowding the kitchen thinking they were cordon bleu chefs.


As it stands, we'd still be better off just ripping the bandaid off and making the change (to Pirates...) because despite the initial backlash that would no doubt come from parts of the supporter base, nobody is going to wish we were still called the Power in 10 years. It'll just be a quirk of our history.

You'd be throwing away the equity built up over 26 years to satisfy a small portion of supporters who want to follow a team called the Pirates? There's no way that would fly.

Regardless of what you personally think of the Power brand, it does have equity. Replacing it now with something disconnected from our brand and our heritage, like Pirates, or Dolphins, or Sharks, would be a * up of immense proportions, particularly in light of the identity issues we have already had, and have resolved to a certain degree.


or just dropping Power

IMO, the name will be there for a long while yet, but I wouldn't be against it being used less and instead just using "Port" as the informal nickname. It's already used to some extent.

Interestingly, in the 80s as a kid, I don't recall referring to us as "the Magpies" and apart from the occasional "carna maggies" at a game, it was always just "Port". Yes I wore a windcheater with a big * off Magpie on it, but the club that I barracked for was Port and I called myself a Port supporter.

If you want to talk about a perfect solution for the club, entering the AFL as just Port Adelaide FC, with no nickname, would have been the ultimate big dick move. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.

The only other idea that I think had merit was something around the "Black Diamond" concept, but I'm not sure that it could have been implemented in a way that would have avoided the same issues we ended up having.

tl;dr
Port > Power > Pirates > Dolphins
 

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