Sports Reference Blog
Redesign: Team and League Logos Courtesy SportsLogos.net
Posted by sean on June 19, 2016
See SportsLogos.net for historical and current sports logos
Chris Creamer does amazing work at SportsLogos.net and I've been wanting to work with him for quite a while to put examples of past and current logos on our sites. So when our 2016 redesign got underway, we worked out an agreement that we could use copies of his aggregated logos on our site.
We also realize that many historical logos show offensive representations of various ethnic groups and peoples that were commonplace in their time and in American society. These representations are wrong now and were wrong then. We present them, as we do all of our facts, to educate and illuminate, and these prejudices have been an unfortunate part of the history of the sports we all enjoy and love.
Obviously, we do not own these logos and cannot give you permission to use them. We use them under a fair use argument. We use small resolution images, which do not impact the economic viability of the logos for their owners. And we provide them for educational purposes only. It's up to you to know the relevant intellectual property law and, since I'm not a lawyer, this is clearly not legal advice.
Enough with the disclaimers. Check out some old-time teams for some old-time logo goodness.
Update: on March 23, 2017, we decided to remove logos prior to the seasons for which we have logos. For example if no logo was shown for 1892 Beaneaters we displayed their 1900 logo. This is mostly an issue for MLB, but could also arise elsewhere.
We're Social...for Statheads
Every Sports Reference Social Media Account
Site Last Updated: Friday, May 1, 2:56PM
Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction?
Subscribe to our Free Email Newsletter
Do you have a sports website? Or write about sports? We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Find out more.