Baltimore Bombers (proposed NFL team)

Baltimore Bombers

Founded	N/A
Based in	Baltimore, Maryland, United States
League	National Football League
Team history	Proposed expansion team, rejected by the NFL.
Team colors	Blue, Bronze

The Baltimore Bombers were a proposed National Football League expansion team located in Baltimore, Maryland. When the NFL was awarding expansion teams to two cities in 1993, Baltimore was among the cities vying for a team; the city had lost its previous team, the Colts, in a middle-of-the-night relocation nine years prior. In their proposal, the potential owners of the team had settled on the "Baltimore Bombers" as the team's nickname in honor of the B-26 Marauder, a World War II bomber designed by the Glenn L. Martin Company, and produced in Baltimore. Leonard “Boogie” Weinglass, founder of the retailer Merry-Go-Round, was one of the potential owners of the Baltimore expansion team, as was Malcolm Glazer, who would later go on to purchase the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Decision

Baltimore was not awarded an expansion team, passed up in favor of Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida. The Bombers proposal was believed to be near the bottom of the list of contenders, and league commissioner Paul Tagliabue opposed any expansion to Baltimore, saying “some towns are football towns and some towns are museum towns. I guess Baltimore is a museum town.”

Shortly after the rejection, the Canadian Football League approved an expansion team for Baltimore; originally christened the Colts, NFL legal threats effectively forced the team to adopt the name Baltimore Stallions. The Stallions, one of several teams introduced to the CFL as part of an ill-fated expansion, were one of the few resounding successes in the league. After two seasons of both on-field and off-field success for the Stallions, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announced that he was bringing his NFL franchise, then known as the Cleveland Browns, to Baltimore, eventually to play as the Baltimore Ravens. (The Stallions folded shortly thereafter; its remnants were relocated to Montreal).

Proposed logo

The proposed main logo showed the silhouette of a "generic" WWII-era bomber (not the silhouette of the B-26 Marauder).

External links

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