Mascots

Yesterday I was having a discussion with a friend regarding team/school mascots and their redundancy, or lack thereof. I was arguing that they are quite redundant, as the team name alone is quite sufficient. For instance, over in England practically none of the football clubs have mascots, they simply go by their team name, say Chelsea FC or Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur. You know what sport these teams play, so what point is there in adding a mascot? For instance, the Kansas City Royals could become the Kansas City Baseball Club, or Kansas City BC; the Kansas City Chiefs could become Kansas City FC. Now, for those of you arguing that mascots give a team personality and allow another way of relating to your team and giving you more team spirit, I counter with this: if you are a true fan, you should not need a mascot to give you motivation to root for your club, the players and the game should excite you enough. Most teams are recgonized by their team colors already, so why not just be called the Boys in Blue or Big Red (Nebraska's football team already uses this one). By not using mascots you allow your team to be taken seriously and do not marginalize them to the confines of some goofy guy running around in a wolf suit. It is about the players on the field and their actions exciting the crowd, not about some mythological creature that does chants to get your fans pumped up. Down with mascots!