Rounding Out the SBLM

With the rest of the SBLM teams being East, East, and kind of Central, the league needs a truly West team. We can classify Chicago as West for the purposes of divisions and the like, but California, Arizona, Washington... these states aren't likely to get on board a Chicago team, even in a league with only 4 teams. Additionally, the city where I actually live was already taken - Spartan claimed Pittsburgh very early on, and even though I'm only about 10-15 minutes from PNC Park, I was largely fine with that. I cared more about there being a Pittsburgh team than necessarily GMing it myself, and so after a few days of us both being overly gracious and trying to let each other have it, Spartan ended up with it. As a result, I went with another city that has a recent tie to Pittsburgh, plus a place I've intended to go for years and I can relate pretty well to based on my own interest.

So without any additional preamble or backstory, I suspect you'll all want to know what the actual team is:

Logo:

Welcome the Vegas Centurions to the SBLM! I've always been a fan of Vegas. I have a few cousins who live out there. I've been playing poker since I was 17, and am good enough at it that I'm up about $6-700 USD lifetime, and I won two hotel packages to Vegas in a restaurant/bar league I used to participate in years ago. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn't afford the rest of the trip, and now that I am older and have disposable income, I have no idea where the packets are for them, but I digress. It's also a little bit of a nod to the fact that most Pens fans were secondarily supporting the Golden Knights because of the years of service of Marc-Andre Fleury, as well. Vegas has always been a city I've resonated with at least to some extent, and this puts a team solidly in the western part of the country.

As for the Centurions, it might not at first seem self-evident as to why a Vegas team would be called that. Every time a Vegas team is proposed for any sport, real or fictional, the Aces comes up as an option, and is dismissed just as quickly - it's a bit too on the nose, plus in the sim league world, there's already a VHLM team called that. I brainstormed a bit - things like the Strip (sounds good, but what would you do as a logo for it), the Lights (real life women's soccer team already called that), the Kings (so many teams in so many places are the Kings) and had finalized it down to three options. First was the Rockets - yes, it's the same as the Houston basketball team but that's one single link from an entirely different city. Pocket aces in poker are known as rockets, among half a dozen other nicknames, so it seemed like it had just enough of a tie to the city without being quite as obvious as Aces. Second was the Luck - this would have been viable as some sort of clover, or coin, or dice... the possibilities were there for this one. Ultimately, I threw the final three ideas at a member of staff to get some sort of sense of what was liked, and the thing that stuck was the Centurions. This still ties to Vegas as well, since one of the biggest and most well known casinos in the city is Caesars Palace, not to mention the association of Rome with opulence and luxury at least for its time, much like Vegas has been for much of its existence.

Jerseys are as follows:

Jerseys:

These are the jerseys and hats - a bit more modern looking in terms of color, as well as the extra bits of trim especially on the white one, but the hat especially isn't as overly complex as Chicago's, for example. Looking forward to bringing baseball to Vegas, as well as bringing some of you along to play here!

(686 words)

Siiiiiick. We argued over who should get Pittsburgh for absolutely way too long hahaha, but this was a good balance!

Also, the stadium name is the Flavian Forum. As for why:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum

The original Colosseum in Rome was known as the Flavian Amphitheater - the actual name Colosseum was for the giant statue of the Colossus outside. Over time, the name was misused enough that it began to mean what it didn't at first, especially in modern times where so many locations changed the spelling around to Coliseum (the one in LA, the one in WV, for starters) that I thought this might be a nice nod to history to call the park Flavian Forum.