The New York Knicks held a naming contest for its new NBA Development League team that will play its home games in White Plains, but in the end the team decided “Knicks” would do just fine.
The Westchester Knicks”™ name was announced and its logo unveiled Wednesday at the Westchester County Center, where the team will play its home games starting this fall.
Madison Square Garden Co., which owns the Knicks, said the name was a popular fan choice. Dave Howard, president of MSG Sports, said the company was excited to tip off in Westchester.
“Thank you to all the fans who went online to submit team name suggestions,” Howard said in a statement. “We are proud to be extending the Knicks brand into Westchester.”
The team”™s logo shows a colonial dribbler, “Father Knickerbocker,” making a fast break. It”™s an update of the New York Knicks”™ logo from its first two decades, designed by sports cartoonist Willard Mullin of The New York World-Telegram, according to MSG.
MSG plans to use the Westchester Knicks to develop players as well as coaches and trainers. The D-League is emerging as the NBA”™s answer to the minor leagues in baseball. The Knicks affiliate will be the 18th in the league and the seventh owned and operated by an NBA team (14 teams have direct affiliates in the D-League).
Many sportswriters expect that within a decade, the D-League will expand to 30 teams, with each NBA club having ownership or direct affiliation with a lower league club.
Westchester County, which owns the County Center, estimated it could gain between $48,000 to $288,000 per season in ticket sales, parking, concessions and merchandise from the deal with the Knicks.
The team is the latest pro sports club to come to Westchester, which is known more for its training facilities for pro clubs. The NBA Knicks and hockey”™s New York Rangers have training facilities in the county and Major League Soccer expansion team New York City FC will practice at Manhattanville College”™s campus starting in 2015. The city has reportedly been trying to woo the soccer club to play its regular-season home games in Yonkers.
Sports fans will hope for a better run from the Westchester Knicks than the county”™s last big pro sports team. The Yonkers Hoot Owls joined baseball”™s Independent League in 1995 to much local fanfare but lasted only one season before relocating to Maine.
