Cleveland Guardians era launches at Progressive Field

Cleveland, OH – The Cleveland Guardians era launched today at Progressive Field with the opening of the Cleveland Guardians Team Store concurring with a transition across all digital and social media platforms. The Guardians are joining the Blues (1901), Bronchos (1902), Naps (1903-1914) and Indians (1915-2021) as official team names of Cleveland’s Baseball club, which began as one of the charter members of the American League in 1901.

“Today marks a major step in our transition to the Cleveland Guardians, launching a new era in Cleveland baseball at Progressive Field that embodies the pride, resiliency and loyalty of Clevelanders,” said President of Business Operations Brian Barren. “We know this will impact our fans in different ways, and we will always remember and appreciate our history as the Cleveland Indians. We look forward to taking the field as Guardians on Opening Day in 2022 and living up to our new name by working to unify our fans and city.”

The Cleveland Guardians Team Store at Progressive Field officially opens this morning (November 19) at 9AM, featuring all-new Guardians gear and souvenirs. The store will have a variety of gear for the entire family, including tees, fleeces, polos, headwear, outerwear, novelties and more. The Guardians Team Store at Progressive Field, New Era, Nike, MLB Flagship Store and MLBshop.com will have a nation-wide exclusive selling period to launch the new merchandise. The Guardians Team Store at Progressive Field will be the exclusive local retailer of official Guardians gear until November 23, when products will become available at other Northeast Ohio retailers.

On-field jerseys and caps will not be available for purchase at this time. We expect both products to be available by the start of the 2022 season.

As previously announced, the Team Store will continue to sell merchandise featuring our historic names and logos, including Indians and Chief Wahoo. As part of our ongoing commitment to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is our intention to donate profits from the sale of Indians and Chief Wahoo merchandise to support youth focused organizations and causes.

Additionally, the Cleveland Guardians website URL, Ballpark app and social handles will launch under new monikers. Fans can now visit CLEGuardians.com for everything from Guardians tickets to roster news. All social handles will transition to the following names:

• Twitter - @CLEGuardians | @CLEInspires | @CLEHotDogs | @LosGuardians
• Instagram - @CLEGuardians | @CLEInspires | @CLEHotDogs | @GuardiansTeamStore | @LosGuardians
• Facebook - @CLEGuardians | @CLEInspires | @CLEHotDogs
• Snapchat - @CLEGuardians
• YouTube – www.YouTube.com/ClevelandGuardians

Fans who already follow these accounts will automatically see the change and will not need to re-follow accounts.

NAME CHANGE PROCESS

The name change process started in June 2020 with a statement acknowledging the importance of taking a leadership role in uniting our community. We conducted an extensive multi-phase process to learn how the team name “Indians” impacted different constituencies and how it intersected with our organizational values.

Through the ideation and research phase, we:

• Compiled 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders and front office personnel
• Surveyed 40,000 fans
• Had 4,000 fans sign up to participate in research via team name website
• Conducted 100+ hours of teammate brainstorming sessions
• Generated 1,198 name options which were narrowed down through 14 rounds of vetting

More information regarding our research and ideation process can be found at www.MLB.com/CLETeamName.

While our name will be new, there will be elements of continuity in the new marks and logos. The continuity we chose to incorporate was important to our fans and ties our past to our future:

CONTINUITY

• COLORS REMAIN: Our team colors will remain the same scheme that has been part of our organization for more than 80 years to honor our rich baseball heritage as well as the tradition of baseball as America’s pastime
• SCRIPT WORDMARK RETURNS: The new Guardians wordmark will have a familiar script style of the last 75 years while evoking the structural architecture of the Hope Memorial Bridge, mimicking the trusses of the bridge’s underside
• HOME/ROAD UNIFORMS: The Club will continue to wear CLEVELAND on the road uniforms, featuring our Bridge Print alphabet derived from the Diamond C, and the Guardians script wordmark on the home uniforms

EVOLUTION

• ‘C’ EVOLUTION: Our new “Diamond C” will be an evolution of the Block C and respects the tradition and heritage of Cleveland Baseball. The new C stands tall – just as the Guardians of Traffic stand watch over our ballpark and city – and draws from the ascending diamond motifs at the top of each Guardian pylon. The weight of the C is bold and its tapered shape is inspired by letterforms from the 1920 and 1948 World Series clubs
• NEW LOGOMARK: The Guardian’s Fastball embodies what it means to be a Cleveland Guardian in its strong, yet simple design. It is inspired by the helmets and wings of the Hope Memorial Bridge’s Guardian statues and the G purposefully wraps around and guards the baseball. The split-finger design is a tribute to our strong pitching heritage