New Jaguars logo part of franchise 're-birth'

The Jacksonville Jaguars revealed a new logo on Tuesday afternoon at a "State of the Franchise" press conference along with their tag line for the season in "Stand United". It was a drastic step forward for owner Shad Khan and team president Mark Lamping in re-branding the team and moving forward.

"To be a success in business or life, you have to stand for something and hold yourself accountable to the principles you believe in," Khan said in a team release. "The Jacksonville Jaguars will not be casual in this responsibility, which we owe ourselves, our fans and the Jacksonville community."

The Jaguars are going forward and re-branding the team, "re-birthing" the franchise if you will, and is all part of the plan to get the Jaguars back to where they once were early in the history of the franchise. The buzz words the team using now are proud, bold, and committed, which are words you can easily use to describe the Jaguars fan base, despite national perception, so it's a fitting choice of words for the team to now use.

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"From this day, the Jacksonville Jaguars will live a brand mission of being proud, bold and committed in everything we do," Khan said in a team release. "Our new logo and campaign theme are the first initiatives of what will be many examples of bringing this philosophy to life. A new era for the Jaguars begins today."

The overall reception of the new logo was overwhelmingly positive, much to my surprise. I had seen the logo prior to it's release and initially didn't like it. I thought it was way too cartoony and just didn't like it. But, as I continued to think about it and compare it to the older logo, it really grew on me and seemed to correct a lot of the issues I had with the old logo. It was brand new, but it was still the same and that's because Khan and his team wanted to make sure to keep what was already there.

"It was important to evolve the logo, in collaboration with the Jaguars, in a manner that recognizes the team's existing brand equity, embraces the organization's strong values, and undeniably reflects the direction of the team and the community of Jacksonville," Jaime Weston, Vice President Brand and Creative, NFL said in a press release.

The logo change had been planned for a while, with Khan and his team working on it before the 2012 NFL season even started. His vision from the beginning was to make the Jaguars relevant again on the business side of things and the first step in doing that was to revitalize the logo and get new modern uniforms.

"This is our 20 the anniversary as a team in Jacksonville so I think that's a logical time, but I think it's also important to really freshen it up," Khan told reporters at the Tuesday press conference. "Keep it fresh, keep it relevant. Keep it dynamic. Keep it contemporary, so we're not basically an institution stuck in time."

To go with the new freshened up logo, the Jaguars will also be getting completely redesigned uniforms from Nike in the coming months, but Khan was mum on what they would look like when asked.

"You've got to stay tuned. I think we're working on a lot of things, and I think it's going to be something fans will really like," Khan said. "I know the football players have looked at it, so please stay with us."

While ultimately the only thing that will register wins on the football field is improving the Jaguars roster, the biggest plus to Khan is that he seems to realize there is another element to running a football team in a small market that had seemed to go by the wayside.

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.