Cleveland Indians Rebrand Divides Americans Along Familiar Cultural Fronts

More than fans of any other sport, baseball enthusiasts are known for their commitment to history and tradition. So, it would stand to reason that fans of America’s pastime would be almost universally outraged that one of MLB’s most storied franchises is changing its century-old name.

New polling, however, shows that sentiment among MLB fans regarding the Cleveland Indians’ decision to rebrand as the Cleveland Guardians at the end of the 2021 season is almost evenly split, similar to the breakdown among the broader U.S. adult population.

In a Morning Consult/Politico survey conducted following the announcement of the team’s new identity, 37 percent of U.S. adults said they approved of the switch from “Indians” to “Guardians,” while 35 percent of U.S. adults disapproved of the change. Forty-three percent of self-identified MLB fans supported the move, while 39 percent expressed opposition.

Differences in public opinion regarding the coming rebrand from Indians to Guardians mirrored many other so-called “culture war” issues that tend to pit an older, more conservative and less diverse coalition against its younger, more liberal and more diverse counterparts. 

When it came to political affiliation, 55 percent of Democrats supported the name change, compared with 33 percent of independents and 18 percent of Republicans. And in generational terms, Gen Zers (43 percent) and millennials (47 percent) were also more likely to agree with the rebrand than Gen Xers (33 percent) and baby boomers (30 percent).

Black adults, at 56 percent, were far more likely than other racial or ethnic groups to support the move. By comparison, 44 percent of Hispanic adults and 33 percent of white adults supported the shift, along with 45 percent of those from other racial backgrounds.

While the 2,200 U.S. adults surveyed in the July 23-26 poll were only narrowly divided on the name change itself, about 2 in 3 said they believe that Native American-themed sports team names pay homage to Indigenous people. The remaining third of respondents said naming teams after Native Americans is disrespectful. Those figures, which carry a margin of error of 2 percentage points, were roughly unchanged from a July 2020 survey conducted after Washington’s NFL franchise announced its retirement of the Redskins name.

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