WNBA’s Las Vegas team applying to add “Stars” to name

The newest team in the 2018 season of the WNBA will be Las Vegas after a new owner bought the team and relocated them to Nevada.

With the relocation, it was unsure initially if the new owners would keep “Stars” as part of the team or completely come up with something else.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the team is in the works of legally applying to keep the mascot as the Stars -- just like in San Antonio. The request must be approved by U.S Patent and Trademark Office.

However, applying does not mean Las Vegas will get the name. Jennifer Craft, an intellectual property attorney in Las Vegas spoke on the matter:

“The fact that they filed means that’s the name they want. We don’t know if they’ll actually get it yet, because it hasn’t been examined.”

In-depth, in the same city, there is already a Minor League Baseball team who “owns the Stars trademark,” according to the Review-Journal. The team name was the Las Vegas Stars Baseball team (1983-2000) but since then has been renamed the Las Vegas 51s.

In the Review-Journal report, Craft did further express if Las Vegas WNBA does get denied initially on the team name, they could potentially appeal and win like the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights had to do.

The College of Saint Rose Golden Knights (Albany, NY) objected to the “Golden Knights” being used for another team, however, Vegas’ NHL team eventually won and was granted permission to use the mascot, which Craft feels if “Stars” is what the WNBA team wants to use, the owners have “a good chance overcoming that issue” — if they run into troubles.