What Happened to the Akron Aeros?
The Akron Aeros were a minor league affiliate of the Cleveland Indians from 1997-2013.
Going down to Canal Park used to be a treat, but when the Aeros changed their name to the RubberdDucks, I thought to myself, “That has got to be the most embarrassing name in baseball.” When the Cleveland Indians changed their name to the Guardians this past year, you do not even want to know what I was thinking.
Cleveland’s double-A affiliate first moved from Canton to Akron in 1997, but the name “Aeros” was not what the team’s owners originally had in mind. The “Akron Blast” and “Akron Kaboom” were initially proposed as possible team names, but were quickly shot-down (no pun intended) due to reluctance over any reference to an explosion, being just 10 years removed from the Challenger space shuttle disaster. So, the owners took a poll, phoning nearly 16,000 Akron residents to vote on three finalists—The Aeros, The Quest, and The Spirit.
Following the vote, the team went with the Aeros and decided to keep the outer-space theme in honor of Ohio’s contributions to the advancement of aerospace technology (The Wright Brothers, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, and Judy Resnik, who was killed in the Challenger, were all from Ohio). The team also adopted a feline space-cat named “Orbit” as a mascot, and established their official colors as galaxy-purple, astro-red, and shooting-star-yellow. Jokingly, a Los Angeles Times article paraded the name the “Akronauts” in an interview with the team’s owner, Mike Agannis. Personally, I loved the Aeros, but Akronauts would have been better than RubberDucks.
The Aeros finished their inaugural season nearly 40 games below .500 (51-90), but their attendance was among the highest in all of minor league baseball. In fact, the team became the first double-A ballclub ever to sell more than half-a-million tickets during a single season, in 1998. From that point on, the Aeros were extremely successful and the city of Akron loved them, so why would they change their name?
Fast forward a dozen years or so and a lot of the hype surrounding the Aeros had died off. By 2009, the Indians were in the midst of rebuilding, failing to reach 70 wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1927-28. By then, attendance levels at Aeros and Indians games had dropped to nearly half of what they were in the late 90s.
Despite being crowned Eastern League champs for the first time in three seasons, the Aeros’ average attendance was the league’s third-lowest in 2012. Following that season, the team was sold to Ken Babby, a 32-year-old executive for the Washington Post, who bought them for an undisclosed amount in October 2013.
According to Daryn Perry of CBSSports.com, the former owner, Agannis, mulled a name change of his own before selling the team. In 2011, the organization’s front office reached out to local residents once more, gathering public opinion on a name change. Naturally, the city of Akron chose to keep their beloved Aeros, and it seemed that there was something else behind the team’s lackluster attendance.
But that did not seem to matter to Babby, who changed the team’s name within a matter of weeks after purchasing it. Since then, the team has continued to struggle to get fans in the stands. One of the bright spots since the transition has been the RubberDucks promotional schedules—they have had themes such as "Take me out to the BALD game," a celebration of bald people, a goonies-themed "Sloth" bobblehead giveaway, and even a "Blast from the Past," an Akron Aeros themed night.
Every so often, a change in ownership and a move to rebrand can be good for any business, but the driving force behind raising attendance at a minor league baseball game is creating a level of excitement around the team. For myself and many others, changing the team’s name from the Aeros to the RubberDucks did pretty much the opposite of that.
The Aeros survived 17 seasons, winning seven Southern division titles and four Eastern League Championships before their demise. Some of the squad’s most successful seasons came during a run from 2005-2009, when they advanced to the league’s championship series five years in a row. During those years, the team was led by soon-to-be pros such as Josh Barfield, Franklin Gutiérrez (Guti), and Asrúbal Cabrera. In 2012, the Aeros’ roster was nearly bulletproof, featuring names like Francisco Lindor, José Ramírez, Tyler Naquin, Danny Salazar, and Trevor Bauer. Four years later, those guys were playing in the World Series.
AKRON AEROS (1997-2013)
1302—1103 (54.14%), 7 DIVISION TITLES (41.1%), 5 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS (29.4%)
AKRON RUBBER DUCKS (2013-2022)
574—510 (52.95%), 3 DIVISION TITLES (37.5%) 1 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP (12.5%)
Fun stuff:
José Ramírez steals home (9/18/13)
Super-Orbit commercial (4/12/11)
2012 Champs