Warriors President & COO Rick Welts said that the "odds are against" the team changing its name to the S.F. Warriors when it moves to Mission Bay in '19, according to Monte Poole of CSNBAYAREA.com. There has been some speculation that a name change would happen, but Welts on the "Warriors Insider" podcast Thursday said, “The team’s success has caused us to really rethink whether or not that’s something we should or want to do. I guess it’s fair to say there’s been no final decision made. But if you were a betting man, I think you would probably want to wager that the name might remain the same.” Poole noted the team adopted the S.F. Warriors name upon moving there from Philadelphia in '62. The team in '71 moved to Oakland and "was renamed" with the Golden State moniker. Welts: "Four years ago, I think the conventional wisdom in our building here in Oakland was that, yes, we should attach a city name to the team, that it would become a more global franchise. There was a lot of head-scratching four years ago about where the Golden State Warriors even played, in other parts of the world. What’s happened with the team over the course of the ensuing years, until today, has made the Warriors if not the preeminent, at least among the three best-known NBA franchises around the world. And everybody who didn’t know where the Golden State Warriors were four years ago, if you’re a fan today, anywhere in the world, you know where the Golden State Warriors are" (CSNBAYAREA.com, 1/5).
