On Tuesday, the Fort Myers Miracle changed their team name after 28 years to the ‘Mighty Mussels’.
The original Miracle name dates back to 1989 when the franchise was established in Miami. Andrew Kaufman, CEO of Zawyer Sports, which purchased the team prior to the 2019 season, said the rebrand was motivated by a “disconnect” between the Miracle name and the local community. Kaufman and the team stated that the new name had to be regionally specific while reflecting a healthy, active lifestyle.
“When you walk along the beach and spot a mussel shell, looking at its colors as the light reflects off the black shell, there’s purple, light blue and orange,” said Kaufman. “Well, those would be cool colors from a character development standpoint. Think Disney, but edgy.”
The logos, created by Brandiose, feature a burly mussel pointing at the sky, pumping a baseball-weighted dumbbell, and another features two mussels greeting each other. The latter takes inspiration from the team major league affiliate, the Minnesota Twins, secondary logo which features “Minnie” and “Paul” characters shaking hands over the Mississippi River.
“That’s an homage to the Minnesota Twins logo,” said Jason Klein of Brandiose. “But it became, ‘How do we take the craziest fitness icon and merge it with the Twins handshake?’ I think the appropriate term for that logo would be ‘a Schwarzenegger-esque riff on the Twins handshake.'”
Also introduced at the news conference as the unveiling of a Mighty Mussels comic book. The comic tells the origin story of the Mighty Mussel, a baby mussel that stumbles up a glowing bat that gives him the strength to save his family from the evil Gym Rats. Klein said that the comic book story helped to inspire the team’s new font, which he describes as “comic book, SpongeBob, aquatic and tropical all mixed together.”
“The comic book is a big deal for character development,” said Kaufman, who noted there will be a new issue produced every season. “We’ll hand those out [at the news conference] and still have a couple hundred left for sale. It’s an ongoing saga — I can see there being ‘The Revenge of the Gym Rats.'”