Like every other Sunday morning, gospel music pumped through the speakers of Ralph Sampson's green Toyota Landcruiser en route to church. Call it divine intervention, perhaps: The 7-foot-4 inch former NBA star was taken by the rhythm.

"Everybody likes some kind of music," Sampson recalls thinking on that fateful Sunday morning four weeks ago. "It just dropped right on us."

Hence the brainstorm that produced the nickname of the city's latest basketball franchise, the Richmond Rhythm. What's with the name? Who really associates River City with a musical history?

Sampson, executive vice president and general manager of the team, says he would have preferred a public naming contest, but had little time to conduct one.

Among the names considered and rejected when the ex-Wahoo came on board in early May: the Rebels, Flavor, Road Dogs and, um, the Raccoons.

Welcome to the bizarre world of naming sports teams. It used to be that tigers, bears, cowboys, eagles and lions dominated the sports-name landscape. But teams are running out of aggressive-sounding animal names, some say, leaving new franchises with the task of finding unused, unlicensed nicknames. Sports fields are littered with everything from Sand Gnats to Banana Slugs, to the abstract forces of Orlando's Magic and the Miami Heat.

The Rhythm will drop on Richmond this November at the Coliseum. University of Virginia standout Sampson, one of the NBA's great disappearing acts, is even pondering a return to the hardwood himself as part of the team.

The new team, which is part of the International Basketball League, has all the makings of a cable-TV special. If Sampson chooses to play and if former U.Va. star Harold Deane joins the squad, Richmond could finally have a sports team that fills a few seats.

Naming a team, however, is a complex matter.

The two recent examples locally, the Rhythm and Richmond Speed (an indoor football league franchise announced by Renegades owner Harry Feuerstein in April), follow the now defunct Richmond Rage, a women's basketball team that moved to Philadelphia before the American Basket-ball League tanked late last year.

"Alliterations are good mnemonic devices, but only if they impart true meaning," says Elizabeth Goodgold, owner of The Nuancing Group, a branding consulting firm located in San Diego. "What’s the benefit of having rhythm connected to a basketball team?"

Goodgold takes exception to Sampson's favored name, however. "I don’t think Richmond is known for its rhythm the way New Orleans is for its jazz."

Though dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was born here, one might be hard-pressed to make a case for Richmond's rich musical history. The Statler Brothers, mind you, are from Staunton. In its favor, the Richmond team's name can be molded into a nice logo, which is a key reason why many new teams are opting for the abstract.

The Rhythm's team colors are red, yellow and black, and the logo includes a basketball with three musical notes. The nickname and logo appeals to a broad audience, says Sampson.

"There is a lot of information that documents the increased revenue in these new logos," says Gregory M. Pickett, assistant professor of marketing at Clemson University. "The licensing revenues are becoming something the teams rely on."

So what's wrong with the market-ability of the old-fashioned lions and tigers? They're old hat, marketing experts say. Total sales of licensed products from the big three - the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball - dropped from $7.2 billion in 1997 to $6.7 billion in 1998.

Part of the reason for the drop are teen-agers, the biggest buyers of licensed sports merchandise, who are looking for something new to call their own. They aren't interested in the old Redskins and Cowboys.

Says Clemson's Pickett, "It's a fine line. You want to energize the brand while maintaining a kind of consistency."

A good example: The traditionally black-pinstriped New York Yankees now sell team hats in colors such as red, yellow and baby blue, which have been a big hit with teens and can be found in the coolest MTV videos. Shifting colors on uniforms can be found in the NBA and NFL as well.

Of course, the minor leagues followed suit. Until the last few years, says John H. Antil, a marketing professor at the University of Delaware, most minor league baseball teams lost money. But franchise owners discovered they didn't have to be just farm teams for the big leagues. A night out at the baseball diamond could be marketed as a family event.

To improve revenue, many teams also chose not to pay licensing fees to their major league counterparts in the 1980s and started venturing out on their own.

Minor-league baseball now boasts some of the weirdest - and most marketable - names around, including the Piedmont Boll Weevils, Lansing Lugnuts, Beloit Snappers, Carolina Mudcats and the Jupiter Hammer-heads. Not to mention the Toledo Mudhens.

The names work because they are distinctly local, says Nuancing Group's Goodgold, "It's marrying the concept of the locality with the personality."

It's also important that new teams find a name that doesn't offend. The Washington Redskins recently lost federal patent protection after a group of Native Americans protested that the nickname was derogatory. For Sampson's team, there may have been similar issues with the "Rebels.""One of the things they have to do is deal with political correctness," says Chris Ault, a public-relations executive with The Martin Agency. "Richmond's a tough market. Your choices are already limited."

Politics aside, some still take issue with the abstract names. Part of the problem with names like Heat, Magic, Rhythm and Speed, says Andy Appleby, president and CEO of General Sports & Marketing of Detroit, is that fans have a hard time identifying with them.

But not long after the Heat and Magic joined the NBA in 1988, traditional names started falling by the wayside, Appleby says.

"I don't know what the life span of those teams will be," he says of the Heat and Magic. "I don't really understand it. I think there are a lot of great animal names out there still that haven't been used."

Sampson disagrees. "Rhythm is a good fit," he insists. "It will have some longevity."

Inside Business, June 1, 1999. Reprinted with permission.