Sports Logos
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50 free Sports Logos trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A good sports logo is a small piece of storytelling. Some hide letters or shapes that fans overlook for years, some were sketched by students or relatives of the coach, and a few were borrowed from somewhere unexpected: a trade group, a jeweler, a rival's insult. Knowing the tale behind an emblem makes it hard to see the cap or helmet the same way again. This quiz covers team emblems from American football, basketball, baseball and ice-rink leagues, club crests from European soccer, the marks of the leagues themselves, the symbols of the Olympic movement and a handful of famous sportswear badges. Each question describes the emblem in words, so no pictures are needed, and each answer comes with a short explanation. It is written for fans who can name a team from a glimpse of its cap, and for quiz hosts who want accurate questions with answers ready to read out. The questions run from household emblems to details only a uniform obsessive would know.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The silhouette of a player on the NBA logo is based on a photograph of which Los Angeles Lakers star?
Jerry West
Jerry West picked up the nickname 'the Logo' because of it. Designer Alan Siegel created the mark in 1969.
Q 02Which sportswear company paid design student Carolyn Davidson just $35 for its logo in 1971?
Nike
Nike later thanked Carolyn Davidson with a diamond Swoosh ring and 500 shares of stock. Co-founder Phil Knight had told her he did not love the design but that it would grow on him.
Q 03The Jumpman logo captures Michael Jordan mid-leap in a pose identical to a technique from which art form?
Ballet
Ballet's grand jeté, a split-legged leap, is the move he struck for a 1984 Life magazine photo shoot. He was wearing New Balance shoes in that first picture.
Q 04Which team wears orange helmets with no logo on them, unlike every other club in the NFL?
Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns helmets carried players' numbers from 1957 to 1960, but never a team emblem. A 'CB' logo was drawn up in 1965 and went unused.
Q 05Which NFL team puts its logo on only the right side of the helmet, a quirk that began as a test?
Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney wanted to see how the emblem looked on the team's gold helmets, so it went on one side first. The look proved popular and was never changed.
Q 06The letters 'M' and 'B' in the Milwaukee Brewers' classic logo combine to form which object?
A baseball glove
A baseball glove is the shape the club's initials make, with a ball in its pocket. The design came from Tom Meindel, an art history student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Q 07Which word does the smaller letter inside the Montreal Canadiens' 'C' logo stand for, despite a popular myth?
Hockey
Hockey is the word, taken from the 1917 name Club de Hockey Canadien. The 'Habitants' story is traced to promoter Tex Rickard, who apparently told a reporter that was the meaning.
Q 08Which company founded the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, whose first logo was a duck-billed goalie mask?
Disney
Disney named the 1993 expansion team after its own film The Mighty Ducks, released a year earlier. The mask in the logo was a vintage design inspired by goaltender Jacques Plante.
Q 09Fans nicknamed the New England Patriots' 1993 minuteman logo the 'Flying' what, after a rock and roll star?
Elvis
Elvis Presley's young profile is what many fans saw in the streamlined face. It replaced 'Pat Patriot', a minuteman drawn by Boston Globe artist Phil Bissell.
Q 10Atlanta Hawks fans nicknamed the hawk-head logo the team adopted in 1972 after which arcade game character?
Pac-Man
Pac-Man is the popular name for the hawk-head silhouette the club used from 1972 to 1995. A modernized version returned in 2014 and soon became the primary logo again.
Q 11The five interlocking Olympic rings were designed in 1913 by which leader of the Olympic movement?
Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Coubertin said the five rings stood for the five parts of the world won over to the Olympic cause. Their colors, with the white background, covered every competing nation's flag of the day.
Q 12The Lacoste crocodile logo traces to a bet René Lacoste is said to have made with his team captain over what?
A suitcase
A suitcase made of alligator skin, seen in a Boston shop, was the stake in the story. The American press took to calling him 'the Alligator', and a friend later embroidered a crocodile on his blazer.
Q 13Ferrari's prancing horse badge was first the personal emblem of Francesco Baracca, a celebrated Italian what?
Q 21The NHL Whalers' classic logo hides which letter in the empty space between its 'W' and the whale's tail above?
H
H for Hartford appears in the gap between the two shapes, a trick devised by Connecticut graphic designer Peter Good. He was hired through an advertising agency to give the newly renamed NHL team a fresh emblem.
Q 22The Detroit Red Wings' logo attaches a wing to which object?
A wheel
A wheel with a wing was the emblem of a Montreal athletic club that owner James Norris had once belonged to. He felt a red version would suit a team playing in the Motor City.
Q 23The shark in the San Jose Sharks' logo is chomping through which piece of equipment?
A stick
A stick has been in the shark's jaws since the team's first season in 1991–92. The triangle around the fish refers to the Red Triangle, an area of ocean off the Bay Area.
Fighter pilot
Fighter pilot Francesco Baracca put the horse on his plane in 1917, and his family later let Enzo Ferrari use it. Baracca painted it black so that it would stand out on the fuselage.
Q 14Which NBA team has used the same animal-face logo with very little change since its founding?
Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls players have worn graphic designer Dean P. Wessel's emblem since the team's first season in 1966.
Q 15Which weapon appeared three times over on the first crest of London's Arsenal Football Club in 1888?
A cannon
A cannon recalls the munitions workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich who founded the club in 1886. The modern crest shows a single one, and the club's nickname is the Gunners.
Q 16The crest of Italian club AS Roma shows a she-wolf with which two infant brothers of legend?
Romulus and Remus
Romulus and Remus were saved and looked after by the she-wolf in Rome's founding myth. In the best-known telling, Romulus later killed his brother and gave the new city his name.
Q 17Which plant emblem have New Zealand's All Blacks worn on their black rugby jerseys since the 19th century?
Silver fern
Silver fern badges were first worn by the New Zealand Native team that toured Britain in 1888–89. Many of the country's other national sides now carry 'Ferns' in their nicknames.
Q 18The musical note in the Utah Jazz's logo pays homage to which city, where the team began in 1974?
New Orleans
New Orleans was home to the Jazz for five seasons before the move to Salt Lake City in 1979. The name stayed because there was no time to get a new one approved before the next season.
Q 19The thirteen blue stars above the '7' in the Philadelphia 76ers' first logo were there to represent what?
The original colonies
The original colonies numbered thirteen, and the team's name recalls the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. A naming contest produced it.
Q 20The New Jersey Devils' logo joins an 'N' and a 'J', adding devil horns at the top and what below?
A pointed tail
A pointed tail finishes the 'J', a nod to the Jersey Devil, the creature of legend said to haunt the Pine Barrens of South Jersey.
Q 24The St. Louis Cardinals' famous jersey emblem, first worn in 1922, shows two redbirds perched on what?
A bat
A bat, black at first and yellow from 1951, holds the two cardinals in the design fans call the 'birds on the bat'.
Q 25The Detroit Tigers' logo is a letter 'D' in a blackletter style popularly known by which name?
Old English
Old English is the popular label, even though that style of lettering was never used to write the Old English language. Detroit's home uniform has carried the 'D' with little change since 1934.
Q 26Minnie and Paul, the two players in the classic Minnesota Twins logo, shake hands across which river?
The Mississippi
The Mississippi flows through both Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities the team is named for. One figure wears a Minneapolis Millers uniform and the other a St. Paul Saints one.
Q 27The New York Mets' blue and orange honor which two National League clubs that left the city after 1957?
Dodgers and Giants
Dodgers and Giants colors, blue and orange respectively, were taken up when the Mets arrived in 1962. Both shades also appear on New York City's flag.
Q 28Which animal became the Philadelphia Athletics' emblem after John McGraw mocked the owner's investment?
An elephant
An elephant, white to be exact, since McGraw had said the owner had a white one on his hands. Manager Connie Mack adopted it in defiance and handed McGraw a toy version at the 1905 World Series.
Q 29The New York Yankees' interlocking 'NY' first appeared on an 1877 police medal designed by which company?
Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany & Co. made the monogram for a medal of valor given to John McDowell, an officer shot in the line of duty. The ball club did not adopt it until 1909.
Q 30The New York Islanders' 1995 logo was mocked for resembling the mascot of which frozen seafood brand?
Gorton's
Gorton's fisherman, like the figure on the jersey, wears a slicker, and rival Rangers fans chanted for fishsticks long after. The earlier crest was fully restored by 1997–98.