Twitter Philadelphia's logo for 2018, based on the Benjamin Franklin "Join or Die" flag from the Revolutionary War.
The Philadelphia 76ers raced to a double-digit halftime lead over the visiting Toronto Raptors in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference seminfinals. The game is taking place at Wells Fargo Center in Philly, and the logo at midcourt is making noise.
It depicts the 76ers insignia enclosed within the Liberty Bell. That’s simple enough to understand, but the added embellishment for the 2018-19 season has been a divided snake wrapping around the bell.
The snake is a representation of the “Join or Die” flag popularized by Philadelphia native Benjamin Franklin during the formation of the colonies many years prior the Revolutionary War.
For the TL – new @sixers playoff campaign w the snake logo isn’t the MAGA-flavored Gadsden flag (“don’t tread on me”), but based on a Ben Franklin political cartoon about uniting the colonies (“join, or die”).
The Constitution Center describes the significance of the divided snake to early citizens of the then-fledgling United State of America. Franklin printed it in his paper The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754.
During Franklin’s era, there was myth that a severed snake would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.
The cartoon depicts the early American colonies as a snake divided into eight segments. Toward the head of the snake, “NE” represents New England, followed by “NY” (New York), “NJ” (New Jersey), “P” (Pennsylvania), “M” (Maryland), “V” (Virginia), “NC” (North Carolina) and “SC” (South Carolina). Even though there were four “New England” colonies, Franklin lumped them into one category to stress the need for colonial unity. At the time, the colonists fiercely debated expanding west of the Appalachian Mountains and fighting the French and their Indian allies.
The Sixers are presenting a similar idea with the phrase Phila Unite under the logo on shirts. In a press release describing the logo, they described how Philadelphia’s patriotic history was extra inspiration.
“Phila Unite” builds upon the team’s season-long “Spirit of 76” initiative by combining the bell logo, inspired by imagery from Philadelphia’s 1976 bicentennial celebration, and the segmented snake, a hidden feature on the City Edition uniform that is derived from Benjamin Franklin’s historically-significant political cartoon of 1754.
The Sixers have at least one more home game to show off the midcourt artwork. With a win Thursday night, they get at least one more in this series.
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76ers Snake Logo: What’s the Meaning of Philadelphia’s Midcourt Logo?