The Tampa Bay Rays franchise was originally founded and known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays when they first took the field as an expansion team in Major League Baseball in the 1998 season. The team operated under this moniker for ten seasons, characterized by a distinct color scheme of black, devil ray blue, and green, along with an iconic cartoonish stingray logo featured prominently on their caps and jerseys. However, following the completion of the 2007 season, the franchise ownership and management decided that a comprehensive rebrand was necessary to distance the team from its historically losing culture and the association with the word devil, which some conservative and religious groups found objectionable. In November 2007, the organization officially dropped Devil from the name, shortening it simply to the Rays, while simultaneously shifting their primary team colors to a more traditional and nautical-themed palette of navy blue, Columbia blue, and white, with a sunburst graphic replacing the aquatic creature as the primary cap logo.