A professional American football team, the Tennessee Titans are headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans are a National Football League (NFL) team that competes in the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Nissan Stadium serves as their home field.
Originally known as the Houston Oilers, the team was created in 1959 by Bud Adams (who remained the owner until his passing in 2013) and debuted in 1960 as a founding member of the American Football League in Houston, Texas (AFL).
The Tennessee franchise of the NFL, which relocated from Houston, chose Titans as their new moniker. Owner Bud Adams said in a statement Saturday, “We wanted a new nickname to reflect strength, leadership, and other heroic qualities.
From 1960 until its relocation to Tennessee two years ago, the team played under Houston Oilers.
The New York Jets’ original nickname in the previous American Football League was the Titans. However, according to representatives of the Jets, there was no issue allowing Adams, who was instrumental in creating the AFL, in using the name, Titans.
Callers to sports talk shows in Nashville frequently made fun of the moniker Oilers by claiming that it had nothing to do with Tennessee.
According to Adams, Titans are characters from ancient Greek mythology, and Nashville’s reputation as the “Athens of the South” makes the moniker entirely appropriate. Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner, decided to retire the Oilers moniker, barring any potential future franchise from Houston from adopting it.