MIDLANDS HURRICANES will rebrand to take the name of home city Birmingham next season.
The club which started out almost three decades ago as Coventry Bears will play in the Championship as Birmingham Hurricanes.
It comes less than a year after they moved to Avery Fields, located three miles west of Birmingham’s city centre, having signed a 20-year lease at the home of rugby union club Bournville.
After becoming the Hurricanes in late 2021, Midlands played at Solihull’s Portway Stadium then the Alexander Stadium, the major athletics venue which hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games, in Perry Barr, north Birmingham.
As Coventry, formed in 1998 as a community outfit which joined the professional leagues in 2015, they played in that city’s Butts Park Arena for 18 years from its 2004 opening.
The club say that their latest rebrand will allow them to “reach new audiences across Birmingham”, while insisting: “The move does not change the Hurricanes’ commitment to supporting and developing rugby league across the Midlands”.
Mike Lomas, who drove the move to be known as Midlands and took full ownership of the club in 2022, said: “Over the last five years, an enormous amount of work has gone into building this club and putting the foundations in place for its future.
“We have always had the ambition to find somewhere that we could genuinely call home. Establishing ourselves at Avery Fields and now becoming Birmingham Hurricanes is the culmination of a lot of that work.
“This is about putting down permanent roots. We want to build something that has a long-term future in Birmingham and a club that the city can get behind and be proud of.
“There is still a huge amount of work ahead of us, but this feels like a significant moment in the journey of the Hurricanes and one we are extremely proud of.”
Managing director Eorl Crabtree added: “We want to attract a new generation of local supporters to add to the fantastic fanbase we already have.
“There are people across Birmingham who may never have experienced live rugby league before, and we have a real opportunity to introduce them to our sport and give them a club that represents their city.
“Commercially, the Birmingham identity also opens up significant opportunities.”
Under coach Mark Dunning, Midlands made this year’s Championship play-offs with an eighth-place finish, their best ever season.