49ers Say They're Faithful To The Bay, But Won't Knock Raiders

SANTA CLARA, CA — As the NFL season prepares to kick off on Thursday night, the San Francisco 49ers have unveiled a new team motto that appears —the team says without rivalry-based intention — to take a poke at their former Bay Area neighbors to the north.

The defending NFC champion 49ers announced this week that they will use the marketing slogan “Faithful To The Bay” for the upcoming season. While the phrase is described by team officials as being a commitment to the franchise’s fans regardless of their location, it suggests that the Bay Area’s former tenants, the Oakland Raiders – who now play in Las Vegas – weren’t so loyal.

The launch of the campaign includes a hype video narrated by Niners legend Keenan Turner, who describes the team as one that is passed from generation to generation and that is "your grandmother's 49ers" . The official emoji and hashtag “FTTB” went live on Wednesday, the team announced.

"Faithful to The Bay is more than a motto for the 49ers, it's a unifying idea for the Faithful throughout the world. It embodies the shared commitment our fans and our team have to each other and to our community at large." Alex Chang, 49ers chief marketing officer said in a news release issued by the team. "Together, we all take pride in representing the Bay and the ideals that define us: inclusion, innovation and achievement.”

Yet, after some fans suggested the new motto was a dig at the Raiders, who have done their share of bouncing around from their original Northern California location, Chang told the Sports Business Daily, there was no harm intended.

“We’re not trolling the Raiders; that was one of our key tenants internally,” Chang said in the interview. “We don’t have a plan or strategy to convert Raiders fans.”

The Faithful To The Bay phrase will be displayed around Levi’s Stadium on banners, field wraps and LED lighting displays, the team announced. The hype video includes highlights from the team’s history and images from around the region, but centers around the theme that their commitment to to the area — where they have played since the 1940s — won't change.

"Loyalty never goes out of style," Turner says in the video. "Times change...but the faithful never waiver. "