This time, it's for real.
Miami Dolphins chief executive officer Mike Dee said Wednesday that a team logo that appeared on NFL.com earlier in the day is, in fact, the official one, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
"It was leaked by somebody at Nike," Dee told reporters. "We had always had a plan to kind of roll it out over a 30-day period, so we're going to start rolling it out. But the logo is only one part of the announcement. It's a complete re-branding of the team."
Dolphins defensive tackle Jared Odrick, apparently, is getting used to it:
Versions of the logo bubbled up online in recent weeks, but the real deal appeared as part of NFL.com's "Predict the Pick" game. That was unintentional, but -- because it's the Internet -- the image was screen-grabbed and sent on its viral way.
With the cat out of the bag, Dee talked about how creative types dreamt up Miami's re-branding.
"There's a lot of history in this in that we went back to colors, the true aqua and the true orange that were part of the first 29 years of the franchise's history," Dee said. "But the logo design itself and some other things you'll see respect that tradition in the past but also have an eye on the 21st century Dolphins."
To celebrate the launch, the franchise is giving one lucky Dolphins fan the chance to win the first official T-shirt featuring the new logo.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
