The Panther City Lacrosse Club is a professional men's lacrosse team in Fort Worth, Texas. Founded in 2020, the team became the 14th franchise in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). Panther City Lax will play its home games at the new Dickies Arena in Fort Worth in the 2021-22 season. It is the first time the NLL has expanded into the State of Texas in its 34-year history.
On Nov. 17, 2020, the franchise revealed its team name, brand identity and logo. The genesis of the Panther association happened when an 1875 newspaper column written by Robert Cowart, a former Fort Worth resident, was published in the Dallas Daily Herald. He wrote about a panther who wandered the streets of Fort Worth before finding a spot downtown to rest. Though the story of a panther wandering the city, and eventually laying down to sleep in the middle of downtown, was intended as a jab at Fort Worth’s quiet, sleepy and dark streets, the city adopted the offense as a symbol of strength, hope and revival. The logo and branding for Panther City Lacrosse Club contains three components: the Panther, the star and Spanish Colonial architecture. The purple and red emphasize the descriptors of an ominous big cat that hunts at night. This is not a cat that came into the city and slipped out unnoticed, as the legend tells. This panther is a threatening and aggressive apex predator that is on the prowl.