The Summit League is home to some of the zaniest mascot names and acronyms, bu the conference made some headway in terms of trying to become easier to remember. Case in point: No more trying to differentiate between IPFW and IUPUI. The conference will henceforth refer to the former as "Fort Wayne."
The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel reported the move in July.
The same can be said for UMKC, which is simply "Kansas City." Conference newcomer University of Nebraska-Omaha will be simply "Omaha."
Beat writer Tom Davis reported IPFW athletic director Tommy Bell was not notified of the move and sounded less than thrilled of the rebranding effort he had been tasked with.  
The report mentioned this is similar to regional rebranding efforts of the Horizon League and IPFW will put the change into effect for one year as a sort of trial balloon.
"This is not a name change," Bell told the News-Sentinel. "We’re trying it for a year and we’ll see if there is any push back.”
It's easy to understand why the league would want to make its schools easier to remember, but why not also refer to IUPUI as "Indianapolis?" 
Oakland fans noticed the change when the Golden Grizzlies' schedule was released Friday. The change should be nothing new for Oakland coach Greg Kampe, who always referred to his team's nearest conference rival as "Fort Wayne" anyhow.
(h/t to our good friend at Summit Madness for sending this story our way)