‘Dancing With The Stars: Athletes’ Team Names Revealed

The roster for Dancing With the Stars’ first-ever all-athletes themed season has been set, and now the 10 couples are ready to give us their next big reveal: their team names. Diehard Dancing fans know the team name is a huge component of each couple’s overall voting campaign, and while a bad name won’t completely sabotage things, a good one can really help couples rally up a ferocious fan base.

Gold Derby posted a partial list the Dancing with the Stars team names, and the official DWTS Instagram page helped fill in some of the blanks. It turns out that many of the couples on the DWTS all-athletes season went for sports-themed puns when choosing their team name.

Olympic luger Chris Mazdzer and his pro partner, Witney Carson, will be called Team Move It or Luge It, while softball superstar Jennie Finch Daigle and partner Keo Motsepe found the perfect team name with Team Pitch Perfect.

Controversial contestant Tonya Harding will go back to her skating roots this season on Dancing with the Stars. Harding’s pro partner, Sasha Farber, posted to Instagram to reveal the couple’s team name is Team Axellant.

Retired MLB player Johnny Damon and his partner, Emma Slater, got straight to the point: they’re called Team Homerun. Not a bad choice considering Damon was known for hitting his share of home runs, even in the World Series.

NFL cornerback Josh Norman will tip his hat to his career with a football-themed name from his partnership with Sharna Burgess. After asking followers to vote for their team name suggestions, Sharna revealed the most fans went with the name Team Back That Pass Up.

“Thanks for being a part of choosing our name with us,” the Dancing with the Stars pro wrote.

Stepping outside of the sports-themed box is Adam Rippon. The Olympic skater and his pro partner, Jenna Johnson, went with the name Team Just Friends, and it’s probably because they want to make it clear there’s no showmance here. Besides, Rippon has a boyfriend, Jussi-Pekka Kajaala, and Jenna Johnson is dating fellow Dancing With the Stars pro dancer Val Chmerkovskiy, so these two really are just friends.

In addition, Arike Ogunbowale and Gleb Savchenko will be called Team Mirrorballers, while Olympic skater Mirai Nagasu and pro dancer Alan Bersten settled on Team Fire, Ice and Spice after ruling out the sportier Team Abs and Axels. Bersten posted the news on Instagram, telling his followers: “We finally came up with our team name!!!!! #teamfireiceandspice. I’m fire, she’s ice, and we’ve got a little spice. Plus we love food.”

No word yet on the team names for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lindsay Arnold or Jamie Anderson and Artem Chigvintsev, but they should be coming soon.

You can see the Dancing with the Stars: Athletes cast in the promo below.

Dancing With the Stars: Athletes premieres Monday, April 30, at 8/7c on ABC.