Baltimore's Marching Ravens

They were founded as The Baltimore Colts Marching Band on September 7, 1947, and have continuously operated ever since, supporting four separate football franchises.

The band first supported the original Baltimore Colts from 1947 to 1950, but continued to operate even after the franchise disbanded in 1950.

The band endured a second relocation when the Colts moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night in 1984, leaving Baltimore without a team for eleven years but never disbanded.

[8] According to an ESPN documentary directed by Baltimore native Barry Levinson called The Band That Wouldn't Die, band leaders got advance warning that the team was being moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis overnight and were able to remove their equipment from team headquarters before the moving vans arrived.

[9] Ziemann and some associates then hid the uniforms in a mausoleum belonging to the family of one of the band members in a nearby cemetery.

The crowd initially did not know how to react to a group wearing the colors and bearing the name of a team that no longer existed, but the band received a rousing ovation at the end of their halftime performance and were subsequently invited back to Cleveland annually.

[12] Since the NFL owned the "Colts" moniker as a registered trademark, a lawsuit ensued, with the CFL franchise soon changing its name to the Baltimore Stallions.

[9] The band played on the steps of the Maryland State House while the legislature was in session one evening, causing a crowd to gather, including then-Governor William Donald Schaefer, who had been pushing hard for a team and a football stadium.

Former Baltimore Colt halfback Tom Matte gave the band credit for helping to maintain momentum for a return of NFL football to the city.

"The band was the one thing that, to me, was the belt that held the pants up to keep the drive alive to get football back here in Baltimore," he wrote in 2004.

At the start of the 1998 season, it assumed its current name, The Marching Ravens, coinciding with the opening of what is now M&T Bank Stadium in 1998, as well as the Indianapolis Colts making their first visit to Baltimore since their relocation.