It’s not yet a reality and it has no place to play, but later this month, the city’s potential professional football franchise will have a name.

The group behind the bid, Maritime Football Limited Partnership (MFLP), launched a season ticket drive and team-naming contest in Halifax on Wednesday with Canadian Football League (CFL) commissioner Randy Ambrosie.

“As of this moment, fans — and if you’re not a fan, we still encourage you to do so — can go on and make a deposit via ticketmaster.ca,” MFLP partner Anthony LeBlanc told the crowd on Wednesday.

The $50 deposit will put fans on a priority list, giving them first access to seat choice for season tickets. LeBlanc didn’t say how much season tickets would be, but he said they’d offer a 20 to 40 per cent discount as compared to buying individual game tickets. Across the CFL, season tickets range from less than $200 to more than $1,000 depending on the location of the seats.

LeBlanc said he’s hoping to sell half a stadium’s worth of season tickets: 12,000.

Fans who put down a deposit are also asked to help name the team.

The team name won’t start with Halifax — MFLP is opting instead for Atlantic — and there are already four top contenders: the Atlantic Admirals, Convoy, Schooners or Storm.

“We’ve been out, we’ve been talking to the community getting what we feel is the shortlist, but we’re not sitting here saying it will be one of those,” LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said the team name will be announced at a party on Nov. 23, ahead of the Grey Cup in Edmonton.

“This is an important milestone,” LeBlanc said. “I’m certainly not going to sit here and put the commissioner on the spot of what this means in regards to next steps and when things will be announced, but we certainly feel that it will be, if not the final checkmark required, it’s certainly at the top of the list.”

Ambrosie didn’t want to put any labels on his relationship with LeBlanc and fellow MFLP partner Bruce Bowser at Wednesday’s news conference, preferring to keep it casual when asked if this was considered the approval of a conditional franchise. “We can call this what we want,” he said. “I’m sitting between these two gentlemen because the CFL wants this group, Maritime Football, to bring a 10th team into the Canadian Football League right here in Halifax, and we’re gonna be doing everything we can to help get these last few hurdles crossed so that we can get to the finish line.”