Blue Angels license plate joins Florida’s tag lineup

License plates honoring the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight team are ready to hit Florida roads.

With 3,704 tags pre-sold, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Monday that new Blue Angels plates, benefiting the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, have been delivered to tax collectors and license-plate agencies statewide.

The tag was the second to become road-ready under a 2020 law that established new sales and design requirements for specialty plates, joining the Coastal Conservation Association Florida’s “Conserve Florida’s Fisheries” plate, which completed the hurdles in early June.

The 2020 law set a cap of 150 specialty plates, up from 123 on the road at the time. But it also increased from 1,000 to 3,000 the number of plates that need to be pre-sold.

Plates, most carrying $25 user fees, will have to maintain the 3,000-plate sales threshold starting July 1, 2022, or face being discontinued if they are below the new benchmark for 12 consecutive months.

As of Aug. 1, Blue Angels plate pre-sales were at 3,704, followed by 3,212 for the Coastal Conservation tag. Topping the pre-sale list is Walt Disney at 10,117. The Walt Disney plate – to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation – must still get through production phases to begin distribution.

Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Jessica Kelleher said in an email that distribution of the Walt Disney tag is anticipated in mid-to-late September.

Closing in on the 3,000-plate pre-sale benchmark is a “super tag” template included in the 2020 law for nine black fraternities and sororities dubbed the “Divine 9” – Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Delta Sigma Theta, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho and Iota Phi Theta. The “Divine 9” tag was 491 away from the 3,000 mark, as of Aug. 1.

The new law also opened plate designs to three non-Florida schools: the University of Alabama, the University of Georgia and Auburn University. Each out-of-state school must hit a pre-sale mark of 4,000. Pre-sale totals were 1,125 for the University of Alabama, 772 for Auburn and 359 for the University of Georgia.