Memphis 901 FC Announces Name, Unveils Logos Ahead of First Season

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

 

What I wonder is what happens when, inevitably, there's a change in area code, overlay area code, or an extra digit added to area codes (as planned by NANPA once phone number capacity reaches a certain point).  What're these teams gonna do then?

 

Thats basically my point. Nobody can eve get one of these coveted area codes anymore. It’s creating an elite class.  

[The_Admiral]

It's not enough to drown people in a marketplace of phones, now the 10-digit sequence assigned to me has to mean more than the 10-digit sequence assigned to you.

 

n e o l i b e r a l i s m

[Dilbert]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

That Memphis lettering is the same as the one in the Memphis Redbirds logo. Does anyone mind? I'm sure they were both Studio Simon jobs.

Well considering the club is playing at AutoZone Park, the Redbirds home, and the owner of the club is one of the Redbird owners it doesnt surprise me to have the team match the Redbirds identity.

 

Honestly I was hoping for Rogue FC or somehting of that nature. While I love the branding the name is just awful. I dont like the teams that name themselves after area codes or years.

[Mac the Knife]

2 hours ago, the admiral said:

It's not enough to drown people in a marketplace of phones, now the 10-digit sequence assigned to me has to mean more than the 10-digit sequence assigned to you.

 

n e o l i b e r a l i s m

WTF does that have to do with liberalism or conservatism?

[BBTV]

12 hours ago, the admiral said:

It's not enough to drown people in a marketplace of phones, now the 10-digit sequence assigned to me has to mean more than the 10-digit sequence assigned to you.

 

n e o l i b e r a l i s m

 

It's created a market where companies buy up all the available inventory of "classic" area code numbers and auction them off.  They really don't mean anything anymore, but we're conditioned to associate 212 with NYC, 617 with Boston, 312 (at least nationally due to Goose Island) with Chicago, 619 because WRESTLING with SD, and locally, 215 with Phila, which as mentioned, has at least 5 area codes active within its limits.

 

 

https://www.marketplace.org/2017/06/12/business/want-212-area-code-its-gonna-cost-you

 

Quote

Some people buy the numbers as collectors’ items, said Paul Faust, the company’s vice president of business development and a New Yorker himself.

“I had a guy maybe a year ago that bought three of ’em because he wanted his kids, who were like 1 and 2 years old, to have them when they got older,” he said.

Faust hustles to snap up available numbers.

“We get them from people who are moving out of New York that just don’t want their numbers," he said, or, for instance, “a company that had a bunch that is going out of business, closing, and, you know, might want to get rid of them.”

Ringboost parks thousands of phone numbers in an account with a phone company and then waits for them to be bought. The company doesn’t technically own these phone numbers. It owns the rights to use them. That's just how phone numbers work.

 

I rarely see anyone actually wearing shirts like this, but I do see 215 tattoos, and I want to ask them if their phone number actually has 215 in it.

[BBTV]

None of that has anything to do with the design, of which I find something new that I like every time I look at it.

 

I still need to see how it would look on a stitched logo patch that goes on jerseys and caps, but I really like how the M-crown is strong enough to be used by itself, which would look great on caps and shirts, and I can't get over how well the neon-effect is pulled off with the use of line breaks.  That's a lot harder than it looks, and Simon nailed it.

 

One criticism that I just noticed is how the top corners of the crest are rounded on the outline, but angled on the inside.  Not sure why it's not consistent.

[Davidellias]

On 9/1/2018 at 11:36 AM, mcrosby said:

In another thread there was talk of which Euro-style nomenclature was missing in US soccer. German-style City+Year was missing, I think City+Area Code counts.

 

 

It's a real shame the Austin team didn't call itself "Austin CIty"  that would have been perfect.

[YELDARBfield]

5 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

I still need to see how it would look on a stitched logo patch that goes on jerseys and caps, but I really like how the M-crown is strong enough to be used by itself, which would look great on caps and shirts, and I can't get over how well the neon-effect is pulled off with the use of line breaks.  That's a lot harder than it looks, and Simon nailed it.

 

The logo works pretty well embroidered, IMO.

[andrewharrington]

4 hours ago, Davidellias said:

 

 

It's a real shame the Austin team didn't call itself "Austin CIty"  that would have been perfect.

 

Probably to avoid confusion with their big annual music festival.

[YELDARBfield]

3 minutes ago, andrewharrington said:

 

Probably to avoid confusion with their big annual music festival.

Great point. Should've gone with SXSWFC.

[Red Wolf]

On 9/1/2018 at 3:14 PM, Mac the Knife said:

 

What I wonder is what happens when, inevitably, there's a change in area code, overlay area code, or an extra digit added to area codes (as planned by NANPA once phone number capacity reaches a certain point).  What're these teams gonna do then?

My guess? Nothing.

 

I don't mind the area code branding. 901 stuff is all over Memphis. The only area codes I know off the top of my head are the three in Arkansas, 901, and 619 (because of Rey Mysterio).

[Kaz]

5 hours ago, Davidellias said:

 

 

It's a real shame the Austin team didn't call itself "Austin CIty"  that would have been perfect.

Should have gone with Austin 3:16 FC instead IMO

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, Bradbury said:

 

The logo works pretty well embroidered, IMO.

 

That's what I'm talkin' about - those hats rule.

[Brian in Boston]

Quote

I really hate when teams market around their area code, since so many large cities have multiple area codes, and and other than for old land lines, they are pretty much meaningless... Maybe Memphis is different since it's relatively small, but it just seems like something that could eventually be obsolete.

 

Quote

What I wonder is what happens when, inevitably, there's a change in area code, overlay area code, or an extra digit added to area codes (as planned by NANPA once phone number capacity reaches a certain point).  What're these teams gonna do then?

 

The Crystal Palace exhibition building burnt to the ground in 1936. Yet, despite the edifice having disappeared from the London landscape 80-plus years ago, the structure's namesake football club - Crystal Palace F. C. - doesn't regard its sobriquet to be "obsolete" simply because the original inspiration for its branding no longer exists.

If the area code that serves as the inspiration for Memphis 901 FC's branding someday disappears, then - like Crystal Palace F. C.'s identity - the team name can live on as a similar "snapshot in time" tip-of-the-hat.    

[Cosmic]

42 minutes ago, Brian in Boston said:

 

 

The Crystal Palace exhibition building burnt to the ground in 1936. Yet, despite the edifice having disappeared from the London landscape 80-plus years ago, the structure's namesake football club - Crystal Palace F. C. - doesn't regard its sobriquet to be "obsolete" simply because the original inspiration for its branding no longer exists.

If the area code that serves as the inspiration for Memphis 901 FC's branding someday disappears, then - like Crystal Palace F. C.'s identity - the team name can live on as a similar "snapshot in time" tip-of-the-hat.    

By the time the 901 becomes obsolete (if ever), it will just be the team's name. Or are we mad at the NY Rangers for not changing their name, now that some guy named Tex doesn't own them?

[Mac the Knife]

1 hour ago, Brian in Boston said:

The Crystal Palace exhibition building burnt to the ground in 1936. Yet, despite the edifice having disappeared from the London landscape 80-plus years ago, the structure's namesake football club - Crystal Palace F. C. - doesn't regard its sobriquet to be "obsolete" simply because the original inspiration for its branding no longer exists.

If the area code that serves as the inspiration for Memphis 901 FC's branding someday disappears, then - like Crystal Palace F. C.'s identity - the team name can live on as a similar "snapshot in time" tip-of-the-hat.    

 

58 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

By the time the 901 becomes obsolete (if ever), it will just be the team's name. Or are we mad at the NY Rangers for not changing their name, now that some guy named Tex doesn't own them?

Agreed on all points, but whenever what I described earlier happens, one of three things will result:  either their existing branding becomes anachronistic, they change it, or they then have that 'snapshot in time,' but one which say a hundred years ago would have to be explained with, "See, at one time there were these things called 'telephones'..."  Crystal Palace and the New York Rangers fall under that category to some extent as well, true.  But in their cases you can point to a concrete, definitive noun of some sort for your frame of reference when obsolescence (sp?) occurs.  "901," "716" or whatever may be seen as representing a region today, but it's faddish in a sense.  I'm not saying you guys are wrong at all; I'd just have chosen something with a little greater sense of permanence to it.

[Sykotyk]

On 9/1/2018 at 2:27 PM, Cosmic said:

Maybe the only ones that mean something nationally, but based on the number of times area codes have popped up as brands, I think it’s safe to say they can mean something to locals. I can’t remember any of them because nobody cares outside of the local calling area, but I know they’re there. 716 certainly has cachet in Buffalo.

 

On 9/1/2018 at 6:05 PM, NicDB said:

 

The 0 digit was for states that only had one area code. 

 

All area codes originally had a 0 or 1 for the middle digit. This was to signify this was an area code during dialing for the switching system as opposed to dialing a country code or a local interchange code.

 

As for area codes being brands, it was a big deal to Cleveland in 2016 during the Cavs run to a title as Cleveland's (and originally all of northeast Ohio's) area code was 216.

 

Columbus is 614 and Pittsburgh is 412. Northwest PA is 814. I know Dallas and Fort Worth are 214 and 817.

 

Then came the age of the page and secondary lines for dial-up internet and the number usages skyrocketed. You had new codes. Eastern Ohio branched from 614 to 740. Western PA outside Pittsburgh became 724. And the 216 first splintered with Youngstown getting 330. And then the area between Cleveland and Youngstown and everywhere else became 440.

 

And then the overlays. Luckily, they were introduced into this area just as the dial-up boom declined for broadband, so most hardly anybody has an overlay and probably not needed today. And with the landlines going away, it's not as important.

 

Yet, my cell # matches this to a T:

 

https://xkcd.com/1129/

[Needschat]

The NBA Grizzlies were in Memphis in the 1970s, WFL team were called Grizzlies, more than the official Southmen.  

 

Memphis soccer had the BEST nickname to logo synergy in the sport's US history.  Why couldn't they update this?

 

[tuffytoro]

Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee

[MilSox]

9 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

 

Agreed on all points, but whenever what I described earlier happens, one of three things will result:  either their existing branding becomes anachronistic, they change it, or they then have that 'snapshot in time,' but one which say a hundred years ago would have to be explained with, "See, at one time there were these things called 'telephones'..."  Crystal Palace and the New York Rangers fall under that category to some extent as well, true.  But in their cases you can point to a concrete, definitive noun of some sort for your frame of reference when obsolescence (sp?) occurs.  "901," "716" or whatever may be seen as representing a region today, but it's faddish in a sense.  I'm not saying you guys are wrong at all; I'd just have chosen something with a little greater sense of permanence to it.

 

Area code reppin has been part of hip hop since the early 90s. And here in Milwaukee, there was a group of hackers that called themselves The 414s way back in the early 80s.

 

I think area codes have trended long enough to not be considered a fad. Kudos to Memphis for taking a European naming convention and tweaking it to make it uniquely American.