Brian in Boston

On 5/15/2024 at 7:20 PM, Dilbert said:

The new FPHL team in Athens, Georgia will be the Athens Rock Lobsters, honoring the B-52s

 

It's just as well that Michael Stipe didn't return the team's calls. After all, Athens Rock Lobsters is a much better identity than either Athens Orange Crush or Athens Shiny Happy People.  

Detroit Free Press - Detroit City FC acquires abandoned hospital site for future soccer stadium

USL Championship News - Detroit City FC announces acquisition of land to build a soccer-specific stadium

Detroit City FC has acquired land in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood with an eye towards building a soccer-specific-stadium with a seating capacity of up to 14,000. The club is targeting the 2027 USL Championship season as its first in the new facility.

17 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

 

The Boston sports market up through the early '90s, where you had three successful and well-established teams in the other sports and then this weird unpopular screwup halfway to Providence, which was the NFL team, will always be so quaint to me.

"Quaint" is the perfect word to sum up the pre-Patriots Dynasty Boston sports market.  

The Patriots were "50 pounds of stupid in a 5-pound bag" for most of their first 33 seasons of existence. Just six total trips to the playoffs from 1960 through 1992, once in the AFL and five times in the NFL. While they did manage to make it to the 1963 AFL Championship and Super Bowl XX, they received a shellacking in each game: 51-10 at the hands of the Chargers, 46-10 courtesy of the Bears.

Billy Sullivan and his progeny were woefully out of their depth operating a professional sports franchise. Always one step ahead of the bill-collectors, or so it seemed. God bless 'em. In retrospect, it's a testament to their audacious self-confidence that they managed to keep the team afloat as long as they did. Lord knows that Victor Kiam's tenure as owner had most Pats fans pining for the "good ol' days" of Billy's stewardship.
 

3 hours ago, Carolingian Steamroller said:

Those are details as gooey and rich as molasses.

It really wasn't treated as a big a deal at the time. At least not by the press in New England. Orthwein's purchase of the team from Kiam had been a big deal, as were the rumors that swirled about him trying to relocate the team to St. Louis. The Patriots securing the first pick in the 1993 NFL Draft had been a BIG deal. Orthwein's hiring of Bill Parcells had been an even BIGGER deal.  The fact that a press conference had been called to announce changes to the logo and uniform? Decidedly NOT a big deal.

Well, if I'm being honest, it was to me. Then, as now, I was a sports branding enthusiast. I was extremely interested in seeing what the team would unveil. That said, my hobbies notwithstanding, what the sports press corps in New England was interested in was who Parcells and the Patriots were going to select with the first pick in the NFL Draft. So much so that it was repeatedly made clear to those reporters attending the unveiling of the new uniforms and logo that absolutely no questions regarding the draft should be asked and none would be answered.  

In any event, as I mentioned earlier, Orthwein's interest in clearly delineating between his tenure as owner of the team and that of Victor Kiam was a big part of what drove him to pursue updating the Patriots' logo and tweaking the team's color scheme. I also learned from a source with the team that Orthwein couldn't understand why the on-field uniforms of a team named after the patriots of the American Revolutionary War were red, the color worn by British infantrymen. Great minds think alike!  

Combine the owner's desire to put his own stamp on the team with the league's interest in generating more merchandising revenue in a market that was punching well below its weight in said metric, and that's what inspired the Patriots to adopt blue as their primary color, introduce silver to their color scheme, and replace "Pat Patriot" with the  "Flying Elvis".    

1 hour ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 That’s probably why they dressed that little guy on the side of the helmet in a blue coat, I’m guessing. 

Which only served to call more attention to the fact that for 33 years the Patriots on the field played half of their games each season attired in a jersey that made them look like the military force that opposed the namesake mascot on their helmets.  

Goofy.  

3 hours ago, PurpleHayes said:

... the first person who really pointed it out was Bill Parcells when he was hired in 1993, and that's why he changed the unis. 

 

Of course, when the Patriots were founded they were in a division with three teams that all had blue jerseys: the Bills and Titans with regular blue and the Oilers with the lighter blue.

On the first point, it wasn't Parcells who changed the uniforms. I was working in the press in Boston at the time and it was James Busch Orthwein - along with league officials - who were the driving force behind the changes to the Patriots' logo, uniform, and color scheme hierarchy.  

There was a desire on the part of Orthwein to establish a marked transition to his ownership of the team from the 3-1/2 year tenure of his immediate predecessor, Victor Kiam. Orthwein wanted every vestige of Kiam's reign -which  including not only subpar play on the field, but sexual and verbal harassment of reporter Lisa Olson in the Foxboro stadium locker room that resulted in a lawsuit being filed against the team - to be erased. The league felt it was a shrewd PR move.

Further, it wasn't lost on either Orthwein or league officials that, despite playing in the NFL's sixth-largest television market, the Patriots ranked 26th out of 28 teams in merchandise sales at the time. It was hoped that changing the team's logo and its primary color would drive increased merchandising.   

As for the Patriots originally using red as their primary color because they were playing in a division with three other teams that all had blue jerseys at the time of the American Football League's founding, those teams - Buffalo, Houston, and New York - would all have been wearing white jerseys whenever the Patriots donned a color jersey - red or blue - against them. I'm chocking the adoption of red as the team's primary color - British redcoats be damned - as a brain-fart on Billy Sullivan's part.      

5 hours ago, MCM0313 said:

I like Pat Patriot, but I think, if they were to return to the overall throwback style full-time... I would hope they would make a blue version as the primary and limit the red to alternate status. We fought against the Redcoats in the Revolutionary War.

Agreed. Even as a child I picked up on the disconnect between the Patriots  being named for the  American colonists that engaged in a revolution against British rule, while simultaneously wearing red jerseys that aped the color of the coats of the British infantry units that said colonial forces had battled. 

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

The crests all change because the league controls all branding. In most cases it's a downgrade because they want to look different from the badge the teams wore previously. 

If I'm not mistaken, Major League Soccer controlling all club branding has been the league's modus operandi since Day 1. It stretches back to the initial decision to operate the league under a single entity structure. 

As for MLS badges of clubs that formerly operated in other leagues automatically being "downgrade[s]" because they're "different from the badge[s] the teams wore previously", I'm not ready to make that leap... at least not as a blanket, across-the-board assessment.

For instance, to my mind, Orlando City SC's MLS  badge is a vast improvement over the crest the team sported in USL Pro.  

As for FC Cincinnati's retooling of its crest upon entering MLS, that's another upgrade over the USL branding in my book. While I rather liked the minimalist rendering of the lion in the USL mark, I don't think the new lion represents a downgrade... rather, simply an alternative artistic interpretation that is equally attractive. As for the overall composition of the two crests, I much prefer the contained shield of the MLS badge to the "crowned shield with free-floating soccer ball panel" of the USL mark.

The one change in crest that I don't consider to have been an improvement was the move from the roundel sported by Nashville SC of the USL Championship to the badge currently worn by Major League Soccer's Nashville SC.  

Indy Eleven's current crest is one of my favorites in the USL Championship. Off the top of my head, it's easily amongst the top five to ten badges in the league. Could it make the jump to MLS unchanged based upon aesthetic merits? To my mind, yes. Would the powers-that-be at MLS headquarters insist on alterations to make it the league's own insofar as branding is concerned? Almost certainly. Perhaps some of the details in the depiction of the statue of Victory from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument would be simplified and sharpened. Maybe the font would get changed. It would be "tweaked" in one manner or another.

In any event, we shall see what the future holds - both club-wise and crest-wise - for professional soccer in Indianapolis.      

The St. Louis Skyhawks' new helmet has to be the Clear Sky Wings option.

* The wings are strikingly iconic.
* It makes logical sense for said wings to be rendered in Silver and White against a Clear Sky blue background.
* it allows for the Gateway Arch helmet stripe to be rendered in a metallic hue that represents its actual color.  

41 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Now, that said, question (because this is the limit of my knowledge on this kind of stuff, which is to say I know very little): say the east side stadium development deal goes through and MLS let's Indy into the big show. Would there be a chance of the Eleven being elevated into that spot like Nashville FC did (in becoming SC), or were/are those two separate situations?

As of right now, what I've been able to glean from media reports - as well as info from friends and colleagues in Indiana - indicates that it's likely an either-or situation.

The Indy Eleven name making its way to a Major League Soccer club would be dependent upon either Ersal Ozdemir somehow being involved in ownership, or - in the event he isn't a part of an Indianapolis-based MLS club's ownership/management team - being compensated for the intellectual property. Either way, while the name might make the transition to Major League Soccer, the club would most likely  adopt a new crest. The latter was the case with the likes of Orlando City SC and FC Cincinnati.  

26 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

 I keep asking who does the mayor expect to put up the expansion fee, let alone run the team? Kicking Indy Eleven out of a deal that was all but done makes no sense either. 

Tom Glick - a sports executive who helped launch both New York City FC and Charlotte FC - is rumored to be heading up the process of bringing together an ownership group/leadership team for an Indianapolis MLS bid. 

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2024/04/26/tom-glick-leading-group-of-investors-for-indy-mls-team-per-reports/73463540007/

As for Ersal Ozdemir's Indy Eleven stadium deal being "all but done", that assessment would seem to be a bit optimistic. 
 
https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/james-briggs/2024/05/09/indy-eleven-has-a-bigger-problem-than-money-at-diamond-chain-site/73627540007/

Ozdemir being able to afford completion of the stadium's construction without the public sector having to a shoulder an increased investment in the project seemed uncertain... and that was before the task of recovering, identifying, and reinterring human remains was added to Keystone Group's list of responsibilities.

It would appear that Mayor Hogsett, in an attempt to cover the city's fiscal keister and procure a bigger bang for the public coffer's bucks, tried to line up an alternative pathway to soccer-related investment for Indianapolis. He seems to be of the mind that landing a Major League Soccer club for the city is a better investment of public dollars than securing the city's USL Championship present and future. Whether he's right or wrong about that - indeed, whether the city can pull together an investment group that will be successful in obtaining admittance into MLS - is unknown at this time.

However, if Major League Soccer is Mayor Hogsett's target, I'd have to say that having Tom Glick - a guy who has extensive experience as an executive in the pro soccer space ( CEO of Derby County, CCO of City Football Group and first President of New York City FC, President of Tepper Sports & Entertainment who oversaw the acquisition and launch of Charlotte FC, and CEO of Chelsea FC) - heading up the effort to put together the ownership group and management team capable of doing so is a better bet than Ersal Ozdemir.            

1 hour ago, tBBP said:

I don't know if anyone is following what's going on in Naptown right now (or if this was reported elsewhere), but apparently they got a little SSS brouhaha going on up there...

 

Summation: Eleven wants to build a multi-use stadium complex southwest of downtown; the Mayor proposed a whole other stadium site project over on the east side—on the site of a current IU Health heliport, no less—to lure an expansion MLS side. Now the two groups are at odds with each other...

https://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/127544-north-america-pro-soccer-2024/?do=findComment&comment=3401033

https://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/127544-north-america-pro-soccer-2024/?do=findComment&comment=3401052

https://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/127544-north-america-pro-soccer-2024/?do=findComment&comment=3401126
 

2 hours ago, Dilbert said:

FC Cincinnatis Aaron Boupendza is now out 6-8 weeks recovering from a broken jaw. He was assaulted at a local bar early Monday morning according to Cincinnati Police. Just another one of his many off field issues.

Reportedly, his assailant was local professional boxer Quashawn Toler.

https://theathletic.com/5467316/2024/05/02/fc-cincinnati-aaron-boupendza-jaw-bar/

Of the identities we've seen listed so far, I'd go with either Utah Yetis or Utah Mammoth.

I suppose I should have anticipated this day coming. Recognized that interests wax and wane and - sometimes, for one reason or another - completely peter out. It would appear that my passion for all things sports branding-related has reached that point.

The sheer, unadulterated excess of primary marks, secondary marks, tertiary marks and wordmarks... home uniforms, road uniforms, alternate uniforms, and throwback uniforms... City Connect this, Color Rush that, City Edition the other thing, and Reverse Retro who the f*** gives a s***... they've cumulatively overwhelmed me.

The cycle between the introduction of any new logo, uniform, or other brand identity component by a team and the roll-out of its next new design element seems to have sped up. For example, the Detroit Lions last introduced new uniforms less than a decade ago...  seven years to be specific. It would seem that "timeless" design has given away to "you're on the clock". Combine that with the fact that the introduction of new creative elements by clubs across all leagues is taking place at the same heightened pace and the reveal  of such elements have been stripped of their individual "WOW" factor. The result is that these so-called "events" on the part of teams and leagues have become commonplace to the point of meaninglessness. It has gotten to where I picture the team owner, coach, and players who are involved in these unveilings walking off stage only to be immediately ushered into meeting rooms where brainstorming sessions and focus groups with graphic designers, uniform manufacturers, marketing executives, and fans get underway in order to facilitate the rollout of the inevitable next team brand-related unveiling.

Finally, it doesn't help that the branding elements that are produced by these design initiatives seem increasingly underwhelming. How could they not be?  Creativity is the slave of commodification. Restraint is a rarity, excess the rule of the day. Artistry with the potential to surprise, delight, and inspire has been replaced by dreck.

To much of a good thing can be - indeed, often is - a bad thing.

The draw has taken place and the pairings for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Round of 32 are set.

Charleston Battery vs. South Georgia Tormenta FC
Atlanta United vs. Charlotte Independence
Tampa Bay Rowdies vs. Birmingham Legion
FC Dallas vs. Memphis 901 FC
Union Omaha vs. Sporting Kansas City
Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC vs. FC Tulsa
Seattle Sounders FC vs. Louisville City FC
North Carolina FC vs. Phoenix Rising FC
Sacramento Republic FC vs. Monterey Bay FC
San Jose Earthquakes vs. Oakland Roots SC
Las Vegas Lights FC vs. Los Angeles FC
Orange County SC vs. Loudoun United FC
Indy Eleven vs. San Antonio FC
Houston Dynamo FC vs. Detroit City FC
New York City FC II vs. Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
New Mexico United vs. Real Salt Lake

Matches will take place Tuesday, May 7th and Wednesday, May 8th.

 

On 2/23/2024 at 10:12 AM, VDizzle12 said:

 

 

While I'll agree that the new America East Conference logo isn't a masterpiece, the logo it replaced never struck me as being anything special. Frankly, it looks like something that would be featured in a quiz dubbed "College Conference or Regional Airline?" on Sporcle. It could have been purposefully designed to adorn the vertical stabilizer/tail fin in the livery of a regional carrier.

1 minute ago, Digby said:

 

An armadillo-baseball concept is kind of cool but the prospect of that as the basis for a creepy, uncanny, bastardized A's rebrand is nauseating.

I was only joking... though I wouldn't put anything past the clown car of a pro sports franchise that is the John Fisher-owned Athletics.

16 minutes ago, Walk-Off said:

it should be noted also that...  the ballpark's overall design resembles a "spherical" armadillo.

From the Oakland Athletics to the Las Vegas Armadillos, while still being dubbed the A's.  At the very least, perhaps we'll see the A's  adopting an alternate mark that replaces an elephant standing atop a baseball with an armadillo mounting a baseball.    

On 2/28/2024 at 3:54 PM, Green27 said:

#HowYouMooin'?
#LookingForMr.Goodbarn

4 hours ago, nash61 said:

Imagine this: a cap logo of either a single boxing glove, or two hanging gloves similar to the Red Sox logo, and a wordmark with the gloves hanging off the T in Knockouts.

This logo has been used by the Brockton Rox. Formerly an independent minor league team competing in the Northern (2002), Northeast (2003-2004), and Can-Am (2005-2011) Leagues, they've competed as a collegiate summer Futures Collegiate Baseball League member since 2012. As of last season, though no longer in use on the team's uniforms, this mark was still prominently displayed around Campanelli Stadium. The Rox are owned and operated by Brian Kahn, the same person who is bringing the Frontier League's New England Knockouts to Brockton.
 

4 hours ago, nash61 said:

THEN you bring in the dog logos (again, missed opportunity for it not being a boxer breed)

Brockton High School's athletic teams are known as the Boxers and feature a dog of said breed in their logos. The Knockouts likely steered away from featuring a boxer dog in their logo package so as to avoid having their brand seem derivative of that being used by the high school.  

Look, this is the Frontier League we're talking about. In spite of its excesses, I'd say that the Knockouts' identity package ranks amongst the top half of those in the league - indeed, maybe even the top third - by default. Then again, given some of what's trotted out by the other teams, that's not saying much.

My biggest problem with the Knockouts' identity package is that it doubles down on the trend to cram such entities with an ever-increasing number of alternate marks, official color palettes that seem to include at least a half-dozen hues, and - most mind-numbingly - marketing-speak explanations for each and every facet of the portfolio.         

The entire New England Knockouts' identity is so over-the-top as to be comically asinine.

There's "The Main Event" primary logo and the three alternate logos dubbed "The Other Cards". Oh, my... it isn't enough that the folks responsible for creating and signing-off on this identity package opted to stuff it beyond the bursting point with visual elements and explanatory marketing-speak that threaten to muddy it to the point of incoherence. Nope, they've also chosen to introduce quirkily-annoying themed headings to the subsections of the introductory one-sheet. Ohhhhhhh, such a... "treat".       

The bulldog as a mascot seems a bit "on-the-nose"... though I suppose not as knowing a "wink" as going with the boxer breed would have been. Resisting that pun may have  been the only place that the creative team showed restraint in putting this identity package together. The logo as a whole strikes me as being much too busy. The "bruiser" of a bulldog... wearing boxing gloves... wielding not one, but two baseball bats. It's all a bit much.  

Also, I don't know that anyone from Brockton would describe Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler as being the City of Brockton's "infamous" ties to the sport of boxing. Being infamous means to have a a reputation of the worst kind... to be notoriously evil... to be regarded as causing or bringing infamy to a place. That isn't the reputation that Marciano and Hagler have in the City of Brockton, or the sport of boxing.

Finally,  just in case anyone was wondering where the ball club hails from, let's slap a backwards snapback baseball cap atop his head to really hammer home the idea that our canine  character is a born-and-bred, eternally-anchored-to-past-glories, South Shore Mass - hole  Actually, that's the one element of the entire identity package that made me laugh out loud. Spot on  
But, wait! There's more! The aforementioned "Other Cards"... each with its own name. Fancy that. 

There's "The One-Two", a full-body depiction of our beloved mascot. He's "prepared to go the distance" with "[h]is belt... visibly displayed". I hate to nitpick, but if we're going to have marketing-speak smoke blown up our asses with the individual components of every sports franchise identity system introduction, is it too much to ask that the folks composing these things actually proofread what they've written? For instance, how would one go about invisibly displaying something? Sorry... I digress. But, come on, seriously. Also, couldn't this alternate logo be dubbed "The One-Number Two"? I mean, it sure does look like "our champion boxer" is poppin' a squat.

Movin' on, we have "A True 'K-O'". So, let me see if I have this straight: the term "K-O" was coined as a shortened term for "knockout". Fascinating. Who'd have known?

Last amongst "The Other Cards" is "The One City, One Fight" word mark. It seems a bit underwhelming given its task of making sure that Brockton's history as the "City of Champions" never be forgotten. A perfectly inoffensive cursive font, but nothing that

And finally, "The Colors"... each with a name drawn from a boxing glossary and - for the most part - randomly assigned to its corresponding hue. Five colors, though neither the tan of the baseball bats or brown of the bulldog were deemed important enough to receive a sobriquet. Why no love for "Clinch", "Feint", "Haymaker", or "Palooka"? What other colors might have been added? Maybe a deep Purple christened "Shiner", or a Silver Grey dubbed "Spit-Bucket"?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Note: My apologies to any member of this community I might have inadvertently offended with the inclusion of a word that may have been interpreted as culturally or racially insensitive. I can assure you that this was not my intention and, further, I would hope that my posting history in the CCSLC forums would bear that out.

According to etymologists, the word in question is not culturally or racially insensitive in origin. Rather, when coined in 1944 by Maury Maverick - a former U.S. Representative who was serving as chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation - it was simply meant to convey his frustration with the propensity of people to engage in the use of convoluted, incomprehensible jargon when simple, straightforward communication would better serve the task at hand.  As for the word's inspiration, Maverick is said to have had the garbled call and pompous strut of a turkey in mind.

Finally, I would point out that the last four letters of the word in question are not pronounced the same as the four-letter slur that people rightfully find so offensive. Despite appearing to be linguistically linked, the two words are of separate and unique origin.  

15 hours ago, WideRight said:

Here we are, guys.  The design for the 16th and final team, the Memphis Mallards. 

WOW! That Mallards secondary mark is phenomenal! The identity package overall is great, but that secondary ranks as a  favorite of mine amongst anything you've ever produced. It really conveys a very specific attitude and energy. Top notch.

Further, the entire project has been an extremely impressive undertaking. Outstanding work. Your efforts are always a treat.      

Kings

Philadelphia