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What if the New York Red Bulls were to rebrand?


Luke_Groundrunner

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As a Columbus fan, I always liked the MetroStars name sans location name. It was 'unique' at the time. Still upset that prior to this year, the Crew's first MLS Cup was against the New York Red Bulls/Red Bull New York.

If they do rebrand, I think a non-location name is best. MetroStars FC/SC or Metro FC/SC would be best. I don't think many would shorten Metro, but if you named it Metropolitan, you're more apt to get Mets than Metros which already exists. Sure, Cosmopolitans was shortened, officially, so Metropolitan should be shortened to avoid the obvious abbreviation of Mets.

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New York United FC. We should European the :censored: out of this while we have the chance. NYFC is taken? Make them United. BAM! Problem solved!


We shouldn't quit naming soccer teams until Every. Single. One. Is called "Your Town FC United." BAM!


Orlando City? BAM! Next team in Orlando is Orlando United. BAM!

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Guys-- we go over this all the time. The actual physical location of a stadium does not define what the team should be called. The meadowlands was just some open land where they could build a stadium. So they did. Just like the 49ers did in Santa Clara but they are not the Santa Clara 49ers. They are and always will represent Thw San Fransico market. Same with Giants and Jets in New York market and with the Metrostars. They played in Giants Stadium because that was the football stadium for NYC. Who cares if it's just over the bridge. Then when they were ready to build their own SOccer specific stadium they chose some open land a just like 5 miles from that in Harrison which is basically newark. They had started to get a fan base in the area and because of that They didn't want to play in the Bronx or Queens where they MAY have found land but more likely found a ton of legal opposition which always comes with building a new stadium in NYC. So boom stadiun in Harrison NJ. None of that changes that they represent the NY area.

And to be honesnt anyone who says they could have played in queens or Long Island but chose to stay in NJ and should thus be the new jersey Metrostars or red bulls or whatever has no understanding of the new York city landscape or market at all.

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But, aside from the Giants and Jets, the meadowlands sports complex required teams signing leases to include New Jersey in their name if they had some sort of jurisdiction listed.

Most notably the New Jersey Generals, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, and the short-lived XFL New York/New Jersey Hitmen. Then you have the NJ Nets, NJ Devils, NJ Red Dogs (Arena Football), NJ Gladiators (Arena Football), Also, checking out a few of the names of MISL (New Jersey Rockets), RHI (New Jersey Rockin Rollers), and NLL (New Jersey Saints and New Jersey Storm).

Only two teams (MetroStars and Hitmen) opted to include NY rather than just NJ. Giants and Jets, were the first tenants of Giants Stadium. {edit} It appears that the Cosmos officially went by "Cosmos" as soon as soon as they moved into Giants Stadium from New York Cosmos. So, I don't know if that was their decision, or whether the Meadowlands already had the New Jersey rule in effect and that was the Cosmos' way around it.

But, it makes sense. New Jersey is paying for it, they want the teams to have New Jersey name attached. Most went along with it. Hitmen and MetroStars went the NY/NJ route.

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Yea they are fine being called New York. Who cares if they play in Jersey? No one has a problem with the Jets/Giants and many other teams doing it. NEW YORK METROS would be perfect. A shortened version of the old name and also makes sense because they play in Jersey and represent the entire NY METRO area.

It could be similar to how Tottenham is often referred to as "Spurs"

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On 1/14/2016 at 2:30 PM, Sykotyk said:

But, aside from the Giants and Jets, the meadowlands sports complex required teams signing leases to include New Jersey in their name if they had some sort of jurisdiction listed.

Most notably the New Jersey Generals, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, and the short-lived XFL New York/New Jersey Hitmen. Then you have the NJ Nets, NJ Devils, NJ Red Dogs (Arena Football), NJ Gladiators (Arena Football), Also, checking out a few of the names of MISL (New Jersey Rockets), RHI (New Jersey Rockin Rollers), and NLL (New Jersey Saints and New Jersey Storm).

Only two teams (MetroStars and Hitmen) opted to include NY rather than just NJ. Giants and Jets, were the first tenants of Giants Stadium. {edit} It appears that the Cosmos officially went by "Cosmos" as soon as soon as they moved into Giants Stadium from New York Cosmos. So, I don't know if that was their decision, or whether the Meadowlands already had the New Jersey rule in effect and that was the Cosmos' way around it.

But, it makes sense. New Jersey is paying for it, they want the teams to have New Jersey name attached. Most went along with it. Hitmen and MetroStars went the NY/NJ route.

Interesting - I had not heard that rule with the meadowlands - BUT for new teams it makes sense. The Nets already played in NJ for 4 years before moving to the Meadowlands, and playing in New Brunswick is really too far to still be called the New York Nets. To me they were branding themselves as a New Jersey team... in that sense they were NOT representing the NY Metro Area, just New Jersey. Same when the Devils moved to New Jersey - there were already two teams in the area representing NY  so they became New Jersey's team (the name Devils alone shows that)   MetroStars were the only Soccer team in the Area and clearly by their name they were representing the entire area.. so in that sense that were NY & NJ's team. And I can see NJ insisting they  show that in their name.   Then they got rid of all of it and became just the MetroStars.     But if what you say is true then I'm confused about what happened next because they re branded as New York Red Bulls -- not NY/NJ.  And they still played in the Meadowlands for 3 years with that name?

 

But again -- to me saying New York does not mean ONLY New York -- it means the NY Metro Region.  But saying New Jersey means New Jersey and Only New Jersey.

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On 1/14/2016 at 1:30 PM, Sykotyk said:

But, aside from the Giants and Jets, the meadowlands sports complex required teams signing leases to include New Jersey in their name if they had some sort of jurisdiction listed.

Most notably the New Jersey Generals, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, and the short-lived XFL New York/New Jersey Hitmen. Then you have the NJ Nets, NJ Devils, NJ Red Dogs (Arena Football), NJ Gladiators (Arena Football), Also, checking out a few of the names of MISL (New Jersey Rockets), RHI (New Jersey Rockin Rollers), and NLL (New Jersey Saints and New Jersey Storm).

Only two teams (MetroStars and Hitmen) opted to include NY rather than just NJ. Giants and Jets, were the first tenants of Giants Stadium. {edit} It appears that the Cosmos officially went by "Cosmos" as soon as soon as they moved into Giants Stadium from New York Cosmos. So, I don't know if that was their decision, or whether the Meadowlands already had the New Jersey rule in effect and that was the Cosmos' way around it.

But, it makes sense. New Jersey is paying for it, they want the teams to have New Jersey name attached. Most went along with it. Hitmen and MetroStars went the NY/NJ route.

Don't forget the short-lived NY/NJ Knights of the World League of American Football (1991-1992)

91proset-nynj.png

It is what it is.

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1 hour ago, B-Rich said:

Don't forget the short-lived NY/NJ Knights of the World League of American Football (1991-1992)

91proset-nynj.png

 

I really liked their logo and uniforms.  They were sort of Oakland Raiders mashed up with early New Orleans Saints.

 

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2 hours ago, goforbroke said:

But if what you say is true then I'm confused about what happened next because they re branded as New York Red Bulls -- not NY/NJ.  And they still played in the Meadowlands for 3 years with that name?

 

Because it's not an actual rule.

 

In 2007, a few New York legislators decided to try to stop teams based in New Jersey from trading on the "New York" name.  No word on how they would intend to enforce that legislation across state lines, but whatever.  It was a stupid idea.   But the coverage did give us an illuminating quote:

 

Quote

"That bill does sound like a Jersey thing, which is ironic considering that over here we basically seem to have given up on this," George Zoffinger, head of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority told the newspaper. "But I think with all the money we give these teams, they should be called 'New Jersey."'

 

This is the head of the state organization overseeing the Meadowlands Sports Complex.  If there was any naming requirement for teams, he would know about it.

 

In 1984, a New Jersey state senator did introduce legislation to that effect, but it was never enacted.

 

 

EDIT: Found this good timeline of the issue.   There have been many attempts to make that requirement official, but apparently the only team it ever applied to was the New Jersey Generals, when the Meadowlands wrote it into their lease.

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That's for state decisions allowing DBAs and corporation names, etc. But, the question is those running the Meadowland Sports Complex dictated geographic names include "New Jersey".

 

As for the Red Bulls, they did insist, ridiculously, that their name was Red Bull New York, rather than the traditional American form of "New York Red Bulls" that MLS quickly latched onto as the proper naming convention.

 

I'm sure the New Jersey Red Dogs/New Jersey Gladiators, New York/New Jersey Hitmen, et al, would've loved to have just used the NY name instead. Did Vince McMahon really want through New Jersey a bone there? Or was it dictated in the lease they include New Jersey? Seems oddly conciliatory to just give New Jersey the name in so many teams that are, in many cases, the only team in the metro area.

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It was a rule, a rule made by the NJSEA. But, as that organisation's head said, the NJSEA gave up on the rule after the Red Bulls defied it. In not using the name "New Jersey", the Red Bulls essentially dared the NJSEA to kick them out of the Meadowlands. The NJSEA issued a couple of complaining public statements, and then backed down.

 

But, before that point, that body did indeed enforce this rule. The NJSEA didn't accept the USFL's team until it agreed to change from its intended name of "New York Generals" to "New Jersey Generals".

 

And even the mighty NFL couldn't get the NJSEA to accept a WLAF team without "New Jersey" in the name, so the originally-named New York Knights switched to "New York / New Jersey Knights".  This change came well after the team was founded; on the sidelines the team's head coach Mouse Davis wore sweaters that said the original name "New York Knights".

 

The rule was real until the Red Bulls killed it.

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5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I'd really like a source for that one.

 

This AP story from the summer of 1982 began: "Even before New York's team in the fledgling United States Football League signed its first player, it was thrown for a loss -- by its landlord."  The story goes on to say "...Giants Stadium, the club's home under a 20-year lease announced Thursday, is a state-run facility and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority demanded a 'New Jersey' or 'Garden State' name."

 

About two weeks later, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported:
 

Quote

The United States Football League team assigned to the New York area has been offered a chance to play in Giants Stadium by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, with just one minor string attached.

 

Robert E. Mulcahy III, the authority's commissioner, said the one stipulation was that the USFL team must adopt a name associated with New Jersey. "It doesn't have to have New Jersey in it; it could becalled the Garden State Flyers, for instance.  But it can't be New York."

 

Most news outlets, however, had not gotten the message, and continued to assume that the team's name would be "New York".  This story on the USFL, published in the Knight-Ridder newspapers in November of 1982, lists all the league's teams; it calls the Generals the "New York Generals".  The only other team name in that story which differs from what the team eventually went with is "Detroit Panthers", for the team which took the field as the "Michigan Panthers".  

 

Referring to the Generals as "New York", after the metropolitan area where the team played, remained common throughout the USFL's entire existence.  In the 1986 trial of the USFL's antitrust suit against the NFL (which the USFL won, we should remember, only to be thwarted by a jury that was confused by the judge's instructions on the awarding of damages), the NFL took the position that the USFL owners' motivation was to obtain entry into the NFL.  While this was not true regarding most of the owners in the USFL, it certainly was true for the Generals' owner Donald Trump. 

 

Trump has frequently acknowledged that he wanted to own an NFL team, and that owning a USFL team was just his means to that end. The NFL's commisioner Pete Rozelle claimed that Trump openly said to him that he didn't want this antitrust suit, but that he really wanted an NFL expansion team in New York; according to Rozelle, Trump's exact words were that he would "get some stiff to buy the New York Generals". (See this New York Times story.)  It is important to note that Trump was not the Generals' owner when the team began play. While he'd had a part ownership in the team when the league was founded, he soon sold off this interest, buying the team back in its entiretly only after it had already played one full season under the name "New Jersey Generals".

Still, the team was evidently referred to amongst the USFL owners as the "New York Generals" even as late as 1986.

 

Regarding the Knights, this AP story in December of 1990 calls them the "New York Knights".  While I was unable to find a picture of Mouse Davis in the sweater that he wore on the sidelines, this picture on his card from the 1992 Pro Set WLAF cards shows him wearing a hat that says "New York Knights":

Mouse-Davis.thumb.jpg.1e7aa11307563015a8

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That's not a general rule, though.  It only applied to the one team (and was mentioned in the timeline I posted above).

 

They were able to make the proposed USFL team change its name. We still don't have any proof that there was a general rule in place that applied to any others.

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