North American Pro Soccer 2019

[MJWalker45]

8 minutes ago, Bucfan56 said:

 

I just found this online after searching. I can't confirm the legitimacy of it, but it sounds like the absolute most Nike thing imaginable. 

 

 

Good Lord. 

 

I always figured it had some link to the novel Mutiny On The HMS Bounty, which would be weird enough in it's own right. I guess not. 

Yep. if I remember correctly, Nike, adidas and Reebok all had a hand in helping pick names and the logo design was developed by each of them for the teams they had under contract. The Rapids original logo was one of my favorites, but I didn't like any of the Nike ideas except for MetroStars. Burn? what the heck is that? Granted it's what happens when you play games in summer at 2 PM in the Cotton Bowl, even if you're in the stands, since there wasn't any cover.

 

In regards to MLS teams seeking out arrangements with USL teams, I wonder if Plastic Tree FC will be reaching out to either Austin Bold or San Antonio as an affiliate. Both teams hate the idea of the new kids coming into town but I don't think it would be nearly as contentious for SAFC as it would be for Austin Bold. 

[GDAWG]

 

 

[gosioux76]

That Nike-fied description of Mutiny is fascinating and mind boggling all at once. The ‘90s were a magical time.

[MJWalker45]

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2019/10/vlatko-andonovski-named-head-coach-of-us-womens-national-team

USWNT has a new coach, Vlatko Andonovski, formerly of Reign FC.

[Corvus]

On 10/26/2019 at 1:46 PM, Gothamite said:

Absolutely.  They won’t let in a club without a stadium the new owners control, be it a temporary venue like Yankee Stadium, a multi-purpose place like whatever Seattle is calling theirs today, or a SSS.  That’s smart. 

 

 

Which is interesting, since here in Vancouver the Whitecaps don't control their stadium. BC Place is owned by the Province. 

 

However, they did have a plan for a soccer specific water front stadium when they joined the league, but the federal government  nixed it - they need port land owned by the feds. 

[Gothamite]

2 minutes ago, Corvus said:

Which is interesting, since here in Vancouver the Whitecaps don't control their stadium. BC Place is owned by the Province. 

 

However, they did have a plan for a soccer specific water front stadium when they joined the league, but the federal government  nixed it - they need port land owned by the feds. 

 

Which is one of the reasons that MLS now has the rules it has.  Teams now have to complete their stadium deals first.

[bosrs1]

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

Which is one of the reasons that MLS now has the rules it has.  Teams now have to complete their stadium deals first.

Yep, San Jose, Vancouver, Miami, NYCFC all came in with promising stadium plans that either have gone nowhere or took far longer than anticipated to come to fruition in SJ’s case. 

[Wings]

2 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

Yep, San Jose, Vancouver, Miami, NYCFC all came in with promising stadium plans that either have gone nowhere or took far longer than anticipated to come to fruition in SJ’s case. 

 

Those heady days at Buck Shaw.

[Gothamite]

3 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

Yep, San Jose, Vancouver, Miami, NYCFC all came in with promising stadium plans that either have gone nowhere or took far longer than anticipated to come to fruition in SJ’s case. 

 

San Jose got their stadium done, just with extra hiccups.  Vancouver didn’t, which is the reason that CFG needed to have the Yankees join their bid; they needed Yankee Stadium to meet the league’s stadium requirements. 

 

Miami is a strange situation, because Beckham’s lawyers were smart enough to lock in expansion conditions that MLS wouldn’t apply to any other bid.  Basically, they wrote a contact where he gets to play by the old rules.  No way MLS would have let him in if they weren’t contractually obligated to. 

[Walk-Off]

 

16 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Yep. if I remember correctly, Nike, adidas and Reebok all had a hand in helping pick names and the logo design was developed by each of them for the teams they had under contract. The Rapids original logo was one of my favorites, but I didn't like any of the Nike ideas except for MetroStars. Burn? what the heck is that? Granted it's what happens when you play games in summer at 2 PM in the Cotton Bowl, even if you're in the stands, since there wasn't any cover.

 

In regards to MLS teams seeking out arrangements with USL teams, I wonder if Plastic Tree FC will be reaching out to either Austin Bold or San Antonio as an affiliate. Both teams hate the idea of the new kids coming into town but I don't think it would be nearly as contentious for SAFC as it would be for Austin Bold. 

Which company concocted what I regard as the worst original name of any of the original MLS clubs -- the Kansas City Wiz?  I still remember the frat-boy-like remarks that certain sports reporters made whenever the Burn and the Wiz played each other.

 

As for which team ends up being affiliated with Precourt's Pet Project FC, I think that any club based in San Antonio might be just as unwilling as Austin Bold is to partnering with an Austin-based MLS club, albeit for a different set of reasons.  At this point, Precourt and his underlings might have to look to a place like Waco for a developmental affiliate.

[MJWalker45]

3 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Which company concocted what I regard as the worst original name of any of the original MLS clubs -- the Kansas City Wiz?  I still remember the frat-boy-like remarks that certain sports reporters made whenever the Burn and the Wiz played each other.

 

As for which team ends up being affiliated with Precourt's Pet Project FC, I think that any club based in San Antonio might be just as unwilling as Austin Bold is to partnering with an Austin-based MLS club, albeit for a different set of reasons.  At this point, Precourt and his underlings might have to look to a place like Waco for a developmental affiliate.

Or El Paso. 

[Red Comet]

5 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

 

Which company concocted what I regard as the worst original name of any of the original MLS clubs -- the Kansas City Wiz?  I still remember the frat-boy-like remarks that certain sports reporters made whenever the Burn and the Wiz played each other.

 

As for which team ends up being affiliated with Precourt's Pet Project FC, I think that any club based in San Antonio might be just as unwilling as Austin Bold is to partnering with an Austin-based MLS club, albeit for a different set of reasons.  At this point, Precourt and his underlings might have to look to a place like Waco for a developmental affiliate.

 

Only reason the Wiz became the Wizards was due to a lawsuit from the rights holders of the musical of the same name. 

 

I'd still take the Wiz over culturally appropriating European style team names due to thinking that making MLS teams sound European will attract the snob who only watches European soccer. Spoiler alert: Won't work. Won't ever work.

[Walk-Off]

8 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

Only reason the Wiz became the Wizards was due to a lawsuit from the rights holders of the musical of the same name.

Hmmm ... I thought that the change from Wiz to Wizards stemmed from a trademark infringement suit by an East Coast electronics store chain called (Nobody Beats) The Wiz.

 

Based on one article that I read, the original plan was to name the Kansas City team the Wizards in the first place, but the use of the Wizards nickname by a minor-league professional soccer team in a state well away from Missouri led MLS to go with Wiz instead.

[Red Wolf]

32 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

 

I'd still take the Wiz over culturally appropriating European style team names due to thinking that making MLS teams sound European will attract the snob who only watches European soccer. Spoiler alert: Won't work. Won't ever work.

 

And yet support for Sporting Kansas City is far greater than it ever was when they were the Wiz or Wizards. Wiz(ards) is a name that sounds minor league, and it didn’t help that they spent their time playing at a minor league baseball field. 

[Digby]

1 hour ago, Red Wolf said:

 

And yet support for Sporting Kansas City is far greater than it ever was when they were the Wiz or Wizards. Wiz(ards) is a name that sounds minor league, and it didn’t help that they spent their time playing at a minor league baseball field. 

 

I've always wondered about this though, and in a parallel dimension it could be a test case for how much branding matters.

 

Obviously the SKC era has really turned it around, on and off the field. How much of that is because they dumped the old name for a dignified European one, and how much of that is because they entered a sustained period of success and traded a minor-league baseball stadium for a stunning purpose-built one?

 

In this case I think the new brand could've been anything; the important piece was less the aesthetic itself, and more using a rebrand as a signal of becoming practically a new club. (Subjectively I think their entire new identity is bland corporate dreck right down to the shades of blue they used, and "Sporting" is the worst possible version of a European-style name in an American league.)

[Red Comet]

It's the new stadium and new ownership. The Hunts owned multiple teams in MLS so the old Wizards were not just an afterthought in Kansas City but also an afterthought to the Hunts' interests in MLS. New ownership comes in, actually cares about the team and starts advertising in the area. The new name was definitely the start of a new era but Sporting Lisboa came about because said club sponsors multiple teams. Real Madrid came about because the King of Spain had a major role in founding the team. Just blindly adopting names without any concern for the history behind it just seems crass to me is all.

[MJWalker45]

23 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

 

And yet support for Sporting Kansas City is far greater than it ever was when they were the Wiz or Wizards. Wiz(ards) is a name that sounds minor league, and it didn’t help that they spent their time playing at a minor league baseball field. 

 

22 hours ago, Digby said:

 

I've always wondered about this though, and in a parallel dimension it could be a test case for how much branding matters.

 

Obviously the SKC era has really turned it around, on and off the field. How much of that is because they dumped the old name for a dignified European one, and how much of that is because they entered a sustained period of success and traded a minor-league baseball stadium for a stunning purpose-built one?

 

In this case I think the new brand could've been anything; the important piece was less the aesthetic itself, and more using a rebrand as a signal of becoming practically a new club. (Subjectively I think their entire new identity is bland corporate dreck right down to the shades of blue they used, and "Sporting" is the worst possible version of a European-style name in an American league.)

How much of that could be actual ownership engagement, in addition to leaving Arrowhead? In the case of Columbus from 2016-2017, there was a deliberate attempt to weaken the team and chase fans away. Prior to that when the Hunts owned Kansas City, Dallas and Columbus they were spreading the love to three different fan bases, which can cause the fans to think they treated another team better than the rest of them. 

22 hours ago, Red Comet said:

It's the new stadium and new ownership. The Hunts owned multiple teams in MLS so the old Wizards were not just an afterthought in Kansas City but also an afterthought to the Hunts' interests in MLS. New ownership comes in, actually cares about the team and starts advertising in the area. The new name was definitely the start of a new era but Sporting Lisboa came about because said club sponsors multiple teams. Real Madrid came about because the King of Spain had a major role in founding the team. Just blindly adopting names without any concern for the history behind it just seems crass to me is all.

This is why I'm annoyed by the name Atlanta United but not DC United. DC United took that name to stand out from the Americanized names that the rest of the league had in 1996. Atlanta United took that name because it fit marketing plans better than a name like Atlanta Chiefs or Atlanta Silverbacks couldn't. 

[GDAWG]

 

[MJWalker45]

27 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

A new lawsuit from the Cosmos? Strangely enough they are searching for a new league to play in since NASL will not be viable next year.

https://www.frontrowsoccer.com/2019/09/29/no-room-at-the-inn-cosmos-trying-to-find-a-league-may-not-play-in-2020/

[GDAWG]