Possible New New York Red Bulls logo?

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

9 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

I would root for a team named after an energy drink over a team who, at best, ignores or, at worst, enables white supremacists in their fanbase and who is owned by corporations with ties to two authoritarian regimes in the form of the UAE and PRC. 

 

Hold on, there. NYCFC neither enables nor ignores the ugly white supremacist element within its fanbase. But, unless specific individuals are caught on camera committing a racist act, there is nothing that the team can do to identify and ban them.

 

And fact that the team's principal owner is part of the UAE royal family is irrelevant. That owner operates the team according to North American norms and customs, not Emirati ones. (So the team hosts a Pride Night, just as all MLS teams do, even though homosexuality is illegal in the UAE.)

 

But, frankly, I don't care one bit where the owners' money comes from. Once you support a team in big-time professional sports, you lose the right to complain about the source of its owner's wealth (unless you want to be a massive hypocrite).

 

There is no morally sound way to become rich enough to own a big-time sports team; the truth is that everyone that rich is equally dirty. So, until there is some kind of revolutionary change that results in all professional teams being publicly owned (something which I would enthusiastically favour), I am perfectly willing to let someone from this criminal class fund my entertainment. (And so is every fan of every other team, whether those fans choose to admit it to themselves or not.)

 

What I as a fan care about is that the owners run the team properly. That entails being able to pay for a high calibre of talent. Therefore, I want my team to have the richest possible owners.

 

Also, my team having common ownership with one of the biggest and most powerful clubs in the world is definitely in the fans' interest. I am not a Man City supporter; but I have an enormous respect for what they have accomplished, and I admire them as an example of pro sports done the right way. For my team to be associated with that club makes me proud. And, concretely, this association gives my team an opportunity to have access to a pool of quality players.

 

But what I care about most of all is the branding and the positioning of the team. On these matters NYCFC have been exemplary. The logo is a dignified and timeless work of art; and the colours are beautiful. Also, the team has identified itself strongly with the City, putting New York City flags on its uniforms and also in the corners of the pitch. To me, someone who has a New York City flag on his wall at home, on his desk at work, and on his bicycle helmet (not to mention on two different caps), this branding speaks to me loud and clear.

 

The team's commitment to playing its games in the City is so strong that it cannot seriously consider sites for a stadium in Westchester or Nassau, as an ordinary New York team would do, because to make such a move would alienate a huge portion of its fans.  The team thus has to continue to play at the flawed but workable Yankee Stadium (perhaps with some games at the City's other Major League Baseball stadium) until it can find a site within the City — and this site will have to be near the heart of the City; something along the lines of remote eastern Queens definitely will not do.

 

NYCFC have done just about everything right; this team would have my support on the basis of logo and positioning alone, even if it weren't one of the league's best teams and a championship contender, as well as an attractive place for world-class international stars to come and play. (Paging Mr. Bale.)

 

By contrast, on the things which matter most (branding and positioning), the Red Bulls are an embarrassment. This new logo is an improvement — but it would have to be.

 

I like the suggestion of incorporating the MetroStars colours. Indeed, a renaming to something like New York Metro SC would remove the cringe factor. The team would still have the Red Bull shirt sponsor, and would still play at Red Bull Arena; so Red Bull would still be getting its name out there. And the name "Metro" would define the team in contrast to NYCFC, explicitly appealing to the whole metropolitan area while NYCFC choose to identify with the City proper.

[IceCap]

29 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Hold on, there. NYCFC neither enables nor ignores the ugly white supremacist element within its fanbase. But, unless specific individuals are caught on camera committing a racist act, there is nothing that the team can do to identify and ban them.

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-york-city-football-club-far-right-extremists_n_5c76d679e4b062b30eba721a

 

Quote

In July 2015, a fan emailed Mike Quarino, NYCFC vice president of ticket sales and fan services, asking if fan services knew anything about ESU. “There are a lot of very, very troubling anecdotes floating around about their behavior both at Yankee Stadium and at a few of the away dates,” the email read.

In a reply reviewed by HuffPost, Quarino thanked the fan for providing this information, writing, “It has recently come to our attention and it’s something we’re looking into.”

But come the team’s second season, the extremists were back at Yankee Stadium. In fall 2016, the fan once again reached out to Quarino, reporting that ESU had “gradually re-emerged at home games,” and that one of them (he did not specify who) had suggested that if he dared to keep mentioning ESU online, there would be consequences. While he was not directly threatened with violence, that was very much the implication, he said.

 

“These men are fascists, and their currency is violence or the threat of violence,” the email read. As long as ESU continued to attend matches, “my friends and I are not safe.”

Again, Quarino offered his gratitude and said, “I will pass around internally and see if I can find anything out on our end.” There was no further response.  

 

29 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

And fact that the team's principal owner is part of the UAE royal family is irrelevant.

I would rather not support interests tied to either the UAE or PRC.

 

29 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I like the suggestion of incorporating the MetroStars colours. Indeed, a renaming to something like New York Metro SC would remove the cringe factor. The team would still have the Red Bull shirt sponsor, and would still play at Red Bull Arena; so Red Bull would still be getting its name out there. And the name "Metro" would define the team in contrast to NYCFC, explicitly appealing to the whole metropolitan area while NYCFC choose to identify with the City proper.

Red Bull seems to stick to as uniform a system as possible with their sporting properties. Why would they deviate for their MLS team?

[Gothamite]

7 hours ago, Pharos04 said:

it could work as a secondary logo but the shield shape makes me think it’s either a new primary to minimize the full on Red Bull logo, or perhaps this is like RB Leipzig where it’s an “international” version, since FIFA doesn’t allow corporate names.

 

Don’t read anything into that - the shield outline was added by a fan on reddit.  It’s not part of the trademark filing. 

 

[leopard88]

9 hours ago, njdevs7 said:

 

I agree that "Red Bull New York" sounds kinda corporate. It's on the badge but their official name is "New York Red Bulls." Maybe I'm just used to it, but it doesn't sound corporate to me. Sounds just like a nickname, like Manchester United Red Devils.

 

This puzzles me to this day.  What is the team supposed to be called?!?!?!?!

 

In my opinion, both names sound very corporate.  Pretending the corporate connection doesn't exist, "Red Bull New York" at least has the advantage of sounding kind of European.  "New York Red Bulls" sounds like the owner let his 7 year old son name the team.

[Gothamite]

I think “New York Red Bulls” sounds just fine.  “Red Bull New York FC” would be fine too, if they wanted to use it.

 

But “Red Bull New York” is just stupid.  And using it in conjunction with “New York Red Bulls” is even worse. 

[Digby]

Oh my God I had forgotten about the dual naming nonsense. They couldn't even settle on which it was supposed to be in the first press release! https://web.archive.org/web/20060708095045/http://redbull.newyork.mlsnet.com/MLS/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20060309&content_id=53487&vkey=pr_met&fext=.jsp&team=met

 

I feel like that was a common, mystifying shtick during those early days of MLS going for European-style naming conventions. If memory serves they were weirdly cagey about what, if anything, the FC in Toronto FC actually stood for.

[BC985]

I think North American naming conventions have made New York Red Bull’s the proper name away from RBNY. 
 

EDIT: The club’s website is newyorkredbulls.com. If you Google search Red Bull New York, the results are all New York Red Bulls. This includes the MLS website as well.
 

The MetroStars are never coming back. The closest it can come is a red and black kit. Red Bull is not going to give away marketing space for their primary property. You can say, “The MetroStars could come back if Red Bull sells the club,” and that’s true. Right now, Red Bull’s investment in MLS is likely a safe and stable one at this time. I don’t see a motivation for them to cash in. 

[njdevs7]

11 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

By contrast, on the things which matter most (branding and positioning), the Red Bulls are an embarrassment. 

 

Lol. Yea man. Branding matters but there are way more important things. The Red Bulls have a beautiful stadium/facilities, won 3 Supporters Shields in 6 years, and have arguably the best academy in the country. 

 

NYCFC literally had to move their playoff game to Citi Field because they got kicked out of their own stadium. (Some fans couldn't even see the goal  at Citi field setup). They get kicked off YES network in favor of Yankees post game shows. Oh, and if you want to talk about branding....every time I've been to Yankee Stadium for a soccer game, I barely see any NYCFC stuff. I see huge photos of A-Rod and Jeter on the concourse though. 

[IceCap]

5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

But “Red Bull New York” is just stupid.  And using it in conjunction with “New York Red Bulls” is even worse. 

Good thing they don't  

[Gothamite]

I meant using the two essentially interchangeably, both as part of the same branding package.  That's pretty dumb.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

35 minutes ago, njdevs7 said:

Lol. Yea man. Branding matters but there are way more important things. The Red Bulls have a beautiful stadium/facilities, won 3 Supporters Shields in 6 years, and have arguably the best academy in the country. 

 

NYCFC literally had to move their playoff game to Citi Field because they got kicked out of their own stadium. (Some fans couldn't even see the goal  at Citi field setup). They get kicked off YES network in favor of Yankees post game shows. Oh, and if you want to talk about branding....every time I've been to Yankee Stadium for a soccer game, I barely see any NYCFC stuff. I see huge photos of A-Rod and Jeter on the concourse though. 

 

You are right about Red Bull Arena; it is superb. NYCFC would be thrilled to have a stadium that nice.  (If I had magic powers, I would place the stadium above the Sunnyside Yards, right in the middle of urban western Queens and a stone's throw from Manhattan, accessible by means of several subway.) And, unlike most NYCFC fans, I don't even mock Red Bull Arena for being in New Jersey, because it is in the good part of New Jersey, meaning the urban part.  When New Yorkers sneer about New Jersey, we are usually doing that a means of denouncing suburbia; we are typically not taking a shot at the major city of Newark, of which Harrison is a sattelite city.

 

And you are right also to identify the stadium playoff situation as a fiasco, as potentially two playoff games, including the final, were going to have to be moved out of Yankee Stadium.  Nothing could be done about the first game (as it turned out, the only game), as the Yankees' own dates naturally come first. This was an unavoidable conflict. 

But the need to potentially hold the final at Citi Field represents a failure by team ownership.  And here let's be clear that we are talking about the part of the ownership that is held by the Yankees, not the part that is held by CFG.  The final would have been displaced on account of a rental of Yankee Stadium to Dartmouth University for a football game.  We should recall that, a couple of years ago, the Yankees cancelled a rental to Rutgers University when a conflict developed with one of the Yankees' own post-season games.  The Yankees should clearly have done the same thing for the NYCFC-hosted final: they should have cancelled the Dartmouth rental. This wound up not mattering, as NYCFC did not make the final; but knowing that NYCFC do not take precedence over an external rental in a stadium that is controlled by the NYCFC's owners is embarrassing.

(Side note: How is it that the Yankees are in charge of renting the Stadium, anyway?  The Yankees are tenants; the Stadium is owned by the City.  Presumably the Yankees' lease gives them the right to collect these rental fees that should rightfully be going to the City.  If that is so, it is scandalous.)

Anyway, I disagree that this stuff is more important than branding and positioning.  What is paramount is the team's image to its fans, what the team means to its fans.  And, despite the very real problems that playing in Yankee Stadium poses, NYCFC have, thanks to expertly-done branding, built a strong emotional connection with their fanbase.

[MJWalker45]

19 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

I literally don't know anybody who feels that way.  NYCFC fans understand we’re part of a larger corporate entity, too.  

 

You’ve also got it backwards; they’re the ones who call us “plastic”, while they’re the Real Fans Who Supported Soccer For Twenty Years And Where Have You Been.  Although that’s mostly just joshing and banter.

 

 

I can’t name a single team that’s had a worse string of ownership than the second Cosmos. Since their founding, they’ve had three owners that are liars at best, frauds and con men at worst.  How many teams can say that?

Unfortunately, Bury and Bolton Wanderers, amongst other English clubs. 

16 hours ago, Pharos04 said:

Back on the actual topic and not whether NYRB is relevant to New York proper:

it could work as a secondary logo but the shield shape makes me think it’s either a new primary to minimize the full on Red Bull logo, or perhaps this is like RB Leipzig where it’s an “international” version, since FIFA doesn’t allow corporate names.

 

reading about RB Leipzig, it’s actually a crazy story in how Red Bull wanted to have a top-level team in Bundesliga but no one was selling, so they bought an extremely low-level team and built their way up through Promotion all the way up to Bundesliga.

They've also flouted the 51% rule, which is why most German clubs, Union Berlin in particular, look down on RB Leipzig as interlopers that are bringing a foreign type of ownership to German football. It's a great way to ensure clubs can't be run into the ground but it keeps the richer teams on top of everyone else. 

[MJWalker45]

17 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

But the need to potentially hold the final at Citi Field represents a failure by team ownership.  And here let's be clear that we are talking about the part of the ownership that is held by the Yankees, not the part that is held by CFG.  The final would have been displaced on account of a rental of Yankee Stadium to Dartmouth University for a football game.  We should recall that, a couple of years ago, the Yankees cancelled a rental to Rutgers University when a conflict developed with one of the Yankees' own post-season games.  The Yankees should clearly have done the same thing for the NYCFC-hosted final: they should have cancelled the Dartmouth rental. This wound up not mattering, as NYCFC did not make the final; but knowing that NYCFC do not take precedence over an external rental in a stadium that is controlled by the NYCFC's owners is embarrassing.

That game came about because of the issues with Rutgers. Apparently Rutgers was going to host Princeton there for this year's 150th celebrations but low-balled Princeton on there cut of the gate. Since Princeton still wanted to play at Yankee Stadium they worked a deal with Dartmouth. I hope I linked the right article, this is ta

https://www.college-sports-journal.com/college-sports-journal-ivy-league-previews-how-to-watch-week-of-11-9-2019/

[Gothamite]

20 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I can’t name a single team that’s had a worse string of ownership than the second Cosmos. Since their founding, they’ve had three owners that are liars at best, frauds and con men at worst.  How many teams can say that?

 

37 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

Unfortunately, Bury and Bolton Wanderers, amongst other English clubs. 

 

True.  But the Cosmos have the distinction of only having owners that are liars and frauds.  100% of them.  Which is what I was getting at.

[Gothamite]

55 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

(Side note: How is it that the Yankees are in charge of renting the Stadium, anyway?  The Yankees are tenants; the Stadium is owned by the City.  Presumably the Yankees' lease gives them the right to collect these rental fees that should rightfully be going to the City.  If that is so, it is scandalous.)

 

The Stadium is owned by the city only because that's advantageous for tax purposes. The Yankees paid for the majority of it, and the Yankees control it.

[Jer15]

6 hours ago, Digby said:

Oh my God I had forgotten about the dual naming nonsense. They couldn't even settle on which it was supposed to be in the first press release! https://web.archive.org/web/20060708095045/http://redbull.newyork.mlsnet.com/MLS/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20060309&content_id=53487&vkey=pr_met&fext=.jsp&team=met

 

I feel like that was a common, mystifying shtick during those early days of MLS going for European-style naming conventions. If memory serves they were weirdly cagey about what, if anything, the FC in Toronto FC actually stood for.

That's right, I forgot about that too.

 

If I recall it was first "are they Toronto Football Club or are they just Toronto FC (with the FC meaning nothing)". 

 

Later on it became a debate about what spelling of football was used. Once the below logo came out (which I still think is the best TFC logo), it all kind of stopped. 

 

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

 

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

That game came about because of the issues with Rutgers. Apparently Rutgers was going to host Princeton there for this year's 150th celebrations but low-balled Princeton on [their] cut of the gate. Since Princeton still wanted to play at Yankee Stadium they worked a deal with Dartmouth.

 

Ah, interesting. Thanks for the link.

Anyway, the whole thing should still have been cancelled when the date of the MLS Cup final became known.

 

 

50 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

The Stadium is owned by the city only because that's advantageous for tax purposes. The Yankees paid for the majority of it, and the Yankees control it.

 

Actually, we the residents of New York City paid for the Stadium, by virtue of extensive tax subsidies given to the Yankees.  If the City also gave away control of the park, that is foolish.  When the original Stadium was being refurbished, the City decided to let the Yankees play at Shea Stadium.  The Mets objected; but the City said "too damn bad", because the City was the owner.  There's no good reason that the City should not be the decision-maker here with the new Stadium.

But more troubling is the fact that the Yankees can get revenue from renting City property. This compounds the problem of the tax giveaway.  

 

 

59 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

But the Cosmos have the distinction of only having owners that are liars and frauds.  100% of them. 

 

Except for Steve Ross, who was a damn hero. He did things the right way, for as long as he could.

If the other ownership groups in the first iteration of the NASL were not rich enough to follow the Cosmos' good example on how to be a serious club, that is not the fault of the Cosmos.  That is the fault of the league for allowing every fly-by-night lemonade-stand operator to become a team owner, and for living on the pyramid scheme of expansion fees, as opposed to concentrating on having a league of eight to ten strong teams that could exist long-term.

 

(I remember your previous attempt to rewrite history on this question by disparaging the brilliant and passionate Ross. Links to that earlier discussion will suffice.)

 

[Gothamite]

 

Quote

more troubling is the fact that the Yankees can get revenue from renting City property. This compounds the problem of the tax giveaway.  

 

It’s really no more troubling than the assorted food vendors who get revenue from renting space at the restaurant buildings at Jacob Riis Beach.  Or the private company that runs the Prospect Park bandshell every summer and pockets the proceeds from all those white wines and artisanal tater tots in sriracha dipping sauce.  

 

Quote

Except for Steve Ross, who was a damn hero. He did things the right way, for as long as he could.

 

Lolz, as the kids might say.  The Great White Man Steve Ross was a jock-sniffer who oh so bravely spent other people’s money to feed his own ego and then abandoned his pet project at the very first sign that he might have to take some actual responsibility for it.   

 

But that’s immaterial, because they aren’t the same Cosmos. This second team has only had three owners, and they’ve all been outright liars, frauds, or a combination of the two. 

 

[Brian in Boston]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Except for Steve Ross, who was a damn hero. He did things the right way, for as long as he could.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: If not for the deep-seated passion that brothers Nehusi and Ahmet Ertegun held for the sport of soccer, the thought of purchasing an NASL franchise would never have crossed Steve Ross's mind.

[Digby]

15 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

 

It’s really no more troubling than the assorted food vendors who get revenue from renting space at the restaurant buildings at Jacob Riis Beach.  Or the private company that runs the Prospect Park bandshell every summer and pockets the proceeds from all those white wines and artisanal tater tots in sriracha dipping sauce.  

 

 

Saw Paul Lukas at a Breeders show there once, to make the most-tenuously on-topic post this board has ever seen.