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2020 Lower League US Soccer - USL Championship, League 1, League 2, NPSL, etc


BigB859

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as a SD season ticket holder I'm not in favour of the logo being upside down as well and find that marketing gimmick dumb, but with their stance on branding (including that stupid name) I'm not surprised.

It's bad enough they and adidas couldn't come up with a torrey pine green shirt in time, so the white is just a placeholder.
Then there is the orange secondary, but now they seem to wear the BLM jerseys mostly.
Brand identity wise it's a mess, despite it being well intended.

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  • 3 weeks later...

News broke in September of last year regarding the efforts of a pair of Portland, Maine-based businessmen - marketing executive Gabe Hoffman-Johnson and real estate developer Jonathan Culley - to bring a USL League One club to the city. Just under two weeks ago, word came that the duo had raised an initial $500,000 towards the venture and had begun talks with the city regarding identifying a soccer-specific stadium site. In fact, USL spokesman Ryan Madden told Mainebiz that the Portland market being awarded an expansion franchise is "a matter of when, not if."

As far as branding of the club goes, Hoffman-Johnson had initially told the Portland Press Herald that he wanted to name the franchise Portland United. More recently, he'd indicated that he wanted the public to be involved in choosing a name for the team, envisioning such a promotion as "kind of a fun community engagement piece".

 

All of that said, some digging turned up a placeholder usltoportland.com website that features a team logo that would certainly support the Portland United identity. Said mark features the stylized letters P and U, along with a variation on the North Star device from the State of Maine's official flag and an almost exact copy of the pine tree that appears on the Naval Ensign of Maine.

     

   

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If they wanted to go the United route, why not use Maine United? Two of Portland's 4 teams use Maine (Maine Red Claws of the G-League and Maine Mariners of the ECHL. Portland Sea Dogs of the Eastern League and GPS Portland Phoenix of USL League Two don't). Using Maine would probably help draw fans from Lewiston-Auburn or Augusta and I feel it makes more sense to say a State is United than to say a City is United.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 8/20/2020 at 10:19 PM, sportsfan7 said:

If they wanted to go the United route, why not use Maine United? Two of Portland's 4 teams use Maine (Maine Red Claws of the G-League and Maine Mariners of the ECHL. Portland Sea Dogs of the Eastern League and GPS Portland Phoenix of USL League Two don't). Using Maine would probably help draw fans from Lewiston-Auburn or Augusta and I feel it makes more sense to say a State is United than to say a City is United.

 

Portland got kinda screwed by the west coast Portland overtaking them over the course of a couple centuries in the public consciousness. The Sea Dogs have been one of those rare long-term MiLB success stories so there's plenty of brand equity in that. But I've assumed that the Red Claws went with "Maine" because there's already a major-league basketball team named Portland, and I would think the same would apply to soccer. Plus, northern New Englanders really strongly identify with their states more than most states, I've found, so a Maine identifier seems logical.

 

There's a lot of cool imagery to work with in Maine culture -- better really use that and nail the rest of the brand if they're gonna use a snoozer name like United.

Showcasing fan-made sports apparel by artists and designers

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1 hour ago, Digby said:

 

Portland got kinda screwed by the west coast Portland overtaking them over the course of a couple centuries in the public consciousness. The Sea Dogs have been one of those rare long-term MiLB success stories so there's plenty of brand equity in that. But I've assumed that the Red Claws went with "Maine" because there's already a major-league basketball team named Portland, and I would think the same would apply to soccer. Plus, northern New Englanders really strongly identify with their states more than most states, I've found, so a Maine identifier seems logical.

 

There's a lot of cool imagery to work with in Maine culture -- better really use that and nail the rest of the brand if they're gonna use a snoozer name like United.

True story: The West Coast Portland was named by a pair of New Englanders -- one from Portland, Maine, the other from Boston -- who flipped a coin to determine which of them would be able to name the city. The Portland, Maine, guy won. 

 

So instead of being the larger of two Portlands, it was almost the smaller of two Bostons. LINK.

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On 9/15/2020 at 5:00 PM, UnclearInitial said:

New Amsterdam  FC has new kits. I really like that sleeve pattern and the sublimated map of Manhattan on the black

 

I don’t. 
 

What’s the point of that?  They don’t represent Manhattan. Hell, not only do they not play in New York City they don’t even play in an inner suburb; they play in an exurb. 
 

If they chose downtown Manhattan, maybe they could play off the “New Amsterdam” connection.  But Central Park?  The Upper West Side?  It’s silly at best.  

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2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

And the Portland suburb Milwaukie was named after the other Milwaukee, albeit before the days when the current spelling of the Wisconsin city’s name had been adopted. 

I’m sure I’ve said this on this board a million times, but there was a brief period a decade ago, when Merritt Paulson was exploring possible sites for his dislocated AAA ball club,  and Milwaukie was considered a possible location. I wanted so badly for a team to land there and take the name Milwaukie Micro Brewers.

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5 hours ago, Gothamite said:

 

I don’t. 
 

What’s the point of that?  They don’t represent Manhattan. Hell, not only do they not play in New York City they don’t even play in an inner suburb; they play in an exurb. 
 

If they chose downtown Manhattan, maybe they could play off the “New Amsterdam” connection.  But Central Park?  The Upper West Side?  It’s silly at best.  

The distance is just a temporary plan, apparently:

 

 

Assuming they follow through on that promise, I think the city imagery is pretty nice!

Also, the home's sleeve patterns look cool but I don't recognize what it is, especially from that angle... Could someone enlighten me?

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15 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I’m sure I’ve said this on this board a million times, but there was a brief period a decade ago, when Merritt Paulson was exploring possible sites for his dislocated AAA ball club,  and Milwaukie was considered a possible location. I wanted so badly for a team to land there and take the name Milwaukie Micro Brewers.


And the Hillsboro Hops logos would work too!

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On 9/16/2020 at 1:21 PM, Digby said:

Portland got kinda screwed by the west coast Portland overtaking them over the course of a couple centuries in the public consciousness. The Sea Dogs have been one of those rare long-term MiLB success stories so there's plenty of brand equity in that.

 

But even this got confused when Rainn Wilson wore a Sea Dogs cap in an episode of his show "The Meg", which is set in Portland, Oregon.

 

seadogs.jpg

 

logo-diamonds-for-CC-no-photo-sig.png

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2 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

But even this got confused when Rainn Wilson wore a Sea Dogs cap in an episode of his show "The Meg", which is set in Portland, Oregon.

 

seadogs.jpg

 

 

I suspect that there's a joke in here that I'm missing.

 

But in any case the Portland/Portland thing was deliberate on the part of the Backstrom production crew.  It's not like they got confused, they wanted to play up the character's contrarian tendencies.

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26 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

I suspect that there's a joke in here that I'm missing.

 

But in any case the Portland/Portland thing was deliberate on the part of the Backstrom production crew.  It's not like they got confused, they wanted to play up the character's contrarian tendencies.

I would think that Rainn, being from the PNW, would probably know the difference between the two Portlands. But, maybe not.

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30 minutes ago, JayMac said:

I would think that Rainn, being from the PNW, would probably know the difference between the two Portlands. But, maybe not.

 

He did.  Or somebody did.   They thought it suited the character.

 

Even if they didn't know beforehand, the production company had to reach out to the Portland Sea Dogs to get permission to use the logo.  No way they'd get through all that, sign a licensing contract, without somebody realizing they were from the other Portland.

 

In retrospect, it was probably a little too cute for their own good, too inside baseball, because they had to keep explaining the joke.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Gothamite said:
6 hours ago, JayMac said:

I would think that Rainn, being from the PNW, would probably know the difference between the two Portlands. But, maybe not.

 

He did.  Or somebody did.   They thought it suited the character.

 

Even if they didn't know beforehand, the production company had to reach out to the Portland Sea Dogs to get permission to use the logo.  No way they'd get through all that, sign a licensing contract, without somebody realizing they were from the other Portland.

 

In retrospect, it was probably a little too cute for their own good, too inside baseball, because they had to keep explaining the joke.

 

I didn't mean that the people producing the show were confused.  I meant that the effect of the wearing of the hat was probably to cause confusion amongst the public.  To the extent that the people who watched the show will remember the hat, they will tend to figure that it's a hat of a Portland, Oregon team.

logo-diamonds-for-CC-no-photo-sig.png

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