Charlotte FC announces name and logos

[Gothamite]

2 hours ago, QCS said:

For those wondering about the amount of blue in the league, u/xochiheutl on r/MLS made this handy graphic:

 

They've got the New York City colors backwards - sky blue is very much the primary. 

 

And I don't know how they saved that graphic down, but my color picker says that's not NYCFC's dark blue, either.  Their dark blue is #00285e, much lighter, somewhere between MLS and Chicago on this chart.

[sky1324]

3 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

They've got the New York City colors backwards - sky blue is very much the primary.  And I don't know how they saved that graphic down, but my color picker says that's not NYCFC's dark blue, either.

Hmm, it's possible they got the colors wrong. Either way, it does illustrate my point the Charlotte's blue is much brighter than most blues and specifically San Jose and Montreal, the other teams that use blue and black.

[Gothamite]

I'm pulling a couple other colors that I know for sure, and they're all wrong on this graphic.  I don't know where he got his information - there are plenty of online "databases" full of laughably bad guesses, maybe he fell for one or maybe he made some laughably bad guesses of his own. 

 

You can make the case that Charlotte's blue is different than other blues.  But I wouldn't rely on this graphic to support such an assertion.

[VancouverFan69]

3 hours ago, _DietDrPepper_ said:

That's not a bad thing. I prefer that over the minor league sounding Rapids, Sounders or Galaxy. 

 

The names you mentioned are not minor-league sounding at all. Very major pro-North American soccer sounding. The NASL(miss that league terribly) also had the Sounders, as well as the Whitecaps, Timbers and Earthquakes. Cosmos, Rowdies, Strikers and Aztecs were also classic names.

 

Might as well call MLS the North American Premiership.

[sky1324]

24 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

I'm pulling a couple other colors that I know for sure, and they're all wrong on this graphic.  I don't know where he got his information - there are plenty of online "databases" full of laughably bad guesses, maybe he fell for one or maybe he made some laughably bad guesses of his own. 

 

You can make the case that Charlotte's blue is different than other blues.  But I wouldn't rely on this graphic to support such an assertion.

Using Trucolor.net, I remade the graphic to be more accurate. For Charlotte I used Panthers blue, but the rest come straight from Trucolor's MLS page. 

 

 

Charlotte still remains distinctive, in fact, the other two black and blue teams, Montreal and San Jose, use the exact same shade of blue. Just for fun, Colorado, Houston, and Vancouver share a shade of blue and a couple of the navy shades are the same. 

[Brian in Boston]

2 hours ago, Survival79 said:

 

 

The skewed crown seems too gimmicky to me. A major professional sports franchise shouldn't be adopting style elements that a current American Basketball Association team would roll out. Sure, something like this may have made the grade in the NBA of the 1950s and '60s (I'm looking at you, Cincinnati Royals), but it doesn't strike me as passing muster today. Further, the crown of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland shouldn't be rendered to look like it's a whoopee cap perched on the dome of Jughead Jones.   

[qckgnc]

Rapids definitely sounds minor league. I would have been happier with something more exciting but I like what they went with, can't please everyone and the fan reaction has been mostly positive. Folks went from nitpicking to talking about what they liked real quick and the team is likely going to end up being called Crown FC/Charlotte Crown by the fans. I've even seen some already using "Crown Jewel of the South" already. 

 

While I would've liked to see a Hornets nest or St Andrew's cross in the middle, I'm glad they didn't go for anything that was too risky or would alienate too many ppl. CLT Town could have been the same (the concept from twitter with the title text is lovely imo), and a little mint green wouldn't have hurt, but I can live with this. 

[sky1324]

1 minute ago, qckgnc said:

Rapids definitely sounds minor league. I would have been happier with something more exciting but I like what they went with, can't please everyone and the fan reaction has been mostly positive. Folks went from nitpicking to talking about what they liked real quick and the team is likely going to end up being called Crown FC/Charlotte Crown by the fans. I've even seen some already using "Crown Jewel of the South" already. 

 

While I would've liked to see a Hornets nest or St Andrew's cross in the middle, I'm glad they didn't go for anything that was too risky or would alienate too many ppl. CLT Town could have been the same (the concept from twitter with the title text is lovely imo), and a little mint green wouldn't have hurt, but I can live with this. 

I've already started calling them the Crowns. I'm sure that'll become the nickname, especially black-and-blue is taken and also dumb.

[4_tattoos]

@QCS Thanks for putting up the chart of all the shades of blue in MLS, but I've just mentally filed Nashville's shade as purple lol

[DEAD!]

I would have went with "GOOD" 

[_DietDrPepper_]

49 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

 

The names you mentioned are not minor-league sounding at all. Very major pro-North American soccer sounding. The NASL(miss that league terribly) also had the Sounders, as well as the Whitecaps, Timbers and Earthquakes. Cosmos, Rowdies, Strikers and Aztecs were also classic names.

 

Might as well call MLS the North American Premiership.

Gonna have to disagree, that league might of been professional but it sure wasn't taken as serious around the world. Those names have history technically but that doesn't take away from the fact that they sound minor league on a world stage. The European sounding names are much more professional, classy and better than the Americanized Sounders, Rapids, Whitecaps, Timbers, etc anyway. 

[Gothamite]

Whatever cache the old NASL might have had was well and truly squandered by the scamsters who bought the name and ran their own league into the ground. 

[BigRed618]

Ngl, I feel really dumb for expecting anything else than this. No nickname, same colors as the Panthers, at least the crown look nice. Maybe they can make up for this with a kit that actually stands out? I’m imagining blue/white striped jersey with black shorts.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, Brian in Boston said:

 

The skewed crown seems too gimmicky to me. A major professional sports franchise shouldn't be adopting style elements that a current American Basketball Association team would roll out. Sure, something like this may have made the grade in the NBA of the 1950s and '60s (I'm looking at you, Cincinnati Royals), but it doesn't strike me as passing muster today. Further, the crown of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland shouldn't be rendered to look like it's a whoopee cap perched on the dome of Jughead Jones.   

 

This is the okay boomer-iest comment I've ever seen.

[Digby]

I’ll take Portland Timbers over Real Salt Lake or Sporting KC any day of the week, if we’re concerned about hokey minor-league names.

[VancouverFan69]

4 hours ago, _DietDrPepper_ said:

Gonna have to disagree, that league might of been professional but it sure wasn't taken as serious around the world. Those names have history technically but that doesn't take away from the fact that they sound minor league on a world stage. The European sounding names are much more professional, classy and better than the Americanized Sounders, Rapids, Whitecaps, Timbers, etc anyway. 

 

This is North America. Doing things the North American way is no different than doing things in Europe the European way. You probably weren't around during the NASL's glory years. The Whitecaps name carries a lot of weight in Great Britain considering British legends played for the NASL Whitecaps and helped them win Soccer Bowl '79. The Cosmos name carried a lot of weight around the world. The Chicago Sting were popular in Germany because of their German all-star striker Karl-Heinz Granitza. My Hungarian-born dad was a Whitecaps season-ticket holder and he took me to games. I would watch Whitecaps away games on local television as I familiarized myself with other NASL clubs. That's how I got into soccer. Not by jumping on the bandwagon of some successful club in the English Premiership.

[SFGiants58]

16 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

 

This is North America. Doing things the North American way is no different than doing things in Europe the European way. You probably weren't around during the NASL's glory years. The Whitecaps name carries a lot of weight in Great Britain considering British legends played for the NASL Whitecaps and helped them win Soccer Bowl '79. The Cosmos name carried a lot of weight around the world. The Chicago Sting were popular in Germany because of their German all-star striker Karl-Heinz Granitza. My Hungarian-born dad was a Whitecaps season-ticket holder and he took me to games. I would watch Whitecaps away games on local television as I familiarized myself with other NASL clubs. That's how I got into soccer. Not by jumping on the bandwagon of some successful club in the English Premiership.

 

 

I doubt any of those names carry world-wide recognition anymore. It was almost forty years ago that the original NASL died. The Cascadian clubs' legacy survived through third parties, but that failure of a league is best left for dead. Given the actions of the later Cosmos, I doubt that name carries any reverence anymore. If anything, the Cosmos are a cancer upon North American soccer. 

 

North American traditions and soccer don't mix, outside of a few "legacy" teams like the Cascadian clubs and the Fire. If London, Paris, or Munich had a gridiron football team, it would follow a North American naming convention and not a Euro format. Formats follow sports, regardless of nationality.

[_DietDrPepper_]

48 minutes ago, VancouverFan69 said:

 

This is North America. Doing things the North American way is no different than doing things in Europe the European way. You probably weren't around during the NASL's glory years. The Whitecaps name carries a lot of weight in Great Britain considering British legends played for the NASL Whitecaps and helped them win Soccer Bowl '79. The Cosmos name carried a lot of weight around the world. The Chicago Sting were popular in Germany because of their German all-star striker Karl-Heinz Granitza. My Hungarian-born dad was a Whitecaps season-ticket holder and he took me to games. I would watch Whitecaps away games on local television as I familiarized myself with other NASL clubs. That's how I got into soccer. Not by jumping on the bandwagon of some successful club in the English Premiership.

I mean, agree to disagree at the end of the day I guess. I grew up playing soccer too, this was during the time of the MLS in the late 2000's and early 2010's and guess what? All we did was talk about European teams. I knew most of the MLS teams but I couldn't tell you any of the players for sure. So I think it's really cool to see the MLS finally step up into the big leagues for say. I've never been more interested in the MLS since they started taking themselves more seriously. I know I'm not the only one too. 

[sky1324]

5 minutes ago, _DietDrPepper_ said:

I mean, agree to disagree at the end of the day I guess. I grew up playing soccer too, this was during the time of the MLS in the late 2000's and early 2010's and guess what? All we did was talk about European teams. I knew most of the MLS teams but I couldn't tell you any of the players for sure. So I think it's really cool to see the MLS finally step up into the big leagues for say. I've never been more interested in the MLS since they started taking themselves more seriously. I know I'm not the only one too. 

I'd rather have 15 [city] FCs in the league than one name like Dallas Burn or Kansas City Wiz. It's clear that initially MLS tried too hard to "American-ize" soccer and that included the branding. Now that the teams have started to take themselves seriously and stop trying to pretend they'll fit with an American-style nickname MLS has become a more popular and worthwhile league. I don't mind Sounders, Timbers, Whitecaps, Earthquakes, and sort of Rapids, but most of the other American-style names are just bad. Revolution, Red Bulls, Crew, Galaxy, I mean, come on. On the opposite side, however, playing Euro dress-up is stupid and both Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City should feel ashamed for going with such incredibly dumb names. 

[_DietDrPepper_]

30 minutes ago, QCS said:

I'd rather have 15 [city] FCs in the league than one name like Dallas Burn or Kansas City Wiz. It's clear that initially MLS tried too hard to "American-ize" soccer and that included the branding. Now that the teams have started to take themselves seriously and stop trying to pretend they'll fit with an American-style nickname MLS has become a more popular and worthwhile league. I don't mind Sounders, Timbers, Whitecaps, Earthquakes, and sort of Rapids, but most of the other American-style names are just bad. Revolution, Red Bulls, Crew, Galaxy, I mean, come on. On the opposite side, however, playing Euro dress-up is stupid and both Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City should feel ashamed for going with such incredibly dumb names. 

I personally think some MLS names have grown into thier own, Columbus Crew especially has kinda grown on me. Probably doesn't help they were the first team I'd say I was a fan of in the MLS before Cincy. New York Red Bulls are another one that stands out to me, should ideally be Red Bull New York to fit in with its sisters better but I surprisingly don't hate it. The Galaxy have a perfect identity but a terrible name, they really just need to change it to Los Angeles City or Atletico Los Angeles. They wouldn't have to change anything besides an updated crest possibly and they'd jump to one of the best packages in the league IMO. 

I can't accept Rapids, Sounders, Whitecaps, Timbers, Earthquakes or anything like that though. Those sound the most minor league of all.