I came across this interesting opinion piece on twitter and thought I would share it. lastwordonsports.com/2014/04/04/whats-name-mls-alienating-potential-fans/ The author raises a lot of interesting points about the long term consequences of European branding in MLS, but I'm not so sure I completely agree with him. As much as names like "Real Salt Lake" rub me the wrong way, I'm not so sure that we are coming upon a day that MLS will be able to viably market to casual American sports fans, so the articles conclusion seems off base. I mean, it's hard to fault the success Robb Heineman and company have had in KC with their re-brand, for instance. What do you guys think? Also, this seemed to be on the borderline between qualifying as "analysis", or belonging in MLS General so I apologize in advance if I posted this in the wrong area.
No big deal. "The potential casual fans of tomorrow (current and future youth generations) would not need to have it explained to them what FC stands for. It would be ingrained into their genes and therefore be accepted as the norm."
Good point. I think a more interesting point the article fails to make is how these names affect perception of the league world wide. I can't think of any other league that pretends to be in another country in terms of their names. That can't be good for world wide perception of US soccer, whereas building an authentic American soccer identity might give the league and soccer in this country more credibility.
Really? I can think of lots. There is Arsenal (the one in Honduras, or the two in Brazil, or the one in Ghana, or the one in Argentina, or ...). In Chile there is Everton (named after the English team) and Rangers (named after the Scottish team). Ecuador has Barcelona (named after the city in Spain). Uruguay has Albion FC and Montevideo Wanderers (named after Wolverhampton Wanderers). Brazil has Corinthians (named after an English team). Not to mention the dozens of team with English language names in non-English speaking countries.
Uruguay must be full of posers. They even have this team http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Soccer_Club
Names don't mean crap it all comes down to quality of play on the pitch. If the play becomes world class everything will take care of its self.
The author is a dope, and doesn't have a clue about the future of sports in America. In 20 years we're not going to talk about "mainstream" sports and a generalized American sports culture. It's going to be one niche sport after another. Some niches will be bigger than others, but they'll all be niches non the less. MLS is ahead of the curve on this trend. And MLS stabilized and began to grow only once it embraced this trend.
The only European name in MLS that I have an (very small) issue with is Real Salt Lake. I don't really see what a city founded by a bunch of Mormons has to do with Spanish Royalty... Even then, I don't super care, it's just a minor annoyance at worst.
Like how we have New York and New England, this league will really take off once it has New Sheffield Wednesday. That'll really help.
Maybe that'll be the new Chivas re-brand. Somebody start the hash-tag. That's how these things work now, right?
I was going to make a similar comment with the amount of city/county/state names the U.S. that were derived from Anglo/European countries.
But to play devils advocate, the term football does not = football association. As you all know, even in New Jersey and New York, which as you say are state names which are from England, football means grid iron. In fact, most of the former british colonies don't actually call it football. India, Australia, USA, etc. So why the urge to make fc a US trend when the sport is called soccer? We could just as easily do SC. I believe that the Fire, and the forthcoming Orlando team are officially SC teams. I still don't think it matters, but it's usage is interesting nonetheless.
I like a mix of both. I think Sounders and Galaxy are great and make these clubs stand out globally. However, I think names like Sporting Kansas City and TFC are just slick and professional sounding. BTW, people that get worked up about RSL crack me up. I think its pretty obvious that RSL is a kind of blending of both naming philosophies. It allows Salt Lake to adopt a regal motif like the Kings or Royals while having a soccer specific name. I think its quite clever really.
But the sounders added the fc after joining the league. If there is one thing this article gets right, its the critique of the pacific northwest. Manufactured eurosnobbery replacing actual soccer history.
I just think the authors indignation loses its edge with the liberal usage of "faux" as opposed to the more anglicised sounding "fake". I mean really, only a poser (poseur if you lke) would confuse the etymology of the word while lambasting euro snobbery. I do, however, look forward to the sequel. How the folks who gathered at the Freemason's Tavern in London gathered to discuss the ongoing American Civil War, which we all know was a dispute about how to codify soccer (football if you will).
I love European names in MLS. Names like Keane, Henry, Defoe. I also love South American, North American, and African names. Names like Urruti, Donovan, and Martins. Yup I love all kinda names in MLS. Oh wait the article is about team names, as has been pointed out before glabally football/soccer has some fairly regular conventions (this does not make them right or wrong, rather just what they are) that cross borders and cultures. Is it pandering when a team here in the US or Canada matches some of those conventions? I don't think so, nor do I think it gets lost in translation. This is not the late 1960's, soccer, big time professional soccer is not new to America or Canada. We had cute names and logos in the ONASL because that was what the prevailing culture was at the time (see the ABA, WHA, and WFL for examples of this). We had more Americanized names and logos in the APSL/early USL because that was the prevailing culture. Hell even MLS started with abstract and trendy, pushing the new, again prevailing culture. Since launch though MLS and the US/Canada have integrated with the global game so much more than we ever had before, and that global culture is what we have now, sometimes that spills over into team naming conventions. The only real misstep that I can see in any of this is with RSLs initial branding. At the time it was a bit of a head scratcher, and seemed so awkwardly out of place. It has since grown and is part of the team fabric but it was laughable initially.