Yeah well they were the names and logos I grew up with. Still love the Quakes one. Season ticket holders this year received red shirts with the old logos.
There were several that were very cool. Some others, not so much, but Earthquakes, Sounders, Whitecaps and Timbers were certainly among the best, IMO. I'd put Aztecs just a step below the very best in NASL, but not by much. And I think it's close to unanimous how hard Clash sucked. Apparently, the Nike marketing team responsible for some of the more egregious MLS names was completely unfamiliar with the culture of team sports in America.
The Clash name was really lame and I think for that reason the Chicago MLS team ignored Nike's suggestions to name the team and called themselves the Fire. Isn't that right GS?
I believe the story goes that Chicago Rhythm was rejected out of hand as being lame in and of itself, without regard for whether or not "Clash" was lame.
I don't know, maybe I'm in the minority, but I dug the California Surf name and logo. Maybe it's for nostalgic reasons like others have posted, but I'd love to see the return of an Orange County team. The kits were pretty clean too. I've always thought, if Chivas USA were to rebrand and relocate, Orange County might be an option. It'd be a better rivalry with the Galaxy than the manufactured Galaxy-Chivas "Clasico" and it'd be easier to find land for a stadium than downtown LA. But, if they are determined to stay in LA, Los Angeles Aztecs would be ideal for a rebrand.
Only thing that cracked me up in those days were how the whole team wore white cleats. http://www.nasljerseys.com/images/Surf/Surf 78 Road Team.jpg
Well, for nostalgics, sure. And it is a pretty good name. But whether it would be ideal in 2014 or 2015 when - again - this wasn't even a particularly popular brand in 1979, I don't know. Not everything from back in the day was the best it ever was.
I agree. I think it's mainly for nostalgic reasons because they used to play at Anaheim Stadium, 10 min from my house. But I thought the name summed up Orange County/So Cal pretty well. But, again, whether it'd be popular again nowadays, who knows. I'd like it better than Chivas USA, that's for sure. There was an amateur team that played in Santa Ana called Orange County FC back in the 60s, which isn't bad. It's kind of bland. And I know there was supposed to be a lower division team in Anaheim called the Anaheim Groves, which is kinda cool. But it never ended up happening.
Who cares if the name Los Angels Aztecs was unpopular in the 70s, it's a good name for a LA team and it has history as a bonus, something that has been working out okay for MLS teams that embrace it recently. No one is suggesting we bring back the Caribou, Jaws, or Teamen. The Oakland A's do it 100x better.
The Teamen had a cool logo. The Caribous was kind of eery and the Jaws & the Kicks were kind of child like.....
Because...people are saying it's the perfect rebrand? Do we normally bring back shit that wasn't popular the first time around, or do we bring back Hawaii Five O? How is a brand that had no resonance the first time around the perfect rebrand? And this is what I'm saying: that soccer history is negligible. Nobody cared about the Aztecs, even when they had Best or Cruyff. And naming the team after indigenous peoples of Mexico is better than naming it after one of the dominant soccer teams of Mexico how, again? Think you're missing the point (again). The Sounders, Timbers and Earthquakes were far more popular in their heydays than the Aztecs were. That's my entire point. Those brands had far more meaning than the Aztecs did. And, oh, by the way, their front offices have a freaking clue, something that can't be said for CDCUSA. They could call themselves Barcelona, and it wouldn't matter, because they couldn't sell Bobby Petrino a time machine. Aztecs is a cool name. Almost none of you were around for it, you're not even looking through the prism of history or nostalgia on it, you just think it's cool. But it's change for change's sake, and another example of people trying to be hip by advocating a history they never had themselves. Those were even less popular. Also, that has nothing to do with the Aztecs.
I think it would work for the Tampa Bay Mutiny, which I think is a much better name than the Rowdies.
Really? I loved the Rowdies name and logo. Guess it was because I always liked the way Rodney Marsh played.
Because it's hard to think of a better-sounding team name. The fact that it has any soccer history at all does mean something, even if that history isn't what some people seem to think it was. Hell, somebody even thinks "California Surf" is a good name, which I doubt would be the case if it were suggested for the first time today. I wonder if you're attributing more of the failure of the old Aztecs (or, pinning the baggage of that failure) to the name than is warranted. The LA market for domestic pro soccer is a whole lot different now than it was then, i.e., it exists. It is entirely possible that the name has more resonance now than it did then, just because it was then associated with a team that was likely going to be unpopular no matter what the name of it was. I would guess that, to most people in LA, the "Aztecs" team name, when it's recognized at all, evokes absolutely nothing more than, "Hey, didn't that used to be a soccer team?" The perception of the failure of the team at the time is that it went down with the league, and what emotional memories remain from the existence of the team itself are negligible. And that's what we're talking about here, emotions and perceptions, not actual history, which in this case is virtually irrelevant (as much as it pains me to say that about anything historical). Because it doesn't evoke the hatred of that team by fans of others, for one thing. Well, there is that. I'm just not sure that that "heyday" means a damned thing, good or bad, to the bulk of the present-day fans. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't all three of those team names (the Whitecaps are another example) abandoned at some point in their histories by owners who concluded that the history associated with them had run out of value? I'm not sure that the "heydays" matter as much to the cachet of the present-day incarnations as the fact that they are all solid team names. I really believe that the hardcores in Portland and Seattle who formed the core of the MLS fanbase of those two teams would have glommed onto those teams had their USL predecessors been named something else close to as good, and the old NASL days would have meant nothing to them other than a pride in the general history of soccer in the area. Yes, the revisionist historian aspect is annoying, I'm right with you on that. That sort of hipster quasi-nostalgia, remembering things that didn't actually happen, shouldn't detract from the quality of the name, though. "Aztecs" IS a really cool name, and that should be the beginning and the end of the discussion, since that's all that really matters.
Yes, the Rowdies name is great, the logo is pretty bland and nothing special. And I think I am the one you are referring to that liked the Surf name, haha. I said I thought it was more for nostalgic reasons. I don't know if it'd do well today, but it wouldn't be bad for an Orange County team. I live in Huntington Beach and the city is all about surfing. The California Surf could definitely play into the Orange County laid back atmosphere. Again, research would have to be done, and I don't know how much it'd resonate now, but you never know.
I, as a Mexican, would feel sort of offended if a pro team from a foreign country uses the Aztecs name tho. Maybe not many would think like me, but I think it would be rejected by many Mexicans (first generation ones mostly). PS: I'm too young to know what the reaction was in the 70s, but I wouldn't see it as a good name nowadays, from my Mexican perspective. PS 2: I would also reject if a pro team here in Mexico uses Cherokees or something similar as monicker, we simply have no business doing so.