So wait. I'm not a real fan for wanting to support a team from Queens when I grew up in Queens, and you simultaneously support teams from Italy, Minnesota, Houston, and NY/NJ? Don't miss my point here: I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with you doing that. I support European teams too. I don't think locality is the only thing that makes a team the team for you. And I don't think that makes me "inauthentic." But drawing the line at "jumping ship" is completely arbitrary in this sort of situation. I am not going to support NY2 because NYRB hasn't won anything. I am going to support NY2 because I would genuinely feel a stronger connection to them. And I would be happy if NYRB won something.
The only NY team I support is RB because they started off as NY/NJ and have always played here in NJ. I don't like NY. I like the Devils, NJ. My father was a Packers fan. I ended up a Vikings fan. He was also a Yankee fan. Him and my uncle lived in Houston and sent me Astros stuff cause I didn't like the Yanks or Mets. My family came from Italy, Naples. Growing up the only games from Italy I'd get on television was Milan.
What if your "team" was brought by a bunch of assholes from Austria and turned into a branding expirement?
It is my team. I have season tickets. I haven't jumped ship and don't plan on it. There is good and bad.
I think the premise for some people here is that if one likes either NY1 or will like NY2 then that person has to hate/dislike the other team.
So you acknowledge that it isn't black and white - and you acknowledge that your only reason for supporting Red Bull is because they started out as NJ. But if someone from Queens switches teams they are glory hunting bad fans in your world. Okay. You live in New Jersey - if the cleat was on the other foot would you be such an absolutist? If you lived in Long Island would you still be implying that switching makes you a bad fan? You wouldn't think about saving lots of travel time and expense for a team that isn't a marketing effort of a soda company? Unless you are in the boat of the other side, I'm not sure you can really talk. Some people feel that they will devote themselves forever to this club no matter what they call it - kudos to them, that's their choice. I just don't think it makes them better or worse fans than those who no longer feel they can give their hard earned money and time to a club that is a Corporate brand. Both are examples of hardcore devotion and equally valid responses in my opinion. I just personally can't be as hardcore of a fan of a corporate brand - you dodged my tattoo question but I assume you know what I was getting at.
Um, yeah, no. The NY Cosmos have existed ever since the team folded for the sole purpose of selling merchandise (and summer camp tickets). That's it. It's all about the brand. If it wasn't, then why must this team be called the Cosmos?
Uh... I think the very easy and obvious distinction here is that the "Cosmos brand" is the brand of a soccer team. The Red Bulls brand is the brand of an energy drink. Cosmos is a "brand" because there was once a very good soccer team named the Cosmos. Red Bull is a "brand" because whenever you tell someone which team you support, you incidentally become an advertisement for a multinational corporation. I mean, the Revs were sponsored by a health insurance company. I'm not sure how everyone feels about those, either. I'm not dissing NYRB for being sponsored. Obviously the new Cosmos will be a different team from the old Cosmos, and yes MLS is doing it (if they even do) because it's profitable. But surely you can see the distinction we're drawing here.
If I was from NY I probably wouldn't care for RB since they play in NJ. However if you are supporting RB currently and you leave for the NY2 team then what kinda fan were you? Its simple. I knew what you were getting at with the tattoo but I don't like them and wouldn't ever get one.
Honestly - is this a serious argument? If you think this is the same and can't even acknowledge why reasonable people have a problem with the Red Bull branding then we should probably not even bother discussing it because your priorities are way too different from mine. I'm fine with your choice not to care about the branding - it's personal. What I have a problem with is not even being able to acknowledge that there are good reasons why reasonable, decent people have a hard time going all in with this team.
Likewise, what kind of fan are you if you bury your head in the sand completely on these issues? I don't think anyone who tries to go all in as a fan isn't at least at minimum a little uneasy about the branding. If you don't care at all you aren't a real fan.
If you don't care for the team or sponsor then leave. Just be gone and done with it. Don't hang around supporting it till a new option comes along.
That's a fair point in my opinion. Personally, I can't support a team just because they play soccer and happen to be somewhere in the 30 mile radius. There's got to be a stronger connection for me, that's why I never really supported RB or have gone to any of their games.
Yeah, way to build up a straw man. I didn't say I don't understand people whom the branding bothers. I completely do. However, I assume those people who then support the Cosmos realize they're basically supporting a branding exercise. Yes, the Cosmos were a successful soccer team in this area. That was 30 years ago. That team is long gone. It's successor has been going for 16 years now. The only reason to support the Cosmos, as opposed to some generic NYC2 team and/or to be bothered with the identity for the team that plays in Harrison, is to support a branding exercise. I love irony.
The kind of fan who supported NYRB because they were "the New York team" before another team from New York, with whom I personally would have a stronger connection, joined the league. You say you would dislike NYRB if you were from NY. In my view, there is not a rivalry or reason to dislike them if another New York team doesn't yet exist or compete in the same league. At least make this point sincerely and don't be disingenuous with this phony authenticity thing. I get what you're saying. It can seem kind of opportunistic what the league might be trying to do with the brand. But what it means to the league isn't necessarily what it means to the fans. Don't you at least see the value to having a brand derived from soccer instead of a brand derived from something extraneous? I mean, you could say that the revival of the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders are "branding exercises" because the original teams to have those names existed a long time ago and there were a few different teams with those "brands." And to that extent they are "branding exercises." But watching their MLS games on NBC tells me that they are also the teams with the strongest living soccer traditions, most exciting fan participation, and greatest evidence that soccer has the potential to grow in this country. I don't know about you, but I want soccer to grow in this country. I think it's a lot easier to do that when you're drawing from a brand that draws respect from people rather than a brand that has no history and makes people scoff.
Yes - because we all must adhere to the ridiculous fan standards that you have. Just curious, when did you start supporting the team? I personally think it's a pretty terrible point. And it's another example of why I think the branding is bad because the few remaining Red Bull fans think it's a good idea to tell guys like me, who have been going to all the games, cheering for the team, and supporting soccer in this area, to go away just because we don't fit into their tortured black and white binary universe. It ain't my place to tell you how to spend your time and money, and maybe you aren't a US and MLS soccer fan and don't give a rip whether MLS succeeds or not, and maybe you don't love live soccer as much as I do. Fandom is personal and if you don't feel it, why would you go? But half the stadium is filled with people who don't feel a huge connection to the team but go for a variety of reasons - like their kids enjoy it - should we turn them away too?
I don't like NY. If I was from NY I probably wouldn't like NJ. Im from NJ, I don't like NY teams or the bennies that come to the Jersey Shore during the summer. The only thing phony here are fans who supported Metrostars or RB that would jump ship for another team. You either support the team or you don't.
I didn't build up a strawman - I've never seen you acknowledge that the viewpoint is valid and only seen you act like it's not. I'm glad you love irony, it's a shame you don't love logic as much because the two situations are completely different. Just because some douchebags have been trying to cash in on the brand forever, doesn't change the fact that the Cosmos has a nostalgic soccer connection with lots of folks (how many remains to be seen). It's not a massive corporation trying to enhance their overpriced caffeine sugar brand. You say you understand why it bothers people, but if you think these two things are the same, it's clear you don't understand it.
Been following them since the first MLS season. My buddies parents had season tickets and would take us to games. I got my own season tickets when RBA opened. If you have followed this team since the start how could you consider leaving for a new team? It would be like being a Devils or Islanders fan and jumping ship to the Rangers. A Dodgers fan becoming a Giants fan. A Man City fan becoming a Man U fan and so on. I wasn't sitting here thinking to myself when Milan was gutting it self this offseason, saying man I think I'll become a Juve fan. They just won the league and look unstoppable. Maybe I'll paint my old Pirlo jersey black and white.
Let's not keep repeating ourselves and just agree to disagree. Like I've said, for many reasonable fans, it's no longer the same team - it's a marketing experiment. Ironically for me, in many ways I am a much bigger RBNY fan than I ever was of the Metrostars. I never got half as upset as I did about our last game vs. DC. Where I think you and I fundamentally disagree though is you think fans that consider leaving are inauthentic, and I think the team itself is inauthentic. To each their own.
I followed Metro from the start. RBNY is another entity completely different. It would be far more akin to being a Devils fan and having Red Bull buy out the Devils and splash their logo all over the place a lifestyle brand as priority and control the marketing purse strings from a non-soccer organization and/or another country and never have their owner show up to one game. Not to mention signing a cancer because you can market him on your cans and a variety of other brand first, soccer second (and this is where the Cosmos example falls apart because that brand IS a soccer brand - if the Cosmos fail, the brand fails - RB? notsomuchso.) crap.