I have a question about the ownership of the intellectual property associated with the teams. I have long believed that MLS owns all the teams' names, logos, and wordmarks. But, when I asserted this on another board, someone responded with the search at the Patent and Trademark Office that showed that the trademark "Red Bull New York" is owned not by MLS but by Red Bull GmbH of Austria. I started plugging in the other teams' names, and I found that almost all other MLS team names show a trademark ownership of Major League Soccer, LLC (or, in the case of the Montreal Impact, MLS Canada LP, even though the Toronto FC name shows the U.S. company as the trademark owner). But the Vancouver Whitecaps name shows an ownership of Vancouver Whitecaps FC, LP. I don't know what to make of this. Do these arrangements with Red Bull and with the Whitecaps explain why the Cosmos, back when the talks with MLS were going on, hoped to be able to negotiate a special deal with the league about retaining ownership of their name and logos?
I don't know about Vancouver but strong brands like Red Bull and previously Chivas of course are not going to hand over any sort of ownership to MLS LLC. In particular Red Bull where the brand extends way beyond the sporting landscape.
So is this why the previous Cosmos ownership thought that they could arrange for something similar when they were negotiating with the league? It would seem that the Whitecaps attained what the Cosmos were reportedly seeking.
I would guess that the Whitecaps might be different based on their existence as a brand prior to MLS, and that similar conditions might apply to the Sounders and Timbers, as well. It's possible that subtle changes (like adding an FC) have altered these conditions but I can't say for sure, nor do I know if those owners voluntarily ceded such rights to MLS as part of the negotiations. However, I don't think MLS did this as a punitive measure or to restrict an owner's use rights. Rather, it's likely done to ensure a sense of continuity to the brands that the league is establishing as ownerships change. Remember that when MLS was in its infancy they were reliant on a few owners to harbor the league, so this type of mechanism might have more easily allowed the eventual sale of teams to happen without interrupting management of the brand. Plus back then the brands weren't worth near as much as some are today. No doubt the Cosmos were seeking every little advantage they could, both as a measure of piety and as a practical business measure. Coming from NASL they're certainly of the mindset of wanting complete autonomy of their operation. How much the control of the brand was part of their negotiations I can't say but since MLS wasn't close to being interested at the time it's a rather moot point. I feel, anyway.
MLS were indeed interested in the Cosmos at one time; the league gave the Cosmos the opportunity to pay the $100 million expansion fee that was later paid by CFG. But the Cosmos' then-owners declined this offer, choosing to be a part of the NASL instead. The news reports suggested that the team was seeking to retain ownership of its logos and other I.P., but that MLS wouldn't go for that, because league policy required that the league own all team marks. I can understand how Red Bull and Chivas, which exist outside soccer, are in a different category. But the Whitecaps seem to have gotten precisely the treatment that the Cosmos wanted. Did the league policy on the question of trademark ownership change after the Whitecaps joined? (Side note: the Sounders' trademark is owned by the league. So the Whitecaps are unique amongst MLS teams whose names are not also names of a company outside of soccer.)
MLS' "interest" in the Cosmos was simply that the league wanted a 2nd team in NY and made the invitation to all comers. The requirements of the invitation, however, were set high as if everyone knew it would price the Cosmos out of the market, since there was no way the team could produce both the entry fee, business plan and stadium plan necessary to make things work out. That helped fuel the Cosmos' fire in then trying to drive NASL toward D1 status, rant and rave about pro/rel and even talk of threatening the USSF with lawsuits about their divisional standards. Perceptions of how and why it happened depend on where you stand, but the bottom line is while the Cosmos were invited to put forth a bid everyone with a pulse knew that particular ownership group wasn't going to pull it off. As to the brand ownership and such I can't say other than my initial guesses. What makes the Whitecaps so special is beyond me but I'm not hearing anyone complain so it's no bother to me. I just wish we could get rid of the Red Bull nickname and change the owners at NYCFC, but that's another thread.
This might also be why MLS was initially reluctant to allow Seattle to keep the Sounders name when they first entered the league. But the fans made their voices heard and MLS caved.
I guess it's taken on a case by case basis. Vancouver had a stronger position to negotiate from since, by this time, MLS wanted the third Cascadia team and second Canadian team (at the time). Vancouver likely played hardball. As for the Cosmos, they weren't at the stage where rights and trademarks were going to be negotiated since they had yet to meet the minimum standard which was the expansion fee. If my memory is correct, they may have tried to tie in the trademark rights into the expansion fee negotiation. I believe that MLS may have to buy the rights for the existing teams that turn over the trademark and that price might be discounted from their expansion fee. I think their argument was that MLS wasn't offering them enough of a discount based on the value of their trademark.
Kinda? It certainly played a role in why the original vote didn't include the Sounders, but it is also why you only see the team or league refer to them as Sounders FC or Seattle Sounders FC. There was enough question about who owned the Sounders trademark that MLS didn't want to be bothered, so they slapped an FC on the end and called it good.
Well who does own it? Doesn't Hannaeur or was he simply permitted to use it by the original rights owner? Merrit owned the Timbers outright and I think that San Jose purchased the Earthquakes trademark prior to switching over. There's also a means by which any of those names might have reverted to the public domain had they not been used in a meaningful manner by the owner in a certain period of time. That is clearly not the case for any of them.
At this point, it seems that all they would have had to do was produce the entry fee then call NY's bluff since who knows when a stadium will ever get approved there no matter who pays for it. Then again, becoming an owner also means an accounting of financial capability at which point MLS knows that, whether it gets built in the short-term or not, the owners at least are capable of building a stadium at some point.
At the time of the bidding process not only were the Cosmos struggling to produce the entry fee but their short and long-term stadium plans were not great. The latter at least had a plausible site but was overly reliant on public support and funding, which never came to pass. CFG entered the picture with a bona fide local business partner in the Yankees with included a viable short-term venue and instant local media contracts, while certainly having the financial resources to make a long-term stadium goal seem eminently possible. So at the time there was no comparison, really. Meanwhile the Cosmos would be hard pressed to do anything today. They've lost a ton of money since their MLS bid, have lost out on their long-term stadium proposal and have burned many a bridge with the MLS folks. The best chance of ever seeing the Cosmos in MLS is for one of the existing franchises to buy their brand and assume that identity.
The Cosmos' previous owners couldn't have come up with $100 million on their own; but, if they had actually been interested to proceed with joining MLS, they likely could have found a partner -- maybe the Yankees, even. The Sela Sports people walked away from the negotiations not because they couldn't raise the money, but because they didn't want to surrender the ownership of the team's logos, as well as the freedom to sign players on their own. CFG have been great owners. As a fan of NYCFC, I am thrilled with them. And, even though I am a supporter of Chelsea (the team that got me into the sport), I now have a big soft spot for Manchester City, whom I had already greatly respected for their all-out efforts to elevate themselves into football's elite circle of clubs. We couldn't ask for better owners than CFG. They botched the Lampard situation at first, thereby squandering a great deal of goodwill. But that eventually turned around, and Lampard contributed on the level that was expected, and even beyond. His legacy as the team's founding player is secure. CFG have also figured out a way to utilise Manchester City's players within the context of MLS's rules, arranging for loans of very useful players (Yangel Herrera this year, and before him Shay Facey). And even a decision which I thought was very wrong when it happened, the hiring of Vieira as manager, has worked out extremely well. Playing at Yankee Stadium is not ideal; it really rankles that the Yankees force the pitch to be narrower than it should be simply because they won't allow the mound to be removed for NYCFC matches (even though it is removed for the Pinstripe Bowl). But the team gets to play there for no rent; so some concessions are to be expected. Also, NYCFC have a good home record; so evidently they have turned the weird playing surface into an advantage. Even when I want to find something to complain about, I can't do it! It is true that the Sela lost a huge amount of money running the Cosmos as an independent club in the NASL, so much so that the team would have folded if not for the emergence of Commisso. But the current owner seems to be willing to fund the team, without illusions that it is going to be immediately profitable. And he continues to harbour the desire to sign big-name players. Even as a fan of an MLS team, I am nevertheless aware of the flaws in the league's model from the standpoint of team operation -- Commisso wants to be the owner of a football club, not the manager of a branch office of the central league. Still, whether his passion for the club will remain as the costs to operate it mount, this is anyone's guess. The stadium situation is much improved. The Brooklyn ballpark is an ideal venue for a team with the drawing power of the Cosmos, who average somewhere around 4000 fans. If the team ever outgrows that park, then great; but realistic expectations have to be that that represents their level. And that might have been the plan if Commisso had not appeared on the scene. A capital management company was poised to buy the team -- not to operate it as a club, but just to own the marks. Rumours had it that this company would then try to buy the Red Bulls, with the plan of transferring the Cosmos' name to that team. I'm a fan of NYCFC who also support the Cosmos; I don't subscribe to the typical NYCFC fan's dislike of that team. If Liverpool and Everton can have "the friendly derby", then surely fans of NYCFC and the Cosmos can operate with mutual respect. For me, fans of NYCFC and the Cosmos should unite in our dislike of the Red Bulls. So a move which gets that embarassing name out of the league would be nice. However, losing the Cosmos from the City to a stadium in New Jersey would be tough to take. Still, it's a nice stadium situated in an urban centre of New Jersey right near Newark, a city which a New Yorker can like a lot. Red Bull will move on eventually; and, when that happens, whoever owns the Cosmos will have an opportunity that will be hard to pass up -- either to act on it himself, or else to sell out to an entity which can seize the opportunity.
According to the USPTO, MLS owns it now, but I don't remember who owned it back in 2008/2009. I would assume it was Hannauer since he had owned the team for several years at that point, but I guess there was enough doubt that MLS felt they needed to add "FC" to the end?
If you're gonna praise CFG as owners then you have to laud Red Bull, as well. Meanwhile, some of us find CFG's involvement to be just as heinous and embarrassing as Red Bull. To me the whole global-franchising by both organizations is a HUGE pox on the sport, so even as someone born in NY I wish nothing but abject failure on the pitch for both franchises.
No way. Two different things. Red Bull are a company using football for as a billboard for their product, as were MetroMedia before them. Whereas Manchester City is a football club, and a football club that is doing things the right way. (A club like Man City -- and Chelsea before it -- helps all fans by raising the standard of the league, and forcing all other teams to keep up with them.) That's a connection that I can be proud of. And CFG have done the branding in a beautiful way. They didn't call the team "Manchester City New York" or something silly in the "Chivas USA" vein. Our team has its own name. But, by virtue of the team name "Manchester City" and the naturalness of the already existing name "New York City", creating a "City" commonality without imposing a stupid name on our team was very easy. And the fact that our kits look like Man City's is cool. The aesthetics, the link to a great club, Lampard -- the whole thing was just perfect. Everything came together to make this team irresistable; the team turned me from someone who took no interest in MLS to a big fan of an MLS team. The MetroStars / Red Bulls have been an embarassment for the city and for the league since the beginning. Their identity has always been nil, starting from the clunky "New York / New Jersey" of their early days, all the way up to Red Bull's "New York" branding for television purposes, without any attempt to appeal to actual New Yorkers. That team is an enduring symbol of the cheesiness of early MLS. By contrast, City are a breath of fresh air; they are emblematic (along with the Sounders and the Timbers) of the transformation of the league from something garish and silly to an entertaining and high-level product with cool team names and attractive uniforms -- a standard which makes the Red Bulls look even more ridiculous. NYCFC stand for authenticity -- as do the Cosmos, in their own way. But the MetroStars / Red Bulls are an abomination. Let us step back and consider the remarkable success of NYCFC in the context of New York sports. It is important to realise that this team constitutes the second biggest debut ever into the New York sports scene, second only to that of the Mets. Both NYCFC and the Mets made immediate impacts in their first seasons, despite lack of success on the field. The is the array of teams that began before the modern culture of pro sports existed: the baseball Giants, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the football Giants, the Rangers, and the Knicks. All became huge entities in the sports culture later on; their debuts, however, were not significant moments. The Jets (Titans), the Mets, and the Nets (New Jersey Americans) debuted in the 1960s. The Mets, as mentioned, were a cultural icon instantly. The Jets briefly became a major phenomenon years later when they won the Super Bowl, while the Nets never cracked big-time stature until they moved from Jersey to Brooklyn, despite having had their sports best and best-known player, having won ABA championships, and having later on twice made the finals in the NBA. The 1970s saw the debuts of the Cosmos and the Islanders. We all know that the Cosmos started small; they predate the first soccer boom in the U.S. in the same way that the Yankees and the other traditional teams predate the entire pro sports boom. Despite the Cosmos' eventual heights, their debut was no big deal. (Ironically, their second debut in 2013 was more significant than their first in 1970.) The Islanders' appearance was notable only in their sub-section of the New York area (Long Island), and nowhere else. In the 1980s we had the arrival of the Devils and the creation of the Generals. The Devils, like the Islanders, were hailed only in one small sub-section of the metro area (in this case northern New Jersey, and even there just barely), not area-wide. The Generals' debut caused some buzz; I'd place it third on the list behind those of the Mets and of NYCFC. This brings us to the 1990s, and the MetroStars. Their average attendance at Giants Stadium was about 23,000 in their first season, and it plummeted from there. (By comparison, the Generals' average had been 30,000 in their debut season of 1983, and it went up from there.) The MetroStars made no impact on the area's sports scene; and the Red Bulls have carried on this pathetic tradition. NYCFC have succeeded in becoming part of New York's sports culture; and CFG are entirely responsible for this. No legitimate criticism can be levelled at this excellent ownership group, which has handled branding and marketing, the hiring and firing of coaches, and the acquisition and retention of players with the utmost professionalism.
What Red Bull is doing by marketing their brand through sports is tacky but not without historic precedent, including some great European clubs. The main issue with this today is that the money involved and global influence of each make the actual ownership of the club a sometimes incestuous relationship. Ideally the company sponsors the club but club/team runs on its own, free from pressure and free to craft their identity beyond that one brand. They belong to the community, not the company. To wit, the idea that any ownership group has satellite franchises across the globe s***s on that very principle. CFG is as much about New York as McDonalds or WalMart. Sure, they may be great corporate owners, be involved in the community, support local charities, provide little adaptations to fit in, but otherwise it's simply an offshoot of a global operation. What's more, in an insular market such as league sports this can provide those operations with benefits not available to all other parties. Unless the end game is each nation having their own Real Madrid, Juve, Bayern, Barca, etc, in which case why bother calling the teams by any geographic name? Just go with the corporate parent! Next week on MLS Match of the day - Home Depot vs. Etihad Airlines! So, while Red Bull may be marketing something more than football they're being honest about it. Meanwhile, both RB and CFG are guilty of taking the satellite franchise approach that dilutes the local nature of each team and tilts the business models involved. And for my money, that's leading in a very, very bad direction. My family in friends in NY don't see NYC the same way as you do, and certainly not anything like the comparative difference you're portraying vs. RBNY. If not for the connection with the Yankees the team would arguably be worse off by comparison. Which says a lot considering how ugly it is watching games at Yankee Stadium on TV. Is it good that NY has two teams? Yes, I'd say so, and on the whole the move by MLS has paid off, and I certainly understand the appeal of attaching themselves to all that Abu Dhabi money. But being the best choice at the time doesn't mean the choice was ideal. I will go to the grave despising the sugar daddy effect in pro soccer and especially this global satellite model. While it may introduce more money to the game in select markets it also comes at the expense of teams that don't have comparable resources. Further, it's continuing the trend of making football more about the business end and less about what makes the sport great. Sorry, but I see no nobility in supporting that trend and will spend the rest of my days vehemently rooting against both these NY franchises. Cheers.
Newsflash: rich people and rich companies own shit all over the globe. They likely aren't moved whether it meets anyone's romantic notions. Is Arthur Blank a prick for using his corporate money to streamline his NFL ownership into an MLS club? Bob Kraft? Stan? Joey? All of these folks own lots of shit. Point is, all of these distinctions are arbitrary and pointless. It takes money to play and make the game beautiful. Any other idyllic bullshit is just that.
Right. The owner of the English club which I support is a criminal who participated in the theft of the wealth of the Soviet people. Yet I am perfectly happy to have him as owner. The owners of CFG are involved in the government of the UAE, a socially backward country in which homosexuality is illegal. These people are straight-up evil. Yet, as you can read above, I have nothing but praise for them as owners of my hometown team. It takes big money to run a sporting enterprise of this magnitude; and there is no morally sound way to get rich enough to do it. I defer to no one in my hatred for scum of this sort; they will go up against the wall when the revolution comes. But, until then, we should all be content for them to use their money to fund our high-level entertainment.