I was a fan of the Locomotiv Atlanta name. I like the Georgia Generals. Fans could wear shirts with their favorite general on it. Hear is to guessing there would be a lot more Lees and Jacksons and not many Shermans. I am just hoping that we wouldn't go the way of New York and end up as the Atlanta Coca-Colas.
I agree with one poster here that US teams don't have to adopt European style names, but to be frank if your teams travelled to Europe and came into the Stadium called the "Wizards" (great nvoel connection notwithstanding) you'd get 90 minutes of rude songs. I like some of the names however. DC United, Chicago Fire is ok, The Houston team... Ok lets put it this way, when the names of teams do not appear to have been dreamt up by some cheesy marketing man with a hazy day dream of a man in a big foam costume you'll be ok. By the way...the Derby idea? Fantastic. New York City vs Brooklyn Rangers? New England Revolution vs Boston Celtic? C'mon, you have to admit it "sounds" good.
Locomotiv Atlanta ... I love it ! We have so much rich soccer history in the USA ... new names are good and old names are good. I think this message board has a lot better ideas than those marketing idiots working for soccer teams. Brooklyn Celtic and Brooklyn Wanderers are great clubs from the past. I'm very surprised that no US club has recently used the Celtic nickname ... I hope Philadelphia oe St. Louis or who ever get an MLS club will read this board.
Yeah, because that wouldn't happen if your team was called FC Dallas. Fans are creative, they'll come up with some way to insult you regardless of your name. Besides, many European teams have similar "unofficial" nicknames, the Magpies or die Loewen, for example.
Yah but by having two teams in one city jusyt to have a derby would take away a spot from a city that can handle a team. Unlike euro countries ours easily has 30-40 cities that can handle having a team so whylimit it to less just to have a inner city derby?. We should focus on regional rivals instead.
I've always thought you could tell the seriousness of a pro sports league by how many teams have singular names: NFL, MLB -- 0% -- very serious NBA -- 7% (Heat, Magic) -- mostly serious NHL -- 7% (Avalanche, Wild) -- mostly serious Arena Football League -- 37% -- kind of serious National Lacrosse League -- 46% -- slightly serious WNBA -- 54% -- not at all serious Original (1996) MLS -- 80% -- not even remotely close to being serious In retrospect, then, the adoption of European-style names, while artificial, is an improvement over Clash, Burn and Wiz.
"Fred's Aluminum Siding & Tax Service" would be better than the aforementioned MLS names . I've always wondered why, for the most part, MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL can come up with decent nicknames, but yet MLS somehow fell off the wagon? Sure, they were trying to reach out to the skater/grunger crowd, and trying to make soccer look "cool," but good grief, they did quite the opposite. And it didn't work, either.
I know Vienna (Rapid) was once occupied by Russian troops, but the Allies were able to shoosh them out of there. How about "Crewe Columbus" after Crewe Alexandra, for their perpetual under-achievement. Or should New Orleans ever get a franchise, they could put "Krewe" in the title. That would be awesome. And it's kind of funny how MLS has had a couple clubs named for disasters that cause great ruin to their cities. Is there any...correlation to that? Just kidding. "Fire" would have been a great name for Atlanta, too, but they could call themselves "Atlanta Burning". Or how about the "Tecumseh Shermans"? Or judging by how many northerners have moved down there, they could be called the "Carpetbaggers".
How about the Atlanta Small Pox? They can give out blankets at every home match. Yeah, yeah, Atlanta wasn't in existence back then. It looks like it will be Las Vegas Football Club if they get a franchise. Do the Sons of Ben have a name picked out for Philly?
what the hell? i have no clue what you mean by cingular names, but judging from your examples(heat, magic, avalanche, wild), the nfl and mlb have tons....so you're saying that teams that have plural names are somehow more serious? mlb: orioles, devil rays, blue jays, tigers, royals, cubs, cardinals, marlins, braves, diamondbacks those names are 'serious' to you?? most of them are f'n animals im not sure how the dallas bears/jaguars/wildcats/koala's is better than dallas burn
"Singular" (not "cingular") means "one." "Car" is singular; "cars" is plural. Animal nicknames are traditional for American sports teams -- singular names are not.
Actually, those names aren't singular, they're collective nouns. If they were singular, they'd be the "Dallas Cowboy" or the "Cincinnati Bengal". Btw, in the NHL you forget the Tampa Bay Lightning. And for the NLL's Colorado Mammoth, the plural of Mammoth is Mammoth. Although you're trying to make a point, and your data seems to back it up, there can be another explanation, date of creation of the league: MLB 1876 (National League, 1901 American League) NFL 1920 NBA 1946 NHL 1967* (Had only six teams until 1967, formed in 1917) AFL 1987 NLL 1987 MLS 1996 WNBA 1997 Look at minor league teams (all sports) that have come (and gone) since 1997 and you'll see a slew of these collective-noun teams out there. It's just the modern change of team naming. Everybody wants to be unique, and animals, professions, and machinery are a sparse landscape to cull up names from. Sykotyk
Yes, but even when the NFL or MLB have added new nicknames recently, they stick to plurals: Jaguars, Panthers, Devil Rays, Marlins. But the NHL gave us the Wild and the NBA gave us the Heat and Magic 20 years ago.
Ya I know what you mean. The next thing you know we will have names like Gunners, Trotters, Red Devils, and the Magpies for godsake. Cummon, it's time to get over this and be proud to be American and stop trying to imulate something that we think is better. Why the heck can't be call a penalty kick a PK. Why the heck can't we have the Burn isnstead of FC Dallas. If we name a team it should be SC Dallas. Soccer has a proud history in the US. There is history behind the word soccer and we should be damned proud instead of disguising it. Where the heck did United come from. The USA surely didn't have so many teams in the same area that they had to combine them all into a "United" team. This is a fabrication, fake, and not American. Get over it we are Americans and damned proud and now lets act like it.
Well, we do have the United States of America tie in for "united" and that makes since for a team based in DC for several reasons, but I see your point. I'm totally with you on the SC thing. I mean, teams in Germany and Austria are called SV, SC, TSV, for Sportverien, Sportclub, etc. CF and Atlético in Spain for example. I could go on and on. Granted, teams here didn't start out as men's athletic clubs, but SoccerClub is perfectly acceptable. But in today's world, team name is marketing. And they try to select a name that will appeal to a lot of people and bring in more dollars. I don't see a problem with that, they are businesses after all. Amerisnobs that are offended at teams taking on "foreign" sounding names are in the minority. I think a hell of a lot of the younger generation thinks names like Real, FC, United are cool as hell.
But that's what I was getting out. Team names for a league are based in the length and breadth of the history of the league they're in. NFL and MLB are very traditional, old leagues and, at least for the NFL, collective-nouns are barred from use. The less history and sense of 'format' a league has, the more likely a team may have a collective-noun as a name. AFL, WNBA, MLS, etc have little history and therefore less historical pride or tradition to keep to non-collective-noun names. Sykotyk
I agree with both of these statements. I dont see why people get so pissed over a name. Its just bringing a little something different to the table like, Real Salt Lake, (even though they suck). As a younger person, personally i think names like real fc and united are overall more accepted. I think this is because kids now are watching big time teams with Real Fc or United already in the name i.e. Manchester united, real madrid, and anywhere fc. Besides that i think fc dallas sounds better than dallas burn, like you can take the team more serious.