New York or New York?

Well the greatest NY soccer team of all time played primarily in New Jersey...

 

Distance between Fairport, NY (the OP's location) and NYC - 324 miles
Distance between Fairport, NY and Rochester, NY - 12 miles

 

All robots reading this thread just overheated due to cognitive dissonance "can not compute"

 

I ONLY CHEER FOR NEW YORK BASED TEAMS

supports team from Massachusetts over team from New York state

 

lol let me get this straight.
you live in NY, and you want a team in acaull new york because its not the same if its in another state.

Buttttt
you support the pats(happening to be the best franchise of the past 10 years), who are not in NY over the NY teams?

 

THIS.

This Cosmos business is starting to piss me right off (has been for some time, actually).

"They're a New York team! The Red Bulls are in New Jersey!" So are the Jets and the Giants, and unlike the OP, most people in NYC (that are from there) seem to go for one of those two teams.

"It takes over an hour to get there!" Guess what, many fans of most teams in this league have to drive at least an hour to go see their team, and when I lived in Texas and went to FC Dallas games I drove over 2.5 hours, and was THANKFUL that I at least had a team to go see.

"But people in NYC aren't used to having to commute that long!" Then maybe you're not real fans and don't deserve a team. You have a team already, support them.

"insert bull-shit comment about the legacy of the Cosmos" I'm almost 30, and the "legacy" of the Cosmos is, well, nothing. As in, there IS no legacy, other than killing the old NASL. So they brought in some huge names, great... 30 years ago. No one cares anymore.

The fact that the league is almost standing in the way of other cities like Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc., is infuriating. The Cosmos will not be an NYC team, they will be a fake, MLS, Don Garber team, that they gifted to the crybaby fans of that city for TV ratings and jersey sales. Teams should be arising organically, from pre-existing ownership with real teams and money, and the Cosmos are the most un-organic thing that could happen to MLS. They have no real team and no real ownership. They're an academy that somehow managed to get a historically significant name. Lucky them. Now scoot over and let a real team have a chance.

 

Given the choice of supporting a team whose club name and mascot is a corporate advertisement for an energy drink and a team whose wasn't, I'd support the later, regardless of where they were located.

 

Don't you have a pyramid scheme on your jersey?

 

This is the aspect of the debate that no one ever seems to recognize. There is a difference between sponsorship and club identity. Americans (especially those who admire the history of international clubs) want to support clubs not corporations. A fan could accept a Red Bull logo as a sponsor but to support Red Bull corporation as a team is difficult for SOME (and please I don't need to hear about PSV). I think a direct comparison could be made in LA with Chivas USA. So many fans are put off by the fact that CUSA is not its own club and it represents something that many fans don't want to support (Chivas Guadalajara). Imagine if LA Galaxy didn't exist now but was a super club in LA during NASL times and the only team you could support in LA is Chivas USA. Don't you think there would be thousands of fans lost to international leagues just because they don't want to support CUSA? Don't you think a second team would be needed to appeal to the rest of the fan base? Don't you think there would be demands for bringing the Galaxy back?

I give a lot of respect to Red Bull for building a stadium and spending money on their club, and I don't think fans are just going to pack up and leave. But I also agree that not only geographically but for club identity reasons, MLS is loosing potential fans in the largest market in the US. There is a reason why MLS is spending money on trying to bring a 2nd team to NY metro area. There is a reason why there was a clause in place when the franchise was sold. This was always in the plan.

 

There may be truth to what you say -- you'd have to poll New York area fans to find out for sure.

But I think the damage caused by the name "Red Bull New York" is mitigated by Red Bull's reputation as a sports sponsor. If you enjoy sports that allow direct sponsorship, chances are you're familiar with Red Bull. For example, Red Bull Racing has teams in Indy and NASCAR. They sponsor countless individual athletes, especially in "extreme" sports. There was that Red Bull Air Racing circuit, which was one of the coolest things I ever saw on TV. They have an entire website devoted to their sponsored sports (which, by the way, currently features NYRB as the top story.

Red Bull has gone to a lot of effort to be synonymous with sports, especially "cool" sports. So while you're correct that a sponsorship is not the same as a team name, when the company in question is tied this tightly to sports, it's just a small step.

------RM

 

I've given up on trying to convince people about the Jersey/New York thing, they just don't want to hear it because it doesn't mesh with their desire to keep sports fans they hate (New Yorkers) from having a team because they mistake it as a sense of entitlement.

The whole New York/New Jersey thing for the Red Bulls (*cringe*) was fine when they were just outside the city in East Rutherford. When they built Red Bull Arena out where the Devils and Nets play though, they solidified themselves as Jersey's team. It's where a vast majority of their attendees come from. That's how it is. Get over it.

 

For what is is worth. When I went to New York this summer I found it slightly easier to get to Red Bulls Area than to the Tennis at Flushing Meadows (Right across from CitiBank Park). The Path train is 15 min direct from Manhattan. I really don't see what the big deal is as it's closer to dt than most stadiums in the league.

 

That's nice.

 

I never said it wasn't, it certainly is accurate, but it doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with my position, which is that Red Bull found it easier to build in Newark than in New York, which I applaud MLS and Cosmos for working their asses off to try and do.

 

I would agree that RB New York is much easier to stomach than 'Pepsi New York' because they do own other sports teams and sports sponsorships. But soccer is a tribal kind of sport and it is all about representing your city or neighborhood in other parts of the world. It reminds me of how Peter Wilt talked about how Nike wanted to create a Chicago MLS team called the Chicago Rhythm with some neon colors and some kind of cartoon snake. I can say that it would have been much harder to support that goofy team than the Fire. Wilt wanted to create a classic looking crest that represented the city (Great Chicago Fire reference, city flag stars in the crest) and I think that went a long way for people to fall in love with the club. We feel like it represents our city and our history.

Like I said, I give Red Bull credit for stepping up and spending on that club. But I can also see how for many fans, it is tough to really fall in love with the club because it is an advertisement for a soft drink that some people don't like. Many of these younger fans who are growing up with wikipedia/youtube are rediscovering the history of the Cosmos, and the idea of a superclub with world class stars that represent their soccer history is something a lot of fans have fallen in love with. Now if it is economically feasible to actually build a stadium and club to live up to the Cosmos standards within MLS...I really don't know. But I don't think the debate is 100% about how close Harrison is to different parts of NYC. And I don't think you can say that RB should be selling out before MLS considers another club if the club themselves is what is putting some people off. Like I said, lets compare it to LA. If Galaxy was purchased in 2006 and rebranded to Chivas USA, would 100% of Galaxy fans still support Chivas Jr? And if those games only had 15-16k does that really represent the real capacity of MLS to succeed in that market? I think CUSA and RB are a bit of a niche brand. Some people will love it for different reasons, but they don't really represent the entire community the way other clubs do or try to do.

 

There IS a sense of entitlement about it. People in Queens have no problem going down to MSG to watch the Knicks but 15 more minutes on NJ Transit or PATH is just UNREASONABLE.

 

I think the distance and the cultural divide between NY/NJ is one aspect, but I think a larger aspect is the fact that not everyone wants to support Red Bull. Some do and some don't. But I don't think you can argue that Red Bull doesn't turn some people off the way that Chivas USA turns some people off.