Wednesday 18 Nov 2020

Pretty cool that KG Jr. is investing in the Sounders. Unlike years past or historically, baseball guys or rather players , coaches and owners always seemed a little threatened by soccer presence on America's sports landscape..

 

Chicago Fire to announce another logo redesign, according to sources

https://theathletic.com/2205425/202...cording-to-sources/?source=emp_shared_article

 

Austin FC has revealed their primary jersey.. It is stripey.

Something new is rising in ATX, y’all! #VERDE

🛒 Grow the legend in 2021: https://t.co/iIGRUcPpY5 pic.twitter.com/uymMVVQIWC

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) November 18, 2020

 

Thought it would be the Sting...

 

Nah, the Sting is dead, let them be other than the occasional retro night. The Fire is and was a strong brand, but the organization lost its way. I will say at least this ownership is willing to try and right the ship, even if it doesn't always get things right the first time.

 

Why? I mean does it have any actual weight in the city? The Sting's best attendance year was better than only one of the Fire's (2019). It isn't like the Cosmos or the Whitecaps or even the Earthquakes which had good crowds and were known in their regions. It might hold some memory with some people in the area that were alive during the NASL years but I'm pretty sure most people in Chicago would be more familiar with the Fire than the Sting.

 

I know it was a long time ago but I read just last week somewhere on the forum they were thinking of reviving the old Sting name and logo if an expansion team came along I think in the USL though.

The Sting had a great record and were very successful outdoors. They also had the best team in the NASL after the Cosmos in my opinion and did ok indoors too with Granitza at the helm...

Their attendance was ok in 4-5 year span but then its not like too many other franchises did that much better or even lasted longer in either the NASL or MISL as teams came and went...



I thought they had a cool logo too...

 

Its well past time for forgetting about old NASL team names.

When MLS launched, the discussion had some validity; the league had existed as recently as 10 years prior and even local fans who weren't particularly interested would at least know the name.

But at this point, come on. Its been 35 years. How many of the whopping 8000 people who bothered to go to games arent retired to Florida, moved to Seattle, are dead, became cloistered monks, whatever ?

If you held a reunion of everyone who was there and promised free booze and hookers, you probably couldnt get 500 people.

Those old names mean nothing whatsoever to todays soccer fans. And I say that as a die hard Rochester Lancers fan.

 

The Sounders, Caps and Timbers all went with the history. As I recall Don Garber didn't even want to use the Sounders and the fans voted the name in. I doubt any of their 40,000 fans in the year 2009 ever attended an NASL game when the team folded in 1983. Same goes for the Timbers and Whitecaps.

The Rochester Lancers folded 40 years ago and were rebooted in 2011 in the Major Arena Soccer League. The NASL 2 relaunched 9 years ago and bought all of the licenses for all the old team name and logos as I recall. The Strikers and Rowdies were revived and they folded 25-30 years as well. Same goes for the Tulsa Roughnecks who just recently went with their new team and still not sure why they had to rename the club.

Heck even the old ASL , Bethlehem Steel F.C. which folded 90 years ago in 1930, revived their brand. I doubt anyone remembered them. Obviously there is a reason on why the old club names were being reused.

 

Maybe they'll finally go with Chicago Rhythm???

 

What was the point of wanting to name them the Rhythm?

Was it a reference to a Jazz band?

 

Nike thought it would be cool back in '98. As usual, Nike was wrong.

 

Yeah I remembered it was a Nike thing. They were way off on that one.

Good thing the investors ignored their suggestions and went with the Fire...

 

Most Colorado soccer fans remember the Caribous of Colorado, because, well, how could you not with those jerseys. But outside of the fringe I doubt many of them remember anything about the team. And I don't think many remember that prior to the Caribous there was an earlier NASL team, the Denver Dynamos. The most notable thing about the Dynamos is that they only lasted one year before moving to Minnesota and becoming the more memorable Kicks.

 

A friend of mine played for Aurora Pro Patria 1919 youth team.



He said they would go to school in the morning and training in the afternoon and never got paid a dime. Never even got water or oranges like we all get or got in the youth days in the states.

Today, kids of reserve teams are playing on mostly synthetic turf but in those days or in the 80-'s and 90's, it was on dirt fields with rocks, glass and gofer holes. Arrrgghh!

 

Uhh... Yes, but in all three cases the MLS team replaced a lower division club that had been using the name for 10-15 years, so not exactly an apples to apples comparison. So while very few that attended a game in 2009 ever attended a NASL game, a good number had likely attended lower division games.

 

Comparing apples and oranges the USL with less than 2, 3 or 4k fans on average?

I doubt the majority of their MLS fans attended or even cared about any of those USL games.

Certainly not the majority of the Sounders fans who went from an average of 3k in 2008 during the last season of the USL to an average of 30k, 36k , 38k & 43k respectively is successive MLS seasons.

Also, the Sounders name still stems back to the NASL not the USL so whichever way you look at it, the old league still gets the recognition for that.

I forget the initial names they wanted but I believe the fans were the ones who wrote wanting the Sounders name and logo as Don Garber wanted other names and never even suggested or mentioned the old name.

 

You probably aren't wrong with the Sounders, but even if people weren't attending games, the name was still alive and well. Particularly among the people that voted in the naming poll... But, again, the difference here is that the Chicago Sting has been a dead name for coming up on 40 years, while the Whitecaps, Sounders, and Timbers were living brands when they were named.

 

Well, maybe 32 years as the Sting folded in 1988. Anyway, I understand it was a long time ago but the NASL's soccer history and legacy is still indoctrinated regardless of how the under 40 somethings want to say its not. There is a reason on why the NASL 2 relaunched in 2011. Aside from the Cosmos, the same can be said for the Tulsa Roughnecks, the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers , Rochester Lancers, San Diego Sockers and Tampa Bay Rowdies. I mean many of those team names were long gone but they were revived for a reason. Why were the Roughnecks revived only a few years ago? Obviously, someone remembered their history so they went with their team name again. Its actually sad that they had to rename them with another FC and drop the Roughnecks name. Still don't get why they did that.

 

And how is NASL 2 and all of those teams doing nowadays?

But anyways, at this point, the Chicago Fire have been around longer than the Sting did and, likely, have larger name recognition than the Sting.

 

This.

There's a reason (well, several reasons) we wanted to stay with Minnesota United rather than a return to the Minnesota Kicks.