I have a new piece in Slate on the MLS Cup and why the league doesn’t do more to connect fans with American soccer history. MLS has had a lot of success marketing stars, but for various reasons—largely because it’s been so keen to distance itself from the failure of the NASL—it’s done very little to foster the kinds of traditions that could give the American game an identity beyond the latest branding campaign. American soccer history is a lot deeper and more interesting than most people realize; it’s 
full of great stories that fans have never been told. Fans, in the meantime, have consistently shown that they value tradition and history: see Portland fans protesting gratuitous changes to their shield, Seattle fans demanding to call their team the Sounders, fans all over the league building cultures around traditional supporter groups. If you were running MLS, why wouldn’t you want to strengthen those ties by emphasizing the league’s place in a larger narrative of American soccer history?
Then yesterday, a few hours after the piece went live, the Kansas City Wizards went and changed their name to “Sporting Kansas City,” a move that earned instant derision on Twitter and that threw the problem I was writing about into sharp focus. It’s increasingly obvious, especially since the World Cup, that the pool of American soccer fans is growing faster than the number of MLS fans—a lot of people who might otherwise be excited to watch an American soccer league are choosing to follow La Liga or the Premier League instead. Partly that’s because the standard of play in those leagues is higher, and in the short term, there’s nothing MLS can do about that. But in the league’s own analysis—Don Garber stressed this in his State of the League press conference on Tuesday—the other reason that fans are drawn to the Euro leagues and not MLS is “authenticity”: a sense that while the European leagues are “real,” the American league doesn’t really have a place either in American society or in international soccer culture. Calling a club “Sporting Kansas City” is a more or less blatant attempt to appeal to Europhiles by—however irrelevantly—connecting it to a historic club in Portugal.
Okay, but is it crazy to suggest that the best way to create “authenticity” is not to market a rebranding initiative that turns your club into a copy of a different club? That it might be better, and more, you know, authentic to build an identity out of the history and culture you already have? The league, or at least some of its teams, have decided that what Europhiles want is just the general feeling of Europeanness, so they’re turning out theme-park mimicry of European soccer culture. (“Sporting Kansas City” may be the only possible MLS club name that’s unintentionally funnier than “Real Salt Lake.”) My guess is that while Europhiles may enjoy the experience of seeing other countries’ sports cultures (I do, and I think that’s a good thing), what makes European soccer seem authentic to them, if that’s even the word, is that it has its own culture and history. There’s something there that grew out of the societies in which it was set, rather than being invented by a focus group in a stadium named after a bank.
American soccer isn’t English football and Archie Stark isn’t Dixie Dean. It would be wrong to suggest that the game has been as important in America over the years as it has been elsewhere. But it’s still the case that the U.S. has a soccer tradition a lot of countries would trade for, even countries that are far more committed to the sport—multiple high finishes in the World Cup, teams and rivalries going back decades and more. The game has roots here, and MLS would be serving itself and its fans better if it took a page from Seattle and Portland (two of the teams with the strongest traditions in the country, and two of the country’s most fervently supported teams) and looked for authenticity in those roots rather than by unpersuasively copying someone else’s.
Read More: Kansas City Wizards, MLS
by Brian Phillips · November 18, 2010
I absolutely disagree with you. Real Salt Lake is still much funnier.
@Scotian Nothing will ever touch James’s #futureMLSfranchise suggestion, “Borussia Kansasgladbach.”
You need like buttons on the comments, because that suggestion is epic. Epic!
Seems like if the MLS wants to microwave in a US soccer culture, they would be better off associating their teams with NAFBL and ASL teams. The rest of the professional sports make big money on throwback shirts. Pairing MLS and NAFBL or ASL teams in whatever random way couldn’t be much more random than adding Sporting or Real to their names, and would have the added bonus of reclaiming some authentic American soccer culture and history.
And, many of those shirts are just cool. I’d love to see the Union in a Bethlehem Steel FC kit.
Seems like the grass is always greener… it’s only a few years ago that, in one of the endless round of attempts to attract some public attention to English domestic cricket by changing the competition formats, the county one-day sides were all given names like the Kent Spitfires, the Nottinghamshire Outlaws, and the Surrey Lions. Which was presumably intended to give them a dash of American-style glitz and razzamatazz. Or something.
I also disagree with you. The logo leaves a lot to be desired, as does the color scheme, but as a “concept”, I’m not entirely against the re-brand.
I don’t see “Sporting Kansas City” as a blatant rip of Sporting Clube de Portugal. I think the re-brand has to do with turning the Wizards team/franchise into a true “Sporting Club”. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit. With rumors they are interested in acquiring/building rugby, lacrosse, youth soccer, and other athletic teams, along with your standard membership system, they are able to live up to the name as a sporting club. Financially, it also allows them to maximize the use of their stadium for as many days of the week as possible.
Granted, if they DON’T build teams for other sports, don’t have a membership system, then I agree 100%, the name is as hokey as all the others. But poor logo aside, this has the potential to be something different. In all honesty, the sporting club idea itself reminds me of a throwback to the Archie Stark days.
I think where they shot themselves in the foot the most is by going with “Sporting Kansas City” as opposed to “Kansas City Sporting Club”. That’s where the rip of the Lisbon-based team may show its colors, by organizing the phrase as it would be in the Romance languages, i.e. “Sporting Clube de Kansas City”. I think the English equivalent “Kansas City Sporting Club” would have resonated a lot better.
@Colin The merchandising opportunities would be amazing. I would pay a thousand dollars for these socks.
@Sean Kansas City Sporting Club would have been completely different, I agree. I realize that they’re trying to coin a name that they can franchise out across different sports, but there’s just no way you can call a soccer team “Sporting ____” and not have it come across as a reference to the already-existing Sportings, especially in a league that already has a Real Salt Lake and a Houston Dynamo. (At least the latter has ties to a couple of older Houston teams.) For one thing, the word “sporting” by itself is hardly ever used in the context of American sports.
@Brian Phillips @Colin
I’ve always wondered why more isn’t done with the throwback element. Perhaps it’s a copyright issue and there are several Pepe Pinton types lurking with paperwork for any defunct 70s franchise. That said, other leagues have embraced their colorful, less-than-stylish traditions and clothed thousands in the name of irony. Why not MLS?
@James T Also, the coolest ASL teams mostly disappeared in the 1920s and ’30s. I’d be surprised if anybody could claim the rights to the Boston Wonder Workers or Brooklyn Hakoah today.
@Brian Phillips @James T @Colin Not sure how to embed pictures in here, but there is some precedence. San Jose, in 2004:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16597032&postcount=7
Tedious copy editor’s “Actually, I think you’ll find” note: Sporting Gijón in Spain is the ur-Sporting, founded the year before the Lisbon one.
That aside, I’m puzzled why they went the Sporting route when “Kansas City City” – the team so good they named it twice – was staring them in the face.
1. The name “Wizards” sucked out loud. Most KC fans, even those who don’t like “Sporting”, don’t seem to indicate that they’ll miss “Wizards”.
2. Kansas City didn’t have a successful NASL franchise; while “Spurs” would actually be a decent name, it doesn’t have any resonance in KC. Plus, it would invariably be accused of “Europosing” anyway.
3. There is no doubt that “Sporting Kansas City” is tricky for American sports fans to wrap their heads around. So, too, is the very nature of what they say they’re trying to do.
@Steve M In fairness, it’s mostly hard to wrap your head around what they’re doing because they’re out there comparing it to Facebook.
As Brian says, if the KC operation really is going to have sections for different sports, then the name – if a bit cheeky – at least makes some sense. The ones that really merit our derision are the bolt-on me-too pseudo-European ones.
“Proper” European club names have a story behind them – “United” because they were result of a merger of two clubs, “Wanderers” because they had no permanent facilities to call their own, “Real” because the club was granted a royal warrant by King Alphonse XIII, and so on. Those names aren’t mere branding exercises, selected by focus groups to leverage broad-based appeal blah blah; they’re names that reflect the clubs’ particular local history – just like “Packers”, “Steelers” and other “proper” U.S. sports-franchise names.
When choosing Old World names, the MLS teams seem to prefer non-anglophone names, presumably for glamour and exoticism. This 1) makes them sound irredeemably silly, 2) means they’ve missed out on incredibly easy opportunities. For example, do you a) name a Texas football team after the sports society and football teams set up by the Soviet secret police, or b) call them Rangers?
LA Galaxy, on the other hand, is a great name.
@Shane Murray The problem with using local features for names seems to be that as franchises tend to move around, you’re bound to end up with such “Huh?” ones as Utah Jazz.
@Shane Murray To me, LA Galaxy is great because it’s honest.
@Archie_V True, but “Rangers” is still a proper football name, so it sounds much, much less stupid than Utah Jazz, a name I’ll admit has always bemused me. If they’re going to move around surely most of the teams in the MLS should just call themselves “Wanderers” and “Rovers”? Actually, “Kansas City Rovers” sounds pretty good.
That said, it’s equally easy to come up with stupid sounding names from English clubs. I’d like to see these:
Denver & Diamonds
San Jose Stanley
New England Albion
Harrisburg Harriers
Galveston Villa
New Orleans Orient (fine so long as they play in the Eastern half of whatever city they move to)
@James T “More stars than there are in the heavens!”
All they need to do now is change their motto to “Football Gratia Footballis”
and go bankrupt.
What was wrong with Wiz?
There’s a similar situation going on in Australian football (soccer) where the relaunch of a new league – the A-League – five years ago is still finding its feet. Personally I think they are going about things with a bit more craft than the MLS though.
It is traditionally in Australian sport to have a team name representing a place with some sort of mascot (ie. Brisbane Roar, Melbourne Victory, Perth Glory) but at the same time there are teams going for something more specific to football (ie. Sydney FC, Adelaide FC) in a bid to distance themselves from the other codes.
The major common factor for both leagues is a relative lack of history. Rivalries take time to naturally form, they can’t be forced, and tacking a European name like ‘Sporting’ or ‘Real’ just looks silly. Thankfully the A-League is going about things a little better and despite a lack of quality is growing in popularity and interest year-on-year.
Apologies, that should read “Adelaide United”.
I just noticed the city names on the Missouri map. Nice work.
It’s quite ironic that as the MLS preaches about “roots” via soccer specific stadiums, the sense of history with club names goes through “re-branding” every five or six years. In fact, Kansas City for me is still the Wiz, Preki is captain and just scored against Brazil for the USMNT, and I am cold and alone in Arrowhead stadium.
I’m still holding my breath for next year, when MLS becomes the MEPL – the “Minor English Premier League.” Or perhaps “Ma Miga.” Probably not the Merie Ma.
@Shane Murray I prefer the Kansas City Spurs (if we really REALLY want to go back in time)
Have you ever given much thought to the US youth academy system/ This is one European-style tradition that goes waaaay under the radar and is perhaps the single most redemptive aspect of US Soccer and its future.
Discuss.
I’m not sure what this country’s naming “tradition” is when we have names like “Reds”, “White Sox”, “Athletics” and “Packers”. Green Bay’s logo is a “G”. Two baseball teams (three if you use the Reds original full-name) are named after pairs of socks. A more generic name that calls more attention to the city than an arbitrary mascot (The Wizard of Oz didn’t take place in Missouri, and you can’t even SEE the Milky Way from greater Los Angeles – where I live).
I think you’re also ignoring the fact that this is a brand to go beyond the MLS team.
…didn’t finish my thought. I meant to say that a more generic name that emphasises the city over an arbitrary mascot IS the way to tie it to the community it was spawned from instead of imagery of lions, tigers and bears.
It’s funny now, but sad in the long run. The difference is that the MLS team will always be seen as a copycat or replica of the original European team. MLS teams should continue American naming traditions, even if such traditions include total innovation, which is also an American tradition.
I prefer names that make the team seem to be bigger than the city. To hell with names like Hull City Football Club, Queens Park Rangers, Preston North End FC. I prefer a name like Arsenal, even if I don’t care much for the club. I’d take Predators, Hurricanes, Devils, Lightning, etc. over Cities or Counties or Sportings or Uniteds any day.
The interesting thing is that in commentary and daily speech, people are more like to use the nickname – Red Devils, Gunners, Tricky Trees, etc, which are closer to American naming conventions.
When you use artificial (inorganic) names like Real or Sporting that mean nothing to supporters, you leave them with little to work with. The image of the team, the logo, the kit, the colors, the flags, banners and slogans are all part of a team’s identity, more than tactics and playing style, which can change with the staff.
Interestingly though, from a wider perspective, this continues another kind of American naming tradition, which produced names like New York and New Hampshire, even though I prefer the one that gave us names such as Mississippi and, you guessed it, Kansas.
@Archie_V Sporting Hee Haw, then?
In what sense are any of the MLS teams actual “clubs”, anyway?
@Sean the problem with this is that a “sporting club” is a traditional british idea exported around the turn of the 19th century to foreign countries by ex-pats. we don’t have a tradition of “sporting” clubs in the united states. we DO have, by comparison, a tradition of “athletic” clubs – NY athletic club, LA athletic club, etc. calling them the kansas city athletic club would have been more “organic” (to use a buzz-word) and would have been a cool nod to the region’s sports history.
It may be my exposure to Sporting Fingal (in the League of Ireland) but Sporting KC doesn’t sound too bad. Sure, it’s a product of a cynical marketing exercise (as if there was any other type) but it does sound better to my ears than ‘traditional’ US team names like Wizards, Tornadoes, Condors, etc
But what interests me is Matt’s comment. Are MLS clubs genuine “clubs” in the European sense?
Here you go Don, say it with me.
“*CITY NAME* Football Club.”
Rinse. Repeat.
“*CITY NAME* Football Club.”
Ahh…isn’t that much better?
“Locomotive Mont…”
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We already jumped the shark with the ;real; SLC.
Sporting Club is popular in many, many countries in various eastern europe cities.. sportski klub and so forth in their native tongues.
Sporting Club, Club Sportif however is used only by sport organizations that have more sports under their umbrellas.
Sporting sounds incomplete and it is.
Even the one you probably refer to Sporting Lisbon IS NOT the teams real name (but most commonly used in english), which is Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Sporting Clube de Braga is another popular team, Sporting Clube de Goa, Sporting Clube de Borbense. Like I said, Sporting CLub and other linguistic variations made perfect sense.
Sporting by itself makes sense in no language.
Then again, most american city names are taken from other countries, I dont think anyone will get upset ovr team names.
Not when the team will fold within 5 years.
Yes, America has a soccer history. I’m not sure what MLS is supposed to do with that though. Other than [your] one suggestion of naming the Cup after an historical figure rather than a current investor, I don’t really see much here other than an interesting marketing campaign.
Certainly SJE, Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver can benefit from keeping a connection to their NASL roots. I don’t quite see what the U.S. reaching the semi finals of the 1930 World Cup has to do with Colorado vs Dallas or a perceived crackdown on raucous supporters. Isn’t the whole supporters culture itself an attempt at creating a sense of authenticity by borrowing from other nations? Were NASL teams grassroots clubs built on a foundation of American soccer traditions? Was the NASL somehow less corporate than MLS?
If [your] point is that, “MLS feels much more corporate than leagues in other countries,” it’s hard to disagree. It is. By design and necessity. If there was a grassroots American soccer culture before MLS then it wouldn’t have been necessary to invent MLS. Fifty years from now, though, the supporters will have molded MLS into something different, something American, even with European names and Latin tifo. MLS could do a better job of highlighting the history of soccer in America but I honestly don’t think there’s enough there to build an entire league and culture around.
– LIFTED FROM BIGSOCCER [I think it's worth copy-and-pasting here]
@Charlie Fiction What the 1930 World Cup has to do with Colorado-Dallas is exactly what I say it has to do with Colorado-Dallas in the piece, which is that the more Americans know about American soccer history, the more important the MLS Cup will be to them, because it will be part of a larger tradition. MLS’s current marketing approach gives you the sense that it only matters if Donovan and Henry are playing in it.
It’s also the case that one of the major obstacles MLS faces in converting new fans is the persistent sense that soccer is a foreign sport, that there’s something un-American about it. It therefore seems in MLS’s best interest to let as many people as possible know that the sport actually has deep roots here, and that the American game has generated a lot of great stories, even if it doesn’t have the same cultural centrality as football or baseball.
As for how they might do that, I’m not a marketing director, but I’d like to see them encourage clubs to stress their links to local soccer history (rather than, say, forcing Seattle fans to petition to keep the name “Sounders” after the execs tried to scrap it); stop treating “authenticity” as something to borrow from Europe (Real Salt Lake, for God’s sake); encourage rather than oppose their supporter groups (and yes, it’s true that they’ve done a better job in this respect for the last couple of years, and good for them); use whatever bully pulpit they have (via marketing or special events or whatever) to tell people the story of some of the older teams and players; and yes, enshrine some of that history in things like the names of trophies and stadiums, which are more important than the guys at Big Soccer seem to realize.
I’m not talking about some kind of major change of direction for MLS, only an approach that would supplement the current star-driven marketing strategy. In general, it’s really weird to be attacked as a know-nothing “Manchester United groupie” when I’m the one saying the league should be less Euro and more in tune with its American roots.
@Brian Phillips A few things:
(1) I agree with you very much on embracing and celebrating the narrative that already exists for soccer in the States. It’s a shame that sponsor money (Nike’s influence, mostly) was so necessary to MLS’s existence in 1994-1996 that teams were forced to adopt ill-conceived and historically-incongruous logos and brands. As such, I’m pleased to see many of the new franchises (SEA, VAN, SJ Ver. 2.0, and POR) pay homage to the soccer legacy in their respective cities. It’s respectful to the existing fans and honors the sacrifices and memories those soccer communities share. I hope this trend is soon represented in the league’s marketing and relationship with the supporter groups. As someone who has lived in three MLS markets and been involved with the SGs at each, the league made life miserable for us for about 10 years. However, the front offices ARE becoming more receptive to SG wishes and I think that’s represented in the stands at virtually every MLS venue now.
(2) I’m sorry that someone on BigSoccer (though not in the the post I pasted) called you a “Manchester United Groupie.” Being a regular reader of your work , that is, of course, neither a useful or accurate epithet. A lot of the defensiveness on BigSoccer is born of an exposure to a relentless stream of soccer scribes advocating changes to a league we’ve all grown to love. We don’t love it ’cause we think it has the highest standard of play or ’cause it is run the way an ideal league should be governed and administered. But the league is ours and we try our best to create a good atmosphere and encourage our players even while other soccer fans laugh at our team names and the error-prone play. Whether the view is right or wrong, many fans view this advocacy for change as, “This league isn’t good enough for a REAL soccer/football fan.” They take it as a personal affront. This is an emotional reaction of limited utility, so I believe most will drop it eventually.
(3) I really liked the last paragraph in your reply:
“I’m not talking about some kind of major change of direction for MLS, only an approach that would supplement the current star-driven marketing strategy… I’m the one saying the league should be less Euro and more in tune with its American roots.”
I’ll just close by saying that when owners and the league refuse to acknowledge this history that we both wish would be more revered, we’ll continue to build traditions and atmosphere on our own — supporting domestic soccer in this country. I wish the league wasn’t so myopic and eager to take shortcuts toward authenticity, but they’ve had some missteps. I’ll tell you who won’t take shortcuts: the SGs. What else are we supposed to do?
@Charlie Fiction Well said, all of it.
@Brian Phillips BTW, NPR’s Stephan Fetchit or whatever his name is completely ripped off your Slate piece on ATC today. Unless you had some kind of “arrangement,” that is.
@Zak You’re right. When I read this, I was wondering if it was Brian that was on NPR since I couldn’t remember the name of the guy that was on.
Whilst I understand the point you’re trying to make regarding having MLS get in touch with the larger narrative of US soccer history, I can only expect apart from us soccer nerds who’ve already read the literature and in folks older than me (Sorry, my first memory was the ’86 World Cup and first match attended was PSV-Ajax in 1989), the general MLS-watching American Soccer Public(tm) to not get terribly jazzed up about it and, at worst, see an effort by MLS to artificially give history it frankly doesn’t have. In some ways, I really like the fact that MLS acts as though soccer was invented in the US in 1994, as it allows the league to create its own history, whether smart (The glory that was the name Tampa Bay Mutiny) or not so smart (The travesty that was/is Chivas USA) without trying to hitch itself to something that it is only connected to via the game that is played. To be honest, the current vibe of nostalgia toward the NASL feels more in the current fashion of retro kitsch aimed at fleecing 30-somethings of their spare cash than trying to make an honest historical connection to the sport.
Though if there is anything we need to bring back from the halcyon days, perhaps Danny Blanchflower in the booth doing his best impression of his days as a USA commentator for CBS would suffice instead of that utter tart John Harkes.
@ScoJo77
The Packers have a G on their helmet because of they are from Green Bay.
Those names that you mentioned are named precisely more or less because of some historical tie, not tradition. Not in the romanticized sense of English football, where “roots” can traced backed to Industrial Age immigration (read: Soccernomics), but more so in the fact that those teams who’s names you find amusing actually have a purpose in being named the way they are. Unlike animals and mythical creatures, the Utah Jazz originated in New Orleans, hence, the name. Los Angeles Lakers moved from the Great Lakes region, the Steelers are named after Pittsburgh’s steel manufacturing reputation, and so on.
So, what I’m trying to say, is that, while a majority of expansion teams (Oklahoma City Thunder) of the three main American sports will continue with this branding routine, history is entrenched in the name and identity of certain professional sports teams in the U.S. (Green Bay Packers)
This seems to be the true American way of naming teams, and should translate into genuine tradition and identity of American soccer teams, for American soccer fans as well. A proper balance between modern identity and traditional history would seem to be the proper fit for naming MLS teams, as their claim in returning to “roots” despite the whole Sporting KC fiasco seems a little bit delusional. (Ex: Real Salt Lake)
BTW, I’m guessing the Galaxy isn’t arbitrarily names either, as the team IS based in Los Angeles. Anyone who knows anything about American sports and cities and culture (especially in L.A) , won’t need me to elaborate on this, but if I do…..
Hint: Why are Arsenal’s players referred to as Gunners?
Precisely.
Sorry, but to follow up, sticking with American naming traditions (LA Galaxy) that have meaning (LA Galaxy) will prove to be far more appealing to MLS fans and those who discount MLS as a poor man’s BPL, which it isn’t, but is on some levels.
MLS needs to find it’s own identity without resorting to ripping off not only names but traditions.And what is the first indicator of identity to the general public? Names. MLS, an American born soccer league, needs American names that have American history, that is relevant to America, and would appeal to American fans.
@John Surely the problem is that no-doubt-depressingly-expensive research with focus groups has shown that risible names like Sporting KC or Real Salt Lake do appeal to American fans. The thought process is presumably that if MLS clubs are to have any hope of being taken seriously on the world stage, then they need to act like the established European clubs in every way possible – “when in AC Roma,” and all that.
@John I mean A.S. Roma. (I evidently can’t tell my A.S. from my Malmö.)
@Archie_V
It sounds like the approach they are taking is trying to model the MLS after top tier football leagues.
But that only goes so far. Copying European trends will only affect how it is viewed from the outside, yet the fans who actually watch the games are still given a mediocre level of talent.
Not to mention, the youth academy system in place at clubs like Barca, Ajax, and Arsenal provide a vehicle for more potential talent, something the MLS clubs will have a hard time copying.
So in the end, you can dress up clubs and give them Euro names, but the fact remains as long as the skill and talent in the MLS is the way it is, no fancy Euro name given to a club is going to change the overall marketability of the league.
Do MLS clubs have salary caps like other American sports leagues do? Because if so, there is another dynamic for competition with leagues abroad. Unless a billionaire oil tycoon is planning on buying a club and shelling out big bucks for big names, the MLS level of talent will most likely resemble the NFL, where parity is central to the overall effectiveness of the league.
I’m still waiting for ‘Racing of Tampa Bay’ then maybe I’ll get into some MLS…
As a fan of Real Salt Lake I dream that they had named the team the Salt Lake Highlanders and had the team led out everygame by a kilt wearing badass guy playing a warsong on the bagpipes. As soon as the crowd heard the first note of the bagpipes they would start to roar and the team would come out of the tunnel. As a player and a fan that would get me fired up!!