The names have been changed to attracted the interested
Sports teams used to have naming conventions, but now it seems their titles are merely a marketing tool with which to be conjured.
Take the recent examples in the US.
Charlotte FC and St Louis City SC are the latest franchise identities revealed by Major League Soccer. These are traditional, slightly unimaginative English-style football names that launched with traditional, slightly unimaginative English-style football crests. Normally, this league demands buzz about anything it creates but these announcements garnered relatively few headlines, especially after Charlotte’s rumoured dalliance with “Town” did not materialise.
Contrast this to the fanfare surrounding NHL’s return to Seattle and the unleashing of the Kraken. According to the accompanying blurb, this gigantic sea monster with a fiery red eye will protect the Emerald City and pave the way to Stanley Cup success. And if it doesn’t it will still look great on the merchandise. The launch of the Seattle Kraken has been a profile-raising shot in the arm for hockey, a sport that has been struggling to maintain relevance in the traditional US hierarchy. Certainly, MLS believes it is gaining ground. However, in this instance, the NHL has gone for attention while MLS has plumped for authenticity. The latter has been trending this way for some time.
Since the Montreal Impact arrived in 2012, the league has brought in six FC/SCs (an important debate in itself), three Citys, two Uniteds and the exception are Sacramento Republic, who were already a well-established USL team.
This is a volte-face from the Clash, Mutiny, Rapids, Wiz and Burn that graced the inaugural season in 1996. The last two even changed their names to more traditional football titles a decade or so later. And it is all an anathema to the vintage glitz of the 1970s NASL with its Cosmos, Aztecs and Rowdies etc.
Of course, English football has never tolerated any such nonsense. Look at the fuss fans created when Hull City’s owner tried to add “Tigers”, their long-standing nickname, or the sneering attitude that persists towards the MK Dons’ emergence of out of the ashes of Wimbledon FC. We simply don’t do rebrands. Our 92 clubs are traditional, geographically-anchored and sensibly-monikered. They sell themselves on history, tradition and emotional ties.
But other less-moneyed English sports have had to adapt. Rugby Union’s class-based history already offered modern marketing gifts such as Saracens, Wasps and Harlequins. But since the Millennium, many teams have also added nicknames to their official title, some traditional some not. So now we see Leicester Tigers, Sale Sharks, Bristol Bears, Worcester Warriors and Exeter Chiefs in the top-flight. The current premier division of rugby league has Giants, Tigers, Dragons, Rhinos, Red Devils and Wolves.
English cricket has developed a split personality. For their first century, they represented counties, not cities and played in traditional ‘whites’. In the past couple of decades, US-style names and coloured ‘pyjamas’ have been used when they play the short-form version of the game. So Lancashire v Leicestershire and Essex v Sussex in the four-day Championship becomes Lightning v Foxes and Eagles v Sharks in the three-hour T20 Blast.
Then there is the Washington Football team, the NFL artists formerly known as the Redskins. The organisation have been tactically astute in changing their story. Not only by removing their controversial second name before the debate became overwhelming in a rapidly-changing socio-political environment but by taking their time over an alternative. This flipped negative attention to positive attention. The club are asking all-parties for feedback, setting up WashingtonJourney.com to show their progress and canvas opinion. And, if I was a die-hard supporter, I’d want to buy a Washington Football Team cap or jersey to commemorate this unique inbetween year. I was at Arsenal FC when they moved from Highbury after 93 years. Their commemorative, historic, only-for-that-season redcurrant shirt sold well, along with a whole line of merchandise under the “Final Salute” sub-brand.
My former employers are one of the few English team without a geographic reference in their name. However, when travelling into Europe, opposition teams would often denote these visitors as “Arsenal London”. It seemed that the city was an important anchor.
Yet, these days we are starting to question whether location matters at all. Data suggests fans are increasingly devotees of individual stars, not teams and I suspect global broadcasting patterns over the last few decades are to blame for my son’s football team training seeing as many boys turning up in Barcelona/Real Madrid shirts as Arsenal/Tottenham. Meanwhile, the esports outfits that he increasingly follows have taken their names from an entirely different pool – Liquid, Vitality, 100 Thieves plus, of course, Evil Geniuses and Ninjas in Pyjamas. That said, it was fascinating to hear about the attention garnered by the introduction of a new Shanghai-led franchise to the NBA2K League when I spoke to Andrew McNeill on the Sports Content Strategy podcast.
But there is a lesson from lockdown in all this. Professional sport, despite all its skill, drama and intensity, is nothing without the passion of the fans. That is why broadcasters have had to fake their noise and clubs have given them representation via cardboard cut-outs. Television always wants to purchase a “sporting spectacular” and that will never exist without the atmosphere fans create. This has always been understood but, especially in the last two decades, the actions of those in charge smack of complacency and the assumption of attendance. They have been banking on habit and history in every sense of the word. Covid-19 may rip off the Band-Aid and reveal scar tissue developed over decades of exploitation.
Names and places are not just words and locations. They are the ties that bind us to home and the notions that allow us to believe when all logic says we should not.
The watching and paying public must never be taken for granted. And the names they cherish must not be taken in vain.
