This week in Boston, the latest NWSL franchise revealed its name and colors.
It should have been a cause for celebration… and it would have been if the name hadn’t been so monumentally stupid.
Bos Nation FC, a nonsensical moniker chosen mainly because Bos Nation is an anagram for Bostonians, those who hail from Boston. Every part of the brand reveal was a failure – from the creepy video to a marketing campaign that has been described by some as transphobic.
Within a day, the club had issued a public apology.
“Thank you to everyone who has held us accountable for calling us to do better,” the club wrote in X. “We hear you and we will, together.”
From us to you. pic.twitter.com/ASHFHltb5n
— NWSL Boston (@NWSLBoston) October 16, 2024
An epic launch failure is new territory for NWSLwhich was founded in 2012. But observers of Major League SoccerAmerican male leaders are familiar with this sort of thing.
The league has a long and storied history of missing the mark with rebrands as it continues to reinvent itself. All remaining original MLS clubs have been renamed, some more than once. Even the clubs that joined the league long after its inception have been renamed.
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Boston NWSL club misses the mark with BOS Nation FC and marketing campaign
Some of them were successful: Sporting Kansas City performed a small miracle when they dropped their previous identity – the Kansas City Wizards – the same year they moved to a new stadium, becoming relevant and competitive almost overnight . Other renamings have been too minor to offend, such as the evolution of DC United’s crests or San Jose earthquakes.
But some have been truly awful – and one was so bad it got a fan arrested.
Here are the three worst reassignments in MLS history.
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BOS Nation, a publicity campaign gone wrong and an apology for the damage it caused
The original logo, a trio of construction workers, is arguably the most recognizable in MLS history. Designed by artist Peter Moore – the man behind Air Jordan sneakers, Adidas logos and American football denim kit — the coat of arms was unashamedly American, an elegant and unique design.
“The Crew name was just fueled by my desire to make this new league — and its teams — American,” Moore, who died in 2022. said Athletics in 2021. “I was convinced that a professional football league would fail if it was in the image of Manchester United, or Liverpool, or any of the traditional European clubs or leagues.”
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In Search of the Lost Crew of Columbus: A Journey from the Jumpman to the Houston Texans for the Truth
For years, the Crew embodied the logo, becoming one of the league’s hardest-working and toughest franchises, and they played in the league’s first football stadium.
Over the decades, the Crew became one of the only franchises in the league to retain its original identity and logo. For some, the league had passed them by. That soccer-specific stadium, among the most historically important soccer venues in the United States, became obsolete. When new owner Anthony Precourt changed the logo in 2013, there were no pitchforks and no angry crowds. His vision — a black-and-yellow circle that included design elements meant to represent the city of Columbus — was inoffensive. He made another small change, adding “Soccer Club” to the name. Some fans liked it.
However, Prekurt quickly fell out of favor. And by the time he announced his intention to move the crew to Austin, Texas, he had become a hated figure. The “Save the Crew” movement was one of the most remarkable stories in this history of American football. Crew fans organized and saved the franchise from relocation, with Precourt being sent to start an expansion franchise in Austin. The move strengthened the relationship between the crew and the city…
That’s why it was inexplicable when they rebranded again in 2021. The logo, shaped like the state flag of Ohio, looked like clip art, with no identity. More bittersweet was the associated name change. Only years after the fans “saved the crew”, the club decided to leave Columbus SC.
The outrage was immediate. Among the first to respond was the former Crew midfielder Justin Meramwho had accumulated 206 appearances.
This makes 0.0000 sense. The history of the club is most important, not another rebranding. Everyone in Columbus loves the Columbus Crew 👊🏼 ⚫️ https://t.co/zsCBJP23sD
— Justin Meram (@JustinMeram) May 9, 2021
The rebranding was prompted by the Crew’s new ownership: gas station magnates and NFL owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam. They were largely regarded as saviors, having taken the reins from Precourt and spearheaded the construction of a new stadium. Just two years into their ownership, the Crew won a league championship. But they messed up this renaming badly and held themselves accountable.
Eventually, the crew changed course, at least a little. They kept the ugly logo, but, more importantly, they went back to calling themselves The Crew of Columbus.
It’s an imperfect solution, but, for now, the Crew lives on.
The renaming of Columbus was dull, completely unnecessary and poorly executed – but it wasn’t offensively bad. Which brings us to the Chicago Fire.
No rebrand has been as poorly conceived and executed as this 2019 identity change. In their defense, no team has responded better to a failed rebrand than Chicago.
Soccer teams in the United States have long been named after natural disasters—think of the Dallas Tornado, the Houston Hurricane, or the Earthquakes, to name a few. However, Chicago Fire was the first club ever to be named after a man-made disaster, paying homage to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that burned most of the city to the ground.
When the club joined the league in 1997, the name was unique and the crest was among the best. Derived from the cross of Saint Florian—a symbol commonly used by fire departments across the United States—Fire general manager Peter Wilt helped create an identity that felt timeless and classic. Executives at MLS and at Nike, the club’s equipment supplier, wanted a different name, Chicago Rhythm, and an accompanying logo drawn from the 1990s fever dream of a pair of dueling yellow and purple Cobras. Wilt and Fire’s ownership backfired and Fire won.
However, the name had a massive downside that Wilt and the others could never have predicted. As the Internet became ubiquitous, the Fire sank further into search engine obscurity, drowned out first by the disaster of 1871 and then by a wildly popular NBC drama, Chicago Fire, which still bury the team very much. down the page. And by the time the club left suburban Bridgeview for downtown Chicago in 2019, a small group of executives thought a rebrand was in order.
What they achieved made Rhythm’s identity look tasteful. When the design hit social media, it was rightfully and roundly panned. The long-suffering Fire fan base, who at that point had endured a decade of insignificance and mismanagement on and off the field, were immediately drawn back.
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Digging deep into Chicago Fire’s poor renaming
The design—a mirrored triangle meant to embody the city’s rise from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire—made no sense. It was a low-res mishmash that looked eerily similar to the e logo Vancouver Whitecaps. Additionally, the triangles formed a crown of sorts, and that crown, along with its yellow color, evoked the logo of the Latin Kings, a ruthless street gang formed in 1950s Chicago.
And there was a slight change in the name of the club itself, as they migrated from SC to FC, replacing soccer with the more globally approved nomenclature.
— X – Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) November 21, 2019
At first, the club stood firm, saying that logos and rebrands are “judged in years, not days”. However, by the time current owner Joe Mansueto took over, the Fire plotted a different direction and enlisted the help of renowned designer Matthew Wolff, who created the club’s current crest.
They listened to fans and the community, most of whom asked for the return of the Florian cross, among other design elements. The new logo has much of the same timeless energy as the original.
CF Montreal
North of the border, the transformation of Canadian side CF Montreal ended with their fans leading a small revolt.
The Montreal Impact was founded in 1992, four years before MLS began playing and navigated a host of lower American soccer divisions during their first 15 years. The club was well regarded and supported locally, and when they made the jump to MLS in 2012, they adjusted their crest but kept their name.
The Impact’s original MLS identity included the fleur-de-lis, an easily recognizable symbol of French heritage.
During their time in MLS, the Impact earned a reputation as one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the league. with owner Joey Saputo sometimes perceived as a loose ball. The club put together a series of terrible seasons in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Saputo’s solution was to rename the club. In 2021, the Montreal Impact became Club de Foot Montreal — CF Montreal for short, changing their logo and colors on the boot.
“It’s hard to give up the things you love,” Saputo said. “But here’s the reality: to make an impact, we have to attract Impact.”
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Will becoming Club de Foot have an impact on Montreal?
Gone is the fleur-de-lis, replaced by a stylized snowflake. The boss wasn’t cruel at all, but the Montreal supporters were angry.
About 50 fans braved the February cold to protest outside the club’s home, Stade Saputo. Things quickly turned ugly when a supporter defaced a sign with the club’s new logo, almost certainly becoming the only person in MLS history to be arrested for protesting a rebrand.
The fans did not give up. For the first time in the club’s history, attendance began to suffer.
Saputo’s response, in 2022, was to reverse the renaming halfway: the club is still known as CF Montreal, but the colors reverted to the original blue and black and the club’s latest logo features the fleur-de-lis icon . It’s an imperfect solution, but it’s better than nothing.
(Featured images: Chicago Fire FC; Club de Foot Montreal)
