With Seattle soon to take receipt of a Major League Soccer team, folks have been wondering:
What are they gonna call it?
Some want to stick with our minor league team’s name, Seattle Sounders. Team brass, however, are looking for something with a little more international appeal. But the recently-released finalists aren’t amazing the fans, it seems.
The finalists are… Seattle Alliance, Seattle Republic and Seattle FC. The “FC” stand for “football club,” in case you were wondering.
“Good Lord these suck,” wrote one online Seattle P-I reader, among many upset about the names. “The Seattle Alliance sounds like my health care plan.”
[…]
“We want to start a new tradition and a new direction and we’d like our name to reflect our attempt to have a global connection on and off the field,” said MLS Seattle part-owner and general manager Adrian Hanauer, who also owns the Sounders. “I love the Sounders brand and the Sounders history. That will always be a part of Seattle soccer. … This is a new team in a new league and we want to start fresh. … This is a good opportunity for our fans to choose our name.”
Unlike other sports, soccer teams don’t necessarily have specific nicknames the same way American teams do. The dominant team in Britain is the Manchester United Football Club, or Man Utd. for short. Their nickname is “The Red Devils,” but you don’t hear it used much. My team is their crosstown rival Manchester City. Some refer to them as “The Citizens,” “The Blues,” or just “City.”
Here are City supporters in action, singing their song, “Blue Moon”:
As far as I’m concerned, name the team Seattle FC and be done with it. That’ll be the official name for the box score, but let the fans call them what they will. (I think we should steal “Blues”) Let the fans make up their own chants, their own songs, their own rivalries. For Premier League teams, all of these things have arisen over the hundred plus years of their existence. When Seattle FC takes the field, fans will put their own mark on the team.
Oh, come now, Will. We can certainly do better than these.
How about:
Seattle Baristas
Seattle Jammers (for your traffic)
Seattle Yuppies
Puget Sound Suburbanites (because almost nobody actually admits to living in Seattle)
Oh, and we can already have a team song (with apologies to Tom Lehrer)
Fight fiercely, Seattle, fight, fight, fight
Demonstrate to them our skill
Albeit they possess the might
Nonetheless we have the will
How we shall celebrate our victory
We shall invite the whole team up for Tully’s coffee
Kick that spheroid down the field
And fight, fight, fight
Fight fiercely, Seattle, Fight, fight, fight
Impress them with our prowess, do
Oh, fellows, do not let our green town down!
Be of stout heart and true
Come on, chaps, fight for Seattle’s glorious name
Won’t it be peachy if we win the game, oh, goody
Let’s try not to injure them
But fight, fight, fight – Let’s not be rough, though
Fight, fight, fight – And do fight fiercely
Fight, fight, fight
(Ok, it limps a bit, but then, so do most of the teams.)
FC Seattle Geoducks
Go clams! Stick out your neck for our team.
to steal from TESC.
or to steal from UCSC: the FC Seattle Banana slugs
I happen to like the Sounders – good name and it is descriptive (Puget Sound).
Of course we could name for local businesses:
FC Seattle 5.0 (with new versions a year late and costly)
FC Starbucks (high priced but a bitter taste is left in your mouth after a game)
FC Dreamliners (or flatliners if you look at the stock price)
FC Costco (buy 10 teams for the price of one and throw out the rest ’cause the basement is full)
FC Spotted Owls (sports teams in Seattle are going extinct)
FC Discovery Institute (We will just make up the team – but it will be designed intelligently)
They should be called “The Sounders”.
BTW, Manchester United FC is not the dominant team in Britain. They are a dominant team, one of four that includes Arsenal FC (nicknamed “The Gunners”), Chelsea FC (“The Blues”) and Liverpool FC (“The Reds”).
That’s why most people, given the choices presented, have picked “Seattle FC”, which allows us to nickname the team “The Sounders” whether management uses that name officially or not.
How about the Pansy Football Club of Cascadia?
Just so there is no confusion with a real football team.
I say we call them the “Sonics.”
How about the ‘Seattle Latte-Sipping Limpwrists’?
@2 – Great ideas and the reasons behind the names LMAO! Thanks for a friday laugh!
I second “Banana Slugs”, those things terrify people not from around here.
We could call the team the Seattle Slimeys and their team colors could be yellow and black and just think of the unique team swag that could be created.
@8 – hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Why not the Seattle Sounders?
The Seattle Ferries (A tribute to help the moral of that ailing transportation system).
The Seattle Space Needles (Landmark tie in).
The Seattle Sinkers (Bring in the fishing fans).
The Seattle Punks (Music and/or attitude).
The Seattle Schultz (several tie ins there and maybe some money, can’t you hear the crowds chanting).
The Seattle Skinks (always a favorite).
I need to think on this some more,Yow!
Get real! Names must reflect the character of the community:
– Seattle Consensus Builder – “Together, let us bring peace to the pitch.”
– Seattle Liberal – “Keeping score is so elitest and unfair; bring proportional representation to sports!”
– Seattle Lee – “Pee in the cup? Sports should be mind expanding.”
– Seattle Greens – “Walk only; do not run – limit the exhaling of greenhouse gasses.”
– seattle city council – “They’re coming to take us away, haha, hoho, hehe…”
– Seattle Super Sonics – “Now the only Sonics in town!”
– Seattle Lite Rail – “Give us billions of public $$$ without any…uhm…track record.”
– Seattle HA – “$%&*&+%#!~&%^$%&$*^&%^$%^$%*()^(&*&!!!”
– Seattle Foreigner – “Well, isn’t that what most of us are?”
– Seattle Leftist – “Comrade Referee, the people’s proletariat commisariate demands you award all goals to us!”
– Seattle 43rd – “All Chopp all the time!”
– Seattle Responsible Plan – “We quit, you win – we’re running off the field now. He he!”
– Seattle The Darcy – “Rules? There are rules? Like, unfair that I can’t use my hands!”
– Seattle Weather – “Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes…”
– Seattle Attitude – “We are a real city! We are! Please believe us!”
– Seattle Googies – “Denny’s anyone?”
– Seattle Tent City – “Give us hundreds of thousands of tax $$$ or we’ll reproduce like rabbits!”
– Seattle Boeing – “Que voulez-vous dire que ce n’est pas l’avion que vous avez demandé?”
– Seattle Microsoft – “Buy or die!”
– Seattle Reality – “Why are there no fans in the stands?”
Just a few thoughts – no charge.
The Piper
@12 – very well thought out! Loved them! ;-)
Seattle Republic makes some sense because of the fan influence scheme that Drew Carey wants to implement.
What will likely end up happening is given two strange choices and one less imaginative, middle of the road choice is that we’ll settle for Seattle FC and then use some supporter nicknames, probably the “Sounders” not the “blues.”
The name for a FOOTball t4am is obvious:
Seattle SASQUATCh
or Seattle Bigfoot
of course we could use a bit of humor:
Seattle SQUEEL
Seattle Slurp
Seattle Skid
Seattle SQUID
Seattle Slide
Seattle Stoners
That’s spot on. Seattle FC “the blues”.
Sorry Piper, but I can remember my uncle taking me to the Kingdome when I was about 9 or so for a midseason Sounders match against the Los Angeles Aztecs (won on a late Steve Davies goal, his second of the match), and the place was packed to the rafters. And the next spring, Port Angeles went bonkers and nearly overflowed Civic Field when the Sounders played a preseason match against (IIRC) a team from Quebec City. The Seattle-Tacoma area has supported soccer for quite some time, and not just the original Sounders, or the current version either. Anyone remember the Tacoma Stars of the old MISL? T-Town supported that team right until the bitter end, and when Stan Naccarato finally pulled the plug on the Stars, the whole league folded right after. And they’ll continue to support the game as well. And as for a name…….
SOUNDERS, SOUNDERS, SOUNDERS, GODDAMMIT!
@18…BJ…
Everyone comes out for the initial viewing of the two-yoked egg; freak shows sell tickets once, but after awhile the novelty wears off.
Several decades ago everyone claimed that bringing Pele to the U.S. would mean soccer would take off. Not! More like DOA.
Americans support baseball, football, and even basketball because they’re indigineous to the country; soccer is a foreign import and will remain foreign to most U.S. sports fans.
You can bend it any way you choose, but after the novelty wears off this latest venture will go the way of all the others…cast upon the ash heap of history.
The Piper
Piper, the Sounders were around for several years before that match I went to (which was about ’78, maybe ’79), and lasted until the NASL’s demise in ’83 or ’84. And the original Sounders were one of the better-supported teams in the league in terms of attendance. The same is true of the Tacoma Stars, as well as the current Sounders, though in the latter’s case, it didn’t hurt that they won (IIRC) 2 of the last three USL First Division championships. People support winners, y’know. And don’t forget that until the Seahawks got good in the last few years, the Qwest Field attendance record was held by the Manchester United – Glasgow Celtic friendly that was one of the first events held in the stadium (though that was aided by large contingents of supporters of both clubs coming down from Canada).
The original rumors around the new franchise were that Hanauer and his ownership group (led by Joe Roth and yes, Drew Carey) would take the Sounders lock, stock and barrel into MLS, and that the rights to the USL-1 franchise would be sold to another group, preferably in the Northwest. The current Sounders would play a ‘final’ season in USL-1 before moving up to MLS for 2009 (a promotion in the rest of the soccer world). Now upcoming events seem a little murky. But in the long run, Seattle will have a team that will make at least a few people forget about the Carpetbaggers……er, Sonics.
The Northwest loves soccer, Piper, and has for a long time. Let’s see, oh yes, not too far from my old house in Olympia, there’s a street named for Lacey native Kasey Keller, longtime goalkeeper for the US national team (currently plying his trade for Fulham in the English Premiership, and rumored to be joining the new Seattle MLS club when it opens up for business in 2009). And if I remember correctly, I believe that Keller got his street before the only other pro athlete to be so honored in Washington got his, that being Edgar Martinez.
Soccer isn’t a passing fad, Piper. Synchronized swimming, now that’s a passing fad.
One last thing before I go to bed (playing the late shift at the Atlantis PLUS driving my overnight courier route makes Joe a day-sleeper). Americans take a while to warm to sports.
When the NFL formed in 1919, the news media of the time regarded the players as something to the left of prostitutes. No, seriously. Go look it up. It took nearly 40 years for the NFL to finally ingrain itself on the American sporting consciousness with The Greatest Game Ever Played, the 1958 Colts – Giants championship game (the first ever shown on live national TV as well).
The NBA toiled in relative obscurity for the first few decades of its existence, despite great players like Mikan, Russell, Chamberlain, Pettit, Schayes, etc. And the league was in serious decline when David Stern was given the two greatest gifts he could’ve asked for in Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in 1980. Yes, the Sonics won the ’79 title – but the only ones who saw it live that night were in the Capitol Centre arena that night in Landover, Maryland. I know this – I remember Bob Robertson calling the game on the radio that night.
Baseball predates the Civil War, and the first professional sports club (the Cincinnati Red Stockings, precursor to today’s Reds) formed in 1866, but baseball didn’t really cement itself into American lore until the alliance of the National League with the upstart American League nearly 40 years after the Red Stockings were born, with the World Series at its centerpiece. And of course, baseball promptly shot itself in the foot after that, mostly due to skinflint Charlie Comiskey. Which set a pattern the sport’s leaders have continued to follow ad nauseam. Just think, Piper: had the Strike of 1994-95 not been resolved, soccer players could well have become the Boys of Summer, with baseball consigned to history.
(I felt that shudder, Piper.)
And the NHL has been a roller-coaster of brilliance and stupidity, often simultaneously. From Gretzky and Messier to Bettman and Goodenow. Oy.
And of course, all those sports have their roots elsewhere. Football came from rugby, which itself was an adaptation of what we call soccer.
Basketball was invented in America by James Naismith, a native of Ramsay township, near Almonte, Ontario, Canada.
Ice hockey is a Canadian adaptation of the classic English upper-class field hockey.
And baseball’s roots are in English cricket and Irish rounders.
Sports and sporting is in a constant state of evolution. Look around at extreme-sports and Arena Football. Those are the next step of the evolutionary process, even beyond today’s sports. Including soccer. Enjoy the ride.
Hmmm
Howsabout Seattle Sonicsuckers?
/or
Seattle Sisiutl?
/or
Seattle Sockeye
/or
Seattle Softies?
This is America. We should be original. Not stealing/copying names from Euro teams. It makes us look like lame younger brothers trying to emulate our big brothers. We need a unified, representative name for the club and followers. The comp-out ‘FC” is just stupid and unoriginal. How do we cheer for FC…”Go FuCs!”
If we do name it like that, it should be “SC” not “FC”. Here we play soccer, not football.
Someone mentioned: Seattle Reign or Sound (going with the MLS desire to use verbs or non-plural names), those are pretty good.