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OT: MLS Announcement Tuesday: GOOOOOOL for STL.


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5 minutes ago, TJHawk said:

KC has started to call themselves the real soccer capital.  One "soccer" guy claims KC has blown by Saint Louis in youth soccer.  I don't buy this at all but I don't know enough.  

Back when I was playing high school soccer in the early 2000’s, I remember there being a fairly big rivalry between Kansas City Rockhurst and Chaminade/CBC when it came to Missouri state championships in soccer. I don’t know if that’s still the case. 

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2 hours ago, courtside said:

It"s more that other geographies have caught up over the years. There is good youth soccer everywhere. It's good in St. Louis. But it is also good a lot of other places too. 

50, 40, 30 years ago St. Louis kids were being coached by 3rd generation soccer players. Even the Dad's that coached played youth soccer and had a decent understanding of the game. When I played HS soccer in Simi Valley Ca. and Arlington Tx, in the late 70's I was very aware of St. Louis soccer. Soccer players in general in So Cal and DFW were aware of how good St. Louis was. I was at the 1980 SLU vs SMU game at SMU that SLU won against a very good NCAA tourney SMU team that year. ( Never would have guessed back then I would have become such a big SLU fan )  In So Cal in the late 70's soccer was pretty good. UCLA was good and there were quite a few good youth coaches but most youth teams were still coached by Dad's that had very little soccer experience. The same was true in DFW especially Dallas. I moved back to DFW (Arlington) at the beginning of my Sr year (1979 ). The soccer coach was the Football coach. I couldn't stand him, he told me straight up soccer was to keep football players in shape.  I coached Carl Albert HS in OKC for 1 year while I was in the USAF in 1989 and soccer there was really nothing but football players as late as 1989. 

With the explosion of youth soccer all over the country in the late 70's and throughout the 80's, the entire country now had 2nd generation players coaching 20-25 years ago. They now have 3rd and some 4th generation Dad's coaching. The level of coaching across the country for Youth soccer has caught up to what St. Louis had in the 70's. This has as courtside said led to good youth soccer everywhere. 

My Coach in Simi Valley Royal HS moved on to become and Asst at UCLA the same year I left. I was a UCLA soccer fan in the mid to late 70's and they also used to lose to SLU. I don't remember exactly but I believe they lost a few National Championship games to SLU. It's just funny that every team I liked in my teens was losing to SLU (UCLA and SMU) and now I lived here for 30 years and have become such a big SLU fan and have probably went to 75 + games at SLU since moving here

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Don’t understand why mls wants to market their league like euro futbol..  they should americanize it!! Is the game clock counting down, or up?  What’s up with that?

We don’t need to be STL metro FC United Re-Al st.louis.   Just call us the Stl dawgs and slap a logo on the stadium..

 

In all seriousness, I’m glad we have a team and I think it will be a great thing for downtown and surrounding area.

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10 hours ago, Dr. Holly Hills said:

Don’t understand why mls wants to market their league like euro futbol..  they should americanize it!! Is the game clock counting down, or up?  What’s up with that?

We don’t need to be STL metro FC United Re-Al st.louis.   Just call us the Stl dawgs and slap a logo on the stadium..

 

In all seriousness, I’m glad we have a team and I think it will be a great thing for downtown and surrounding area.

I pretty much agree with you on most of what you say.  We fought several wars to get out of European/Asian influence.  We don't need to copy anyone.  I am a huge fan of americanized names, soccer, football, hockey and baseball.  I think the St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals are perfect names for this city's teams.  You pick it, Stars, Archers, Rivermen, Steamers....all would have been perfect, in my opinion. 

I am very pleased that they adopted SC instead of FC.  The NFL plays football.  The Major League Soccer plays soccer.  An yes, I am also glad to have a team and will support them no matter what they are called.  

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4 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

I pretty much agree with you on most of what you say.  We fought several wars to get out of European/Asian influence.  We don't need to copy anyone.  I am a huge fan of americanized names, soccer, football, hockey and baseball.  I think the St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Cardinals are perfect names for this city's teams.  You pick it, Stars, Archers, Rivermen, Steamers....all would have been perfect, in my opinion. 

I am very pleased that they adopted SC instead of FC.  The NFL plays football.  The Major League Soccer plays soccer.  An yes, I am also glad to have a team and will support them no matter what they are called.  

I do wonder if we'll ever see NFL or MLB teams also owning teams in other sports like how theres a real Madrid and Barcelona fc basketball team.  since you were talking about how European basketball didn't try to mimic  american basketball 

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15 minutes ago, wgstl said:

I do wonder if we'll ever see NFL or MLB teams also owning teams in other sports like how theres a real Madrid and Barcelona fc basketball team.  since you were talking about how European basketball didn't try to mimic  american basketball 

We sort of already do have that with Kroenke owning teams in multiple leagues, Dolan/MSG owning Knicks and Rangers, TimeWarner owning the Hawks and Braves, etc.

I know you’re probably more referring to the branding of the teams. I do think some day we’ll see multiple sports teams in the same city share a logo / colors. 

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3 minutes ago, NH said:

We sort of already do have that with Kroenke owning teams in multiple leagues, Dolan/MSG owning Knicks and Rangers, TimeWarner owning the Hawks and Braves, etc.

I know you’re probably more referring to the branding of the teams. I do think some day we’ll see multiple sports teams in the same city share a logo / colors. 

correct, should have been more clear.  It really does make a lot of sense to do that.  That being said, if you're in a city that hates its teams ownership, you'll probably be upset with the other team too. 

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The name is fine.  Would have preferred St. Louis 1764, but the name can work  well.

I think they really missed the mark on the colors. Just sticking to the exact colors of the flag of St. Louis City should have been a no brainer.  This is especially true if you are naming the team St. Louis City SC.

The shield is just a mess in my opinion.  It doesn't pull you in at all and already feels dated.  When I look at it, I just see a one of generic logos the multiple commissions or planning groups this area has would have used back in the late 90's or early 2000's.  Maybe Carolyn and company will feel nostalgic and roll out the old "I'm sold on St. Louis" campaign for the team.  

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19 minutes ago, NH said:

We sort of already do have that with Kroenke owning teams in multiple leagues, Dolan/MSG owning Knicks and Rangers, TimeWarner owning the Hawks and Braves, etc.

I know you’re probably more referring to the branding of the teams. I do think some day we’ll see multiple sports teams in the same city share a logo / colors. 

I don't see that ever happening because it will cut into merchandising revenue.  

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1 hour ago, NH said:

We sort of already do have that with Kroenke owning teams in multiple leagues, Dolan/MSG owning Knicks and Rangers, TimeWarner owning the Hawks and Braves, etc.

I know you’re probably more referring to the branding of the teams. I do think some day we’ll see multiple sports teams in the same city share a logo / colors. 

Pittsburgh basically does this in terms of colors.  I don't know if that's by design or not.

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1 hour ago, brianstl said:

The name is fine.  Would have preferred St. Louis 1764, but the name can work  well.

I think they really missed the mark on the colors. Just sticking to the exact colors of the flag of St. Louis City should have been a no brainer.  This is especially true if you are naming the team St. Louis City SC.

The shield is just a mess in my opinion.  It doesn't pull you in at all and already feels dated.  When I look at it, I just see a one of generic logos the multiple commissions or planning groups this area has would used back in the late 90's or early 2000's.  Maybe Carolyn and company will feel nostalgic and roll out the old "I'm sold on St. Louis" campaign for the team.  

In general I’m ok with everything they rolled out but I agree it would look better if they had stuck with colors used in the city’s flag.

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2 minutes ago, gobillsgo said:

The logo is really growing on me the more I look at it, similar to the new Billiken when it first came out

I wonder if the Cardinals / Blues didn't exist and then St. Louis got a baseball / hockey expansion team who used the Cardinals / Blues branding what the reaction would be?

I know the Cardinals went through a few different iterations of names / logos in the early years and became the Cardinals because of the color the team wore.  Those circumstances coupled with the fact that it was such a long time ago, means there probably aren't comparable news stories about how "Cardinals" was received.  However, I wonder if there are any old articles on the reaction to the Blues branding when they first came out?

I think most sports branding is intentionally neutral and fan bases then become enamored with it (or not) because of the traditions that develop around it.

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29 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

I wonder if the Cardinals / Blues didn't exist and then St. Louis got a baseball / hockey expansion team who used the Cardinals / Blues branding what the reaction would be?

I know the Cardinals went through a few different iterations of names / logos in the early years and became the Cardinals because of the color the team wore.  Those circumstances coupled with the fact that it was such a long time ago, means there probably aren't comparable news stories about how "Cardinals" was received.  However, I wonder if there are any old articles on the reaction to the Blues branding when they first came out?

I think most sports branding is intentionally neutral and fan bases then become enamored with it (or not) because of the traditions that develop around it.

This is a good point. One of my reasons for generally preferring a Euro-Style name was that I haven’t been the biggest fan of the nicknames for many teams created in the last 25-30 years. Part of me wonders if my preference for many older team names is just due to the fact that I’m just used to them. 

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So now we have an MLS team with a name, a stadium, and something to build an franchise upon. A lot of work has been done. A lot of work remains to be done. What they need to do going forward is to build a fan base loyal to the MLS. This is what the Cardinals and the Blues have, and this is what they need to do. This is partially a marketing issue, but it is also something that requires a strong appeal to a large fan base.

I thought the new football league, the one that played a couple of games before folding late in the winter, had a great start. In this particular case, the league and franchise were killed by circumstances out of their control. The question should then be, can the MLS succeed where the short lived football league failed? This remains an unanswered question.

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11 hours ago, Old guy said:

The question should then be, can the MLS succeed where the short lived football league failed? This remains an unanswered question.

You do realize MLS has been around 25 years and is considered financially stable for both a short and long term with a demographic in its core fan base that is the envy of the long-standing US leagues? Comparing it to the XFL concept league doesn't make any sense. MLS has franchises worth over half a billion dollars. In a sport with literally 1000s of pro soccer leagues throughout the globe, MLS is generally considered a top 15 league. In 2019, it had an average game attendance of 21,310, which was higher than the NBA and NHL. In the US, soccer polls as the 2nd most popular spectator sport among 18-34 year olds (trailing only American football) and is a close third (behind football and basketball) with 35-55 year olds (sorry baseball and hockey). 

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2 hours ago, davidnark said:

You do realize MLS has been around 25 years and is considered financially stable for both a short and long term with a demographic in its core fan base that is the envy of the long-standing US leagues? Comparing it to the XFL concept league doesn't make any sense. MLS has franchises worth over half a billion dollars. In a sport with literally 1000s of pro soccer leagues throughout the globe, MLS is generally considered a top 15 league. In 2019, it had an average game attendance of 21,310, which was higher than the NBA and NHL. In the US, soccer polls as the 2nd most popular spectator sport among 18-34 year olds (trailing only American football) and is a close third (behind football and basketball) with 35-55 year olds (sorry baseball and hockey). 

I am sorry to say that I am pretty ignorant about the MLS. However the St. Louis franchise is new, and it does have to develop its own fan base. They cannot take the fans for granted.

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7 minutes ago, Old guy said:

I am sorry to say that I am pretty ignorant about the MLS. However the St. Louis franchise is new, and it does have to develop its own fan base. They cannot take the fans for granted.

St. Louis is maybe the biggest soccer market in the country. It’s had huge crowds for both men’s and women’s National Team games. The highest attended college soccer game in the NCAA history was SLU vs SIUE at Busch Stadium. There’s a reason why MLS has always wanted to be in STL. They just need the right ownership.The fans are already here. Now St. Louis City SC just has to not F it up.

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4 hours ago, davidnark said:

You do realize MLS has been around 25 years and is considered financially stable for both a short and long term with a demographic in its core fan base that is the envy of the long-standing US leagues? Comparing it to the XFL concept league doesn't make any sense. MLS has franchises worth over half a billion dollars. In a sport with literally 1000s of pro soccer leagues throughout the globe, MLS is generally considered a top 15 league. In 2019, it had an average game attendance of 21,310, which was higher than the NBA and NHL. In the US, soccer polls as the 2nd most popular spectator sport among 18-34 year olds (trailing only American football) and is a close third (behind football and basketball) with 35-55 year olds (sorry baseball and hockey). 

well said

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