DG

The MLS has room to grow in a few ways, but 1 major thing sticks out: The team naming conventions. I’m watching a game between “San Diego FC” and “FC Dallas.” We are not in Europe. We don’t call our soccer teams “football clubs.” Why the hell are we integrating foreign nomenclature into the top level branding of a team? It reads like we are trying to be someone else. Beyond that, “FC Dallas” doesn’t even make sense in English. “Football Club Dallas” puts the modifier “Dallas” after the head noun “Football Club.” That is Romance language construction—grammatically common in Spanish or French, but not in English. So not only are we using foreign terminology, we are also forcing foreign grammar into our brands. And then the core of the issue: bucking a ubiquitous trend in all other American sports. Literally every other American team uses the same nomenclature: City + Mascot/Nickname The Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Red Sox, Washington Capitals… It’s the city and a thing. It tells you where they are from and gives you some semblance of a brand to assign to the idea of the team. “FC Dallas” gives you nothing. No imagery, no brand, just a bland technical “name” to use to refer to the team. This is just one of the many “foreign” things about US soccer that just make it hard to get into as an American fan. If you want to take over the American market, you have to be authentically American. The MLS simply does not present that way in its current form. If anything, they come across as wannabe Europeans. Until the MLS manages to own its American nature, they will struggle.