Officially Sporting

It became official today, the Wizards officially were rebranded as Sporting KC. The new logo, new name, new jersey, new identity. I'd go into details on all the changes and the reasons for the changes, but I wouldn't do any of it justice. I did record most of the announcement on my iphone and the videos are below, you can hear Robb Heineman explain the reason for the name change and in the second part explains the logo and the different parts of it. There wasn't much if any booing of the logo or the name change, although I did catch one or two, you may be able to pick up in the video, no where near the level that I originally thought there would be.

Although on the internet afterward it seems like everyone is bashing the logo and name. Much of the dislike of the logo has to do with the SC and it seeming out of place as the main component of the logo. It being the center point of the logo. You can try to get a better understanding of the logo and other things on their site here where they explain things. The name also continues to get it's fair share of hatred around the net, both from fans of the team and just random people as well. Most seem to point to it being a Europoser name, but Heineman said during his speech:

“This, to us, is not European whatsoever. This is all about our connection to the community and us trying to be innovative in what we’re trying to do."

I understand his point, but it's hard to really argue for his point, the name is European, but the idea as a whole is definitely unique to the United States. How far the team takes the whole "sporting club" idea is yet to really be seen. The talk tonight was about specifically rugby and lacrosse as being other potential sports in the club. There was also talk of members getting free tickets to away games and other things. All this while great is definitely something I think some fans are waiting to really see if it's true or not.

Tonight the new uniforms were also shown for the first time with Omar Bravo wearing the team's new "Sporting Blue" home jersey, while Jimmy Conrad was wearing the team's away dark indigo. Both are very classy and probably my favorite part of the entire rebranding. The home jersey is sharp and I really like the collar on the jersey. The away indigo is probably my favorite of the two though, I just like the design of it. The best thing about this jersey compared to last year is that the Wizards have been able to get rid of the "captain's arm bands" that were on last year's jersey. The one knock on he uniforms is that a lot of people see them as the same color scheme as the expansion Vancouver Whitecaps. And that the current home is comparable to the current away uniform of the Colorado Rapids.

Overall a good night for understanding why the team is doing this. And while I don't agree with or like all of what they are doing, I respect the fact that they were willing to come out and explain everything. And while some of the explanations from Heineman certainly seemed like bull shit, the way he delivers it makes you really believe in what he's saying.