Rebranding Talk Continues

It's not going away people, and isn't going to go away until it's officially announced that the team is changing their name from the Wizards to Sporting KC. Today Hearne Christopher, one of the first to post about the upcoming rebranding, has posted again about the upcoming rebranding. The entire post as a whole seems odd and misinformed in most places, although he did manage to grab a logo that's appeared on the Beer and Soccer blog and Bigsoccer (without credit).

He starts out with what looks to be a poor attempt at a joke saying the team will be "sporting a new name", which seems to be a play on the Sporting KC name. He continues on showing a lack of knowledge and understanding of MLS by saying that the team was looking for a corporate sponsor name ala the New York Red Bulls, apparently not understanding that the name doesn't come from corporate sponsorship, but because Red Bull actually owns the team, hence the name. If Christopher was going to use that example than the team would be called Cerner KC or Kansas City Cerner.

I will say this, if his sources are actually semi-accurate and the team was looking at a corporate name sponsorship for the team name, I think I would have found a name I would have hated more than Sporting KC. At least Red Bulls are owned by the company, what would happen if the company decided to stop sponsoring the club, would the team be in for another rebranding because of that sponsorship stopping. It doesn't really matter though, because that's not going to happen, and if it did I would likely be dropping my season tickets because of that.

He goes on to say the team is going for an "English Premier League-sounding name." Quick someone name the team in the EPL with the name Sporting. Don't worry I'll wait for you to look it up.....


Yeah there is none, the most well known teams with Sporting in their name play in the Primeira Liga in Portugal, in fact you'd be hard pressed to find a team in the Football League in England that has anything other than FC representing Football Club.

His next point speaks to a reason for the name change with his source saying OnGoal wants to change the name due to the team's poor play since they bought the team. If that is true I've lost almost all respect I had for OnGoal. The would be the single most petty, childish reason for a name change in professional sports history. If true it's obviously never going to come out as the reason but that point alone is enough to make you doubt the source that Christopher uses.

The one thing he seems to get right in the article is the front runner for the name, Sporting Kansas City. But that's something most Wizards fans that have been tuned in have known about for a while now. In all honesty it's hard to believe much of anything written in this article other than the fact that the Wizards are poised to make the name change and that Sporting is the likely new name. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see it announced before MLS Cup takes place in Toronto, but the league may not want that. The more I read his article though the more I see inaccuracies or really strange thoughts on the name change from his "sources."