Tuesday, March 07, 2006

An MLS history lesson: Nike's many failures



Somebody on Bigsoccer was talking about the Houston name change, and the subject of the Chicago Fire's first nickname came up. If you don't know, the team was originally supposed to be called "Rhythm," but Peter Wilt fought against Nike for the classy name and look the team has today.

What's even more interesting is seeing how the logo would've been. Wilt talked about it over on the section8chicago.com boards:


i had a Rhythm patch - lemon yellow and cobalt blue with a cobra in the center.


Animals were the thing back in the day, thanks to Nike:





Who can forget the Burn horse?





Or the Clash scorpion?





And the Mutiny....uh...I think it's a bat.

In the first presentation (the requisite legendary photo) of the nicknames/jerseys (one man's 1995 reaction, still true today), the other Nike teams were the Galaxy and the Metrostars. They haven't escaped unscathed either. The Galaxy were reportedly originally going to called the Los Angeles Traffic. And apparently in 1996 they had this as a secondary logo:




I've actually never seen that before until now. Huh... Somebody please give me the story behind this.

At least they're the only one of the five to still have their complete original name. The Metrostars of course were formerly the NY/NJ Metrostars, although the media hasn't noticed the change (9 years later). They have changed their logo:



The old "exploding buildings" thing doesn't really fly in New York any more. But I guess taxis are still appropriate:




So while the embarrassment was spread around, no animals for the Galaxy, as well as the Metrostars...although that looks like it's going to change.

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