Toronto MLS Team Name Is...

[Joe MacCarthy]

Unless this is an elaborate hoax and it doesn't appear to be, various sources are reporting a few names have been put forward with the Canadian and US patent offices. One is Inter Toronto FC (ugggh) and the others are Toronto Northmen FC and Toronto FC.

The FC part is totally lame owing to the fact Toronto already has a football team called the Argonauts.

Keeping with the Canadian football connection, (from Wikipedia) the Toronto Northmen (owned by Toronto media mogul John Bassett) were to be a franchise in the World Football League which operated in 1974 and 1975.

The team was originally slated to be based in Toronto. However, when Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced that no U.S.-based professional football league would be allowed in Canada in competition with the Canadian Football League, a change in venue and nickname was announced and they became the Memphis Southmen.

The Toronto Northmen name is getting some positive feedback or is less than the backlash against Inter.


Edit: I'll leave this as a separate thread for a bit of attention then later merge it into the Toronto MLS expansion thread.

[Joe MacCarthy]

MLSE mulls Inter nickname
Apr. 7, 2006. 09:55 AM
JIM BYERS SPORTS REPORTER
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1144360212000&call_pageid=1044529386722&col=1044529386490

Local soccer fans should get ready for Inter Toronto FC.

There's been no official confirmation that's Toronto's new entry in Major League Soccer will be called, but trademark searches show it's apparently the leading contender.

According to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment applied for the trademark on the names Inter Toronto FC, Toronto FC and Toronto Northmen FC March 15.

The only name that the MLS has sought a U.S. trademark for is Inter Toronto FC, according to the website http://www.sportslogos.net.

MLSE president Richard Peddie said yesterday a team name hasn't been chosen.

"We're looking at a lot of different names," he said. "Before we go out (into the marketplace) we wanted to see what's available and to register" various names.

Peddie said a new website for Toronto's MLS team will be established in the next couple weeks at a yet-to-be-determined Internet address. Once that site is running, fans will be asked what they think of the various options, and their opinions will be "taken into consideration," he said.

Peddie said he didn't know anything about what team names the MLS had sought to register in the U.S.

Inter Milan is a famous club in Italy's Serie A, and it could be that MLSE is hoping to capitalize on that name with Toronto's Italian community by naming the team Inter Toronto FC.

According to the Canadian trademark application, MLSE's request covers everything from T-shirts and towels to pacifiers, umbrellas, soccer shoes and garbage cans.

[Joe MacCarthy]

'Inter' name poses Real problem for club
T.O.'s MLS entry needs more inclusive moniker
Cathal Kelly
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1144878610432&call_pageid=1044529386722&col=1044529386490

Major League Soccer is working very hard to get its new brand of pandering just right. Largely unable to interest mainstream America, the league has turned its sights on the ethnic fans most attached to the beautiful game.

So when Toronto's MLS franchise debuts in spring 2007, it seems it's going to do so brimming with Italian brio. It's been widely reported that the team will be called Inter Toronto FC, a name inspired by Serie A club Inter Milan. Team owner Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has neither confirmed nor denied the widespread rumour.

At first blush, this is a clear sop to the 200,000 or so members of Toronto's Italian community. But for every Inter fan in this city, there's an Italian Juventus, AC Milan or Roma supporter who won't like the idea one bit. It's more likely that MLSE's braintrust thought the name suited our multicultural make-up since Inter Milan was born as an immigrant experiment.

In the early 20th century, the Milan Cricket and Football Club didn't accept non-Italians as members. So in 1908 a group of unhappy Swiss players and some Italian rebels formed their own side. They named it Internazionale to celebrate its multinational character. Thus the nickname "Inter." The MCFC would go on to become their bitter modern rivals, AC Milan.

When MLS kicked off in 1996, it did so with team names like the Crew, the Mutiny and the Rapids — American names. After the 2004 season, the thinking shifted to accommodate the league's fastest growing fan base.

The Dallas Burn was renamed FC Dallas ("F" for futbol rather than football), acknowledging that the club's core support came from the Latino community. An expansion franchise aimed at Los Angeles's Spanish speakers was named Deportivo Chivas. Another in Utah, where Latinos make up more than one-tenth of the population, was dubbed Real Salt Lake. Most white Utahns, even the soccer fans, mistakenly pronounced it "Reel" instead of "Ray-al."

When the San Jose Earthquakes moved to Houston for the 2006 season, they tried a variation on the league's new theme. Officials christened the club Houston 1836 to mark the year of the city's birth. It's common for German sides to note the year of a club's creation in their names (e.g. Munich 1860, Bayer 04 Leverkusen). This time, the moniker blew up in their faces.

As in Dallas, L.A. and Salt Lake City, a large part of MLS's Houston strategy was to attract Latinos.

So when the team's target audience pointed out that 1836 also marked the year white Texans bloodily seceded from Mexico, it was cause for concern. When the issue spilled into the larger political debate of Texas, a state where one in three citizens claims Mexican ancestry, it became a crisis. Before it had played a game, the club was renamed Houston Dynamo.

That's not to suggest any sort of ethnic revolt is going to happen in Toronto. But naming the team Inter annoys non-Italian fans, Italian fans who don't like Inter and the vast sports-going public who has no idea what the name means. Even Inter Milan's fans could conceivably object to an upstart side equating itself with the Italian giant.

Appealing directly to Mexican-Americans in cities where Anglo locals politely ignore your product is one thing, but picking ethnic favourites in Toronto is all downside. Someone's bound to feel left out.

Also, aping the names of bigger clubs only calls attention to what MLS isn't — a European league.

In the end, the team name has to make a compromise between pleasing the relatively few knowledgeable local fans while not alienating the legion of others who might warm up to Toronto soccer, but need to be coaxed along gently.

And here's the thing about compromises — they usually bother someone.

Houston's compromise — Dynamo — echoes Dynamo Moscow. That club was named and controlled for many years by the Soviet secret police. Fortunately for MLS, Houston's eastern European émigré community doesn't have the clout to mess with Texas.

[Raven.]

Link to site where fans can pick the name of the team.

Toronto's new Major League Soccer franchise has
been searching to find the right name for its new
team.

https://www.torontoprosoccer.com/

[Joe MacCarthy]

I wrote above that this doesn't appear to be a hoax. Now, there is something about this that doesn't seem right. They are asking for a lot of personal information and the page is registered to Online Marketing Inc.

There are two names on there (to fill out the ballot) that have hardly been mentioned, Nationals??? and Reds???

Why not Blizzard, City, or United which have been mentioned the most?

This has been suspicious from the beginning and still is.

[Joe MacCarthy]

More Kool-Aid from MLSE

What's in a name? For soccer fans, a lot
Toronto's new major league team aims for old-world cachet and a unified fan base
Paul Matthews
Special to The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060429.SOCCER29/TPStory/?query=soccer

In a league littered with such familiar-sounding clubs as Real Salt Lake (think Spain's storied Real Madrid) and D.C. United (hello Manchester United), it's fitting that Toronto's first Major League Soccer franchise should also seek a bit of overseas magic.

So last week when Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment -- which will be fielding a Toronto MLS team next April -- unveiled its shortlist of potential names, it was no surprise that the selections had a hint of international yearning: Inter Toronto FC, The Toronto Reds, The Toronto Northmen FC, The Toronto Nationals and Toronto FC. (FC stands for Football Club.) The fruit of six months of market research is now being hashed out by fans in an on-line poll at http://www.torontoprosoccer.com.

On paper, Inter Toronto FC -- a nod to the Italian League's Inter Milan -- appears to be a calculated appeal to the city's 425,000-strong Italian community. And the name's supporters already have their arguments ready. Inter Milan was originally formed by Swiss and Italian players from what became rival AC Milan who objected to the team's policy of signing only locals, explains Joe Russo, a commentator on Telelatino's Sunday Night Soccer Fanatics show. "Inter is short for Internazionale, which means bringing together players from every country. Given Toronto's multicultural makeup, the name makes sense."

MLSE Executive Vice-President Tom Alsemi, who is overseeing the poll, admits the merit of Inter Toronto lies in its Italian roots. "Most people who look at [Inter Toronto]," he says, "gravitate to Inter Milan and Italian football . . . Those clubs have a hundred years of brand equity, where we're trying to launch something new. I see the Inter name as trying to make this look more like traditional soccer."

Still, Mr. Alsemi says, it's a double-edged sword. "There is a risk of alienating other ethnic communities who may be loyal to some other soccer franchise."

Unfortunately, the other possibilities don't hold much more promise of uniting Torontonians. The Toronto Reds might suggest Communist sympathies, but it's a nod to the soccer tradition of identifying clubs by their colours -- in this case the red of the Canadian flag. The Northmen name, meanwhile, harkens back to a never-ran Toronto World Football League team whose opening season Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau blocked in 1974.

Mr. Alsemi doubts the Reds or the Northmen will be front-runners. Meanwhile, the Toronto Nationals will be an awkward choice if MLS teams sprout up in Vancouver or Montreal. That leaves Toronto FC, which is generic, but at least follows the European naming tradition.

Mr. Alsemi won't reveal which way MLSE is leaning, saying he'll await the poll results. Even then, he emphasizes, "this will not be a vote" -- the results will not necessarily determine the final name.

That may be a good thing, as more than 200 people have added their own suggestions on-line. There may still be hope, then, for our pick: How about Globe Toronto FC?

*************************************************

Go to the site linked above and write-in vote Toronto City or Toronto Blizzard

[Robino]

Presonally, I would vote for something cool like Globe Toronto or city or blizzard.
But out of the ones that are there, which are probably the only ones with winning chances, Reds seems to be the best, even if it is in a way the lesser of a few evils. It's decent because it seems a bit more like a Toronto sports team rather than one trying to be some other ethnicity.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Toronto FC to join MLS fold in 2007
By Jason Halpin / MLSnet.com Staff
http://www.mlsnet.com/MLS/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20060511&content_id=58784&vkey=news_t280&fext=.jsp&team=t280

http://www.mlsnet.com/images/2006/05/11/FzMF8GiO.jpg
Toronto FC will play at National Soccer Stadium at Exhibition Place.

New thread for Toronto FC
http://forums.soccerfansnetwork.com/showthread.php?t=42334