Saturday, March 1, 2008

Primary Season

While voters in states across the nation are having their chance to narrow the field for the U.S. Presidency, voters will also have their say in the all important selection of the name of Chicago's Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) franchise.

The Name the Team Sweepstakes launches today and runs through May 16th.

We are proud that our first name will be “Chicago”, the greatest city in the world. As part of our commitment to be a team that truly represents Chicagoland, we would like our team name to reflect the history, character and culture of the city. With that in mind, we have nominated ten names that have direct historical connections to Chicago:

Please vote for your three favorites in order here. Your vote will influence our decision on what the final name will be and one lucky winner will be chosen at random to receive more than $2,500 in cash and prizes including inaugural season tickets and suite tickets to our inaugural game in Spring of 2009 at Toyota Park.

Please comment below and let me know why you voted the way you did.

i'm looking forward to seeing what names you recommend for your team.

8 comments:

increvable said...

I like Red Stars. It has a connection to other great soccer clubs like Red Star Belgrade and works well with your proposed color scheme. If you could have a uniform something like the Puma Chicago flag kit, I think replicas would sell like hotcakes.

peter said...

increvable, i tend to agree...the only thing i wonder is: when was the last time anyone actually sold a hotcake? ;-)

Bob Atkins said...

I agree with Red Stars. All the names have great meaning to Chicago faithful, but the red stars are an image (city dwellers at least) see on a pretty daily basis. It's a great visual tie-in to the city's history, and also perhaps the most upbeat marketable name. Lots of design and merch potential. Plus, the kits would look dynamite.

Anonymous said...

I like Chicago 1871. Nice tie in to the MLS team, short, succinct, would look good on a hat.

Now, if you could get Lee Stern to lend you "Chicago Sting", I'd be all over that...

Pocket Rebel said...

Red Stars... gotta be. If the proposed blue jersey is like the Chicago flag jersey, what else could it be?

You wrote it yourself (if you wrote that), on the prospective team name history page... pretty much every suggestion is encompassed by the stars. You get all of the things that made Chicago in one fell swoop.

I like it a lot.

Anonymous said...

I like the Red Stars as well. It encompasses the Massacre, Fire, and World's Fairs.

Riot sounds a little too much like a rec-league team name to me. I like the historical connection to all of Chicago's riots, but it still sounds a little cheesy -- like the "Tornadoes" or "Cyclones" or "Kickers" or what-have-you.

1871 is my #2 for the reasons others stated above. Direct connection to the Great Fire. Classy name. 1871 and Red Stars sound more like straight-up sports teams to me.

Anonymous said...

If Red Stars is the name picked, wouldn't it be Red Star Chicago?

Why is Stinking Onions even up there? Is that a joke?

Out of all those, Red Star is the only one I can see winning.

peter said...

Giacomo, we thought about "Red Stars Chicago" but decided against it, because we thought it was too much of a Euro ripoff that would lead to misunderstanding the true reference of the "red stars" (Red Star Belgrade). We preferred the plural recognition to all the city flag's stars rather than the singular reference to one of the city's milestone events.