Seattle Sounders FC is the 15th team to join MLS and will begin play in the 2009 season. Seattle Sounders FC was announced as the team name on April 7, 2008, along with the team logo, colours and badge design in a presentation held at the Space Needle.
The badge design, loosely resembling a heraldic shield, consists of two layers representing the partnership between the ownership, the community, the players, and the fans. The logo incorporates the Space Needle, a universally recognized Seattle landmark. The official team colours are Sounder Blue, representing the waters of the Puget Sound; Rave Green, representing the forests of the Pacific Northwest; and Cascade Shale, representing the Cascade Range to the east of Seattle.
The Seattle Sounders FC announced a multi-year sponsorship with Microsoft Corp. and Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system worth $20 million over 5 years. The landmark deal is highlighted by the‘Xbox 360 LIVE’ logo featured prominently on the Sounders FC jersey. Sounders FC will debut its new uniforms when the team takes the field for the first time in Spring 2009.
Xbox 360 also will be featured as the presenting sponsor of the Sounders FC annual international tour and will gain entitlement to the team’s playing surface, "The Xbox Pitch at Qwest Field". Xbox 360 will be recognized as the official and exclusive video game console of Major League Soccer.
"This is a defining moment for the entire soccer community," said Sounders FC majority owner Joe Roth. "We took a very strategic approach in our search for a presenting partner. In our minds it was critical to partner with a locally based, international company with a strong brand, a culture similar to our own, and a commitment to our community. The Xbox reputation for providing products and entertainment experiences that bring people together to compete, hang out and have fun, makes them a perfect partner for our organization."
"Teaming with the Seattle Sounders FC and Major League Soccer is a perfect combination for Microsoft and Xbox 360," said Robbie Bach, president, Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft. "Xbox 360 is the new home for sports, and our goal is to entertain a global audience. Sponsoring our hometown team playing the world’s favorite sport marked a great opportunity for Microsoft to support our local community and further associate the Xbox 360 brand with soccer’s international appeal."
At the heart of the sponsorship is a commitment from the Sounders FC and Xbox 360 to collaborate in developing the team’s overall community and philanthropic initiatives.
"One of the most exciting pieces of this sponsorship is the opportunity to work with Microsoft and Xbox 360 to create dynamic community programs and build one of the leading brands of soccer in the U.S.," Vulcan Sports and Entertainment CEO Tod Leiweke said. "We also look forward to building a great relationship with Microsoft employees who live, work and play in our backyard."
Additionally, the sponsorship gives Xbox 360 the right to use MLS league and team marks along with logos and marketing assets at league and select team events such as the Pepsi MLS All-Star Game and MLS Cup, Major League Soccer’s championship game. The agreement includes player appearances, intellectual property, title nights, website presence, in-stadium exposure - including Xbox 360 fieldboards to be displayed at every MLS game. Xbox 360 also will be a sponsor of MLS grassroots and community initiatives including MLS Futbolito, the League’s official 4-v-4 soccer tournament.
"We are proud to welcome Microsoft and Xbox 360 to the Major League Soccer family," said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. "The addition of one of the world’s most prominent brands to Major League Soccer is another indication of the League’s growth on the global sports landscape. Xbox 360 fits in perfectly with the Sounders FC brand and with our young and diverse audience that is actively involved in today’s digital world."
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Comments
shit strip
shit badge
need i go on!!!!!!
shit colours
Yeah, there\'s a lot of things they don\'t do over there that we do, but a lot of european traditions wouldn\'t work over there anyway. There\'s a Philadelphia team next year & probably Vancouver in Canada after that - Give it 10 years & they\'ll be competing with the big sports over there...
Fair play to them for getting XBOX, but you\'re all right re; kit - it is bad!
And why must so many MLS clubs go for plain styles? It\'s great that Dallas decided on red and white hoops (which adidas mangled) - but zero style from Houston, San Jose, Toronto, New York (abomination), DC United, Kansas City. Chivas might have the only nice kit in the league and that\'s a direct import from their parents club. More stripes, hoops, sashes, halves, etc please!
As am I. I am not surprised by the the lack of sophistication in your response, a s run across numerous Scot-expats in the USA who share your same ignorance.
I could claim that the SPL is a shit league and that, considering the money Celtic have to spend (20th most lucrative team on the planet) we are a shit club, too.
Final 16 in CL, with that kind of revenue may be construed as unacceptible.
However, considering the level of your palaber, I venture a guess that you don\'t read enough words at one time to string together any meaningful content.
Please, shut up and stop giving Celtic supporters a bad name. The best teams in the MLS would finish in the same positions as Motherwell, Dundee, ABerdeen etc. And, the MLS doesn\'t have teams going into administration every two seasons.
Ryan M Liddell
Thanks
what american sports do the british do ?
harldy any
also look at the premier league
its only good because there are so many international players
at least the mls is trying
did you see the england result the other night
england 2-0 USA how comes england cant beat
america 5-0 like they could have done a couple of years ago
its because the english players are sidlined every week in the prem for european players
at least in the mls american players get a good run out week in week out
alright the shirt is bad
BUT why take your anger out on the mls
its just an up and coming leauge
the germans are probably looking at some of the shit shirts in england and saung
what a pile of bollox
To the person above, it\'s defferent as Football is emmensly shrouded in our culture, our football clubs have existed for 100+ years and our families have been going for as far back as our grandparents can remember.
I don\'t claim to know the history of basketball or hockey clubs over there but the constant franchising and moving to where the money is kind of cancells it out.
If you want to see how much the english hate this sort of thing(and proof that it\'s not just sheer hate for america that we dont like the way your sports are carried out) Do yourself a bit of reserch on the english club that are now called milton Keynes Dons.
As far as I\'m concerned im happy for the MLS to continue but it will never be truly accepted as it\'s clubs are just the playthings of rich businessmen.
On topic, that colour is horrible.
Im Liking The Xbox 360 Live!
one of the top mls kits for me...
What is encouraging is that there are far more American fans than I once realised. My brother and I played football as kids and I stuck with it into college, but I was also the only one to follow it professionally.
Now my whole family gathers around to watch Barca games on TV and my dad is thinking about going to some DC United games now since it\'s as close as we have to a local team (which is another reason MLS is so difficult to get into. DC is about four hours away).
With apologies to the blog The Offsides Rules, that link takes you to a leak of what a designer was sending out as a possible strip... I thought this effort was much better and the dark green fits the kit much better.
Anyways, all the anti-Americanism is really tired. The thing you find out soccer fans in America is that we\'re all die hard.
We\'re all a different sort.
You face a certain amount of antagonism and boorishness from other sports fans, as soccer still has a bad connotation with many.
But, in the realm of other soccer fans, it\'s a much different environment... you have to really love the sport... stadiums aren\'t just a 15-minute walk or 5 minute drive for most fans, you don\'t have 10 different teams in a city.
My area only has a 3rd division club, and it\'s a good hour+ drive for me... I make it when I have the time and money, but it\'s an effort.
That\'s the key with loving American soccer... it\'s all an effort. But if you love it, it doesn\'t feel like that at all.
Hate all you want, but I\'ll never apologize for being an MLS fan.
Your correct. USA Sports teams follow the money. However, I seem to remember Sheffield Wednesday, Manchester United, Liverpool / Everton, et al, all being more than a single entity or an amalgumation of former clubs.
In fact, Liverpool\'s move to Anfield was strictly business - something about a bugger of a pub owner having denied the red half a lease.
And Manchester, wasn\'t that something to do with the Railroad team being unproffitable enough for the booming business of football.
Perhaps you wouldn\'t get so wrapped around the axel if you accepted the fact that none of your clubs, including the community owned lot, give a crap about anything but making money.
For every Steve Bull, there are a hundred Robert Earnshaw\'s chasing a check. And, nice job weeding out the bad owners for the good of community football. I see Ken Bates is still running a franchise.
Making money is how you run a business. If you make money, you invest it, then you make more money - presumably because you are better team. I forget, however, you don\'t do that on that side of the pond.
Instead, Derby takes the promotion packet and settles old debt. Then they \"invest\" money they don\'t have in marginal talent. Eventually they set the record for lowest points in a season...third time that has been done since 2002 by the way, and take their parachute payment back down to load up again.
How\'s relegation and promotion working for ya since \'92?
Stuff the history / sociology lesson. It\'s lame. Besides, the only reason your lower division clubs don\'t relocate is because they can\'t. The country is saturated with second rate clubs who\'ll never climb out of the old third tier. You can\'t build Boothferry Park on top of St. James Park. They tried that in Dundee and look how that has worked out.
Hail! Hail!
\'Mon the Hoops!
Stop trashing the MLS shirts. Yeah, they aren\'t the greatest. At least the shirts differentiate each club.
I love to hear Rochdale supporters rationalize their centenary strip, laying claim to some antiquated version of history that has the club playing in black and white stripes.
Sure, they did, but the Toon, Grimsby, St. Mirren, Partizan, Juventus, et al do as well.
In fact, some of those afore mentioned clubs got their initial kits from another...or were inspired by the others.
I hardly think Newcastle is inspiring anyone today the way Juve does now.
And, this idea that your geocentrically provincial xenophobia limits a clubs history to just itself is totally nuts. Didn\'t Palace loan Villa, or vice-versa, kits in the 19th century - and that is how they adopted their colors.
Newcastle initially played in red and white stripes. Portsmouth used to wear Salmon pink. I don\'t think either would be turning out in a strip like those because the wacko\'s would atribute these to the \"enemy\".
Why? Because in those instances, actual history does not suit fanaticisim. Very selective or arbitrary indeed.
As for MLS badges...
We don\'t have civic or Royal heraldry in America...for a very good reason. In particular, the Seattle badge is based on the Space Needle - among the most recognisable features in the world, let alone the city.
But, hey let\'s keep English clubs reproducing the Lion Rampant, and then explain that it has nothing to do with Scotsmen who revolutionzed your game in early twentieth century.
By the way, what England needs is a few more teams wearing the same thing: red with white shorts; Blue with white shorts; Black / white stripes; red / white stripes; White shirts and dark shorts.
When a club does try something different, a la Luton in the 1974, it is swagged as poofy. Apparently it would have been better for the Hatters to continue looking exactly like Hereford, Preston, Bolton and Fulham.
Hail! Hail!
I never denied football clubs are for profit, there is lots of money to be made in football these days. But the fact is, owners and business types will come and go each as incompitant as the last, but the club and its loyal support will remain (Trafford United the exeption, but who gives a toss about them)
Our clubs are steeped in tradition and i count scotland in this, there\'s no need for the english jibes. Especially kilmarnock who are the oldest club in briton i believe? clubs for differing reason have changed colours and styles down the years but they still have the identity they have allways had. Im thinking birmingham\'s on and off penguin strip and the way your beloved glasgow irish club used to have a fully white shirt followed by green stripes before even thinking of hoops. And as for rochdale how do YOU know that they didnt play in black and white stripes 100 years ago? one off changes are a refresher and even fit in with tradition because the club used to wear that. Is this change any different from traffords green and yellow newton heath top a few years ago?
As for your nonsense lower league jibes these are all, again, age old clubs with thousands of fans that are today competing in PROFFESIONAL FOOTBALL matches. That\'s your highest level, providing jobs for peaople in every aspect of the club and football players getting paid to ply their trade in the football league. They all have the chance of reaching a higher level priced out of it for now or not. That\'s the beauty of our league system.
:\\ I\'ve drifted so far from the point now i\'m going to stop. I could rant on about your \"point\" that doesnt even make sense something about coulors not having to relate to the place the clubs from or some crap.
The point is: that kit is sh**e
Your football team hasn\'t won censored in a tournament they haven\'t hosted, your rugby union team routinely gets destroyed by all of the other teams to have won the RWC, nobody seriously cares about rugby league, but even if they did the Aussies would ruin you, your cricket team is shite as the routine whitewashes in the Ashes indicates, you have one notable tennis player and he\'s terrible, and you haven\'t won anything in golf since the turn of the century.
I mean for christ\'s sake, whenever someone tells me they think baseball is boring I tell them that you know how boring cricket is because they tried to make it more exciting and all they could come up with was baseball.
All rugby union is is football, but without the all out hitting you can do when you actually wear pads. People over there actually think American football players are pussies for wearing pads? Rugby union is guys shoving their heads up other guys\' asses for 2 hours while they\'re not rolling around in the mud pinching each other\'s balls.
Rugby league is American football for morons (i.e. without all of the feats of athleticism or hard hitting).
Quite possibly the dumbest argument you\'ve made, however, is the idea that British clubs are somehow morally superior to American sports teams because American sports teams are not as old as British clubs or because they are \"just the playthings of rich businessmen. I mean if that doesn\'t describe Chelsea and Hearts I really don\'t know what does. Also, many of our baseball, American football, and hockey teams are as old as your football teams. Do some research yourself about the New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Redwings, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Bears, and about two dozen others.
Because we don\'t live on a shitty little island we had the opportunity to expand our nation beyond where we originally started living. If we didn\'t move to or start new teams in California or Texas, every American sports team would still be on the Atlantic Seaboard or the Great Lakes. To say that because your country is so small that it doesn\'t make sense for Sunderland to move to London so they haven\'t or any million of the permutations of that argument, and then act as though you have the moral highground because of it is just silly.
MLS is a young league, but it is starting to get its shit together and they should be praised for trying to improve rather than pointing out the obvious fact that they don\'t have as much history as teams from the rest of the world.
Finally, I think you should all realize that American soccer fans get stick from both sides, whether it be from so called \"regular\" American sports fans who dismiss soccer as foreign and feminine and from European football fans who decry the American game as oafish and lacking in history. The only way soccer is going to grow faster in the US is if European footy fans throw their proverbial arm around American soccer fans and try to bring them into the community. The people in the US who love the sport often appreciate it more than their European counterparts because they don\'t take it for granted.
As for the shirt, that is pretty bad, but I do like their badge. The good thing is that they will be playing in what will be the best stadium in the MLS, so that makes up for this poor design a bit.
Initially let me thank those who have taken up the fight.
As for my points, they are correct:
1. The point about the Rochdale kit is this...
We don\'t know that Rochdale\'s beginnings didn\'t require a loaned kit from Newcastle. We don\'t know that Rochdale\'s early playing strip was the limits of the local habidashery. What we do know is that they used to play in black and white and now play in blue. There is nothing wrong with that. As a club, they have every right to change as many times as they want.
However, let\'s not pretend that their Centenary shirt is anything more than a money making venture. It is an interesting kit from a by gone era. Yet, if Rochdale had celebrated their Centenary with a blue strip and gold embroidery, they may not have sold as many shirts.
For footy heads, like myself, it is a nice keep sake.
As for the celtic shirt - yes the 19th century kit started out as white with a crucifix on the chest. However, considering the recent history of sectarianism in both Ireland and Scotland, I hardly think this would be a suitable alternate or third choice - even as homage.
The fact is, clubs choose to change when the getting is good. Don Revie changed Leeds to white, in homage to Real Madrid, to put more fannies in the seats.
2. The point about the Liverpool / Everton split is this...
I know of only one club whose charter reflects some altruistic or philanthropic intention in their formation - Celtic and Brother Walfrid. However, even this required capitalization to generate the revenue needed for the charity. The supporter in the jungle at Parkhead was not thinking about the service he was providing the community. He wanted Gallachar and Quinn to score - period.
Liverpool moved to make more money for their club rather than pay it to a pub owner. It is a business. American teams have moved in the past to generate revenue for themselves that otherwise was going somewhere else. It is seperated only by a matter of degree.
3. The point about the lower divisions is this...
I am a subscriber to Setanta Broadband specifically to watch the English Pyramid. That being said, it was your top teams that threatended the existance of lower league football with the inception of the Premier League. Now, with automatic Champions League qualification and the dying embers of the FA Trophy and the League Cup, lower division clubs, as well as 15 EPL teams each year have no shot at improving their status, regardless of the asking price...Leeds, Forest, Ipswich, Norwich...all have tasted Europe. In todays climate - Sky contracts, UEFA payouts, etc. - they realistically can only hope for Premiership survival.
You think that Brentford wouldn\'t love to move to a suburb of London, with more parking, better neighborhoods, less pub crawling, out fo the shadow of Arsenal and Chelsea? They can\'t. If they wanted to, English zoning and variance would make it difficult. Just look at Dulwich Hamlet\'s attempts to retain the University property they now play on. Thankfully, that once historic amatuer side pulled it off.
Finally, the point about relocation is this...
You brought up MK Dons. If they were so integral to the Wimbledon community, then the community would have come up with the necessary revenue to maintain a pitch suitable for them. However, it was financially in everyone\'s best interest that they move, period. It was a sports business decision.
There is nothing wrong with English football that a little perspective won\'t cure. In the end, don\'t piss across the pond. You may not like the response.
Ryan
=] Toodles.
sport(to the best of my knowledge) where they do change kits every season so it would be intersting to figure out weather the US soccer fans buy into it or want some kind of kits which stay the same year in year out(which to be fair can get dull).