The new Philadelphia MLS team will be the Philadelphia Union. Blue and gold colors, logo the stylized rattlesnake from the Ben Franklin cartoons about uniting or dying.
Well, at least it’s not an artificially stupid name like Real Salt Lake. :rolleyes:
I hear the Union strikers are demanding better conditions. The Union defenders hate all the Southerners on the team.
I may be missing something here, not being American – are you saying that the “Union” name might still be contentious in the South? I guess the colours and rattlesnake might also be Union-related things?
No, just that Union is a stupid name for a sports team in general.
No worse than DC United - there was ever only 1 club, it didn’t “unite” with anything.
Philly also had the Freedom in team tennis and the Bell in the WFL. This is no worse.
I was just joking around.
Nothing is worse than MLS’ ‘Chicago Fire’.
Naming a sports team after the worst diaster in the city’s history - that’s a good precedent.
No worse than the London Blitz or the Toronto Maple Leafs…oh wait, that last isn’t named after a disaster, they are a disaster.
I can’t wait for the Oklahoma City Bombers and the New Orleans Hurricanes to be added to the league.
As I learned (much to my surprise) in the last thread about stupid US association football team names, it turns out that most of the English clubs that use the United name didn’t actually unite with anything either.
More or less the only ones we found that were actually so named because of an actual union were Newcastle United (formerly Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End) and Peterborough United (which was actually not a union of anything, but was named after its predecessor, Peterborough and Fletton United.)
I maintained, natch, that Real Salt Lake was an astonishingly stupid name, especially since they don’t actually have any ties to Spanish royalty… but I more or less had to take back the thing about DC United.
What does the “Real” mean? I’ve heard of Real Madrid (I think).
How does that fit with Utah?
“Real” means “Royal,” as in they have been given that title by royalty (the king of Spain actually gave Real Madrid the “Real”). Salt Lake, of course, does not have any royalty to give such a title.
It worked so well for the Atlanta Flames that they had to leave the country. The San Jose Earthquakes are holding up so far, though.
Worked for the Miami Hurricanes.
I was hoping they would build a cult-of-personality around the mayor and name them the “Philadelphia Nutters”.
The location for the stadium was originally planned to be in Glassboro, NJ, which would have been very convenient for me, but since it’s going to be in Chester, PA, I doubt I’ll be going to many games.
Along with the “Real Salt Lake”…
Isn’t there a soccer team called F.C. something-or-other?
F.C…as in Football club…as in the name we DON’T call the sport?
Um, YOU may not call it football, but I certainly do. 
Sometimes.
Dallas and Toronto, both.
Toronto happens to not be in the US though.
Chicago Fire’s a great name and they have a great badge too. Real Salt Lake is really really stupid. I don’t like Chivas USA either, but MLS started out with the Wiz. RSL is an improvement than that.
LA Riots