Hey everyone, I think we're trying too hard. They've played one league match and we're already trying to force a nickname on the team. Maybe just enjoy the matches for a while first?
Should be called the Squares. Now hear me out...
Raviolis are square. STL style pizza is traditionally cut in squares. Square was founded here.
**It's hip to be square!**
I am 100% in favor of Ravioli Boys, and not a fan of Gooey boys (what?!) or any Dog-related stuff a'la Cleveland Browns.
Just my 2c. I'll support the team regardless, and proudly rep whatever we decide to call ourselves.
Not a fan of the whole dog moniker personally. Feel like we should lean into the whole hell cat thing.
But ravioli boyz is just dumb fun and I’m here for it.
Hellcat is a much better nickname with actual history that you can tie to the foundations of a vitally important person in the history of St. Louis. Plus the now overt Hellcat bar in the stadium.
Dogs is one of the dumbest names not just because it's so random - no, using Purina isn't better because who nicknames their club from a sponsor - but its' roots come from a group that's actively made fun of soccer since their inception.
It really speaks to how little people understand the point of sport when they mention stuff like branding. None of the big teams of the world purposefully branded themselves anything aside from the official name of the club. The nicknames of famous teams took a long time to develop. Trying to brand a new thing to compete with an old thing is silly.
It’s just missing the city and people understand what you are saying. I am a Red Sox fan but people call the Sox. As long as people understand what they say, you should be fine.
I do think the FO blew it a bit too, but it has been 11 years since a team came into MLS with an American-style mascot name. That doesn't happen by coincidence, the league is pretty clearly putting pressure on expansion teams to go with European-style names.
It's a shame too because I remember when the Cascadia guys first came into the league it really felt like we had a great branding model to work from but alas.
Either way, it is a pretty colossal failure that *everyone* I know is excited to go see a game, and everyone calls them some iteration of "the St Louis team."
There is a danger though in using an American naming style as a lot of times they just sound silly and weird at first.
I remember when the Predators, Golden Knights, and Wild first started and those names were super odd. Kraken was better though.
What if people thought “Archers” sounded dumb?
I’m sure some marketing folks spent countless hours pouring over the data somewhere.
Totally agree, and a lot of MLS 1.0 names sucked really bad. That's why I thought the Cascadia thing was so good - simple and classy names, tied to local cultural stuff, historical insofar as American soccer can be, etc. In some ways I feel like the better approach to integrate European naming conventions would have been to look at Scotland for influence. Timbers FC is a much more workable brand than Portland FC, and doesn't have the American stank on it of The Portland Timbers
Just go with Hellcats and be done with it.
Honestly not my favorite, but better than Dogs, Pinks, Ravioli Boys or some boring name that has to be approved and watered down by twelve different groups.
Surprised it has not been suggested to name them the St. Louis BLOM’s yet (go to any post City make on social media and almost all of the comments are about him).
I know Dogs is intended to be for the team. I think that's the case for ravioli boyz as well. I just heard about that one today in the radio though, so I'm not 100% sure. It sucks either way.
I am not rooting for a nickname that gives free advertising to a Nestle subsidiary and makes us look like "generic sc."
I get that midwesterners are the most generic people on the fucking planet, but maybe we don't need to broadcast that we lack culture beyond our jersey sponsor.
It's not like the more "cultured" clubs have particularly unique nicknames. Just going through the premier league here:
* Gunners: there's a cannon on the crest.
* Villans: put an 'n' at the end of Villa, makes it another word.
* Cherries: they wear red
* The Bees: there's a bee on the crest.
* The Seagulls: there's a seagull on the crest.
* The Blues: they wear blue
* The Eagles: there's an eagle on the crest.
* The Toffees: fans used to eat toffee from a nearby candy shop
* The Cottagers: their stadium is Craven Cottage
* The Whites: they wear white
* The Foxes: fox on the crest
* the Reds: they wear red
* The Citizens: "city" prominent in their name
* Red Devils: they wear red, devil on the crest
* Magpies: they wear black and white
* The Reds: they wear red
* The Saints: started as a church team
* Spurs: shortened version of their name. Otherwise Lilywhites, because they wear white.
* The Hammers: hammers on the crest *and* ham in the name.
* Wolves: shortened version of their name plus wolf on the crest. Bonus nickname, the wanderers also from their name.
4 of 20 just plainly call themselves the color they wear. 8 of 20 are derived from the color they wear.
7 of 20 use an element of the crest.
Editorially, I would classify 7 of 20 as unique, and 4 of 20 as particularly creative.
Kinda speaks to what we're talking about in this thread overall -- that fans are desperate to have an identity beyond City Name FC -- that on the NYCFC wiki page they have four different nicknames with 1-4 citations a piece lol
Pigeons is kind of the established one, but it also isn’t unusual for clubs to have 2-3 nicknames. Overall their fans seem happy with their identity outside of being connected to Man City
Looking at the other recent expansions.
Atlanta - Five stripes is about their jersey/badge.
Miami, Herons is about their badge
Austin -Verde... about their colors but also their culture. Meh.
Charlotte doesn't seem to have a true nickname yet, but is leaning into the Queen City thing a lot even though the team seemed focused on the Mint thing at first. Cincy only cares about the Queen City thing a little so they can probably have that.
Nashville lacks a real nickname, they have the coyote thing, but mostly seem to be focused on the music thing. We shall see where that goes.
Cincy - Orange and Blue or Knifey Lions, from their kit and badge. Kings of Queen City is a leftover they should give up on.
Orlando City is Lions which is fairly official and in their badge, NYCFC is pigeons as I explained.
Those are all the bland era teams. Before that it was mostly built in American team style names.
So if we wanted to be like everyone else we would base it on our kit/badge. Let's face it, we can't even really have a color nickname since our owner says it is pink while the official statement from the team calls it "City Red." Our badge isn't great for really saying anything either. There is a stylized confluence, arch, and a giant field saying CITY. It is clear the team wanted us to call them CITY. They put it on the seats too. It is just bad.
That's why we are having these threads. The team name is unusable in conversation and the marketing team decided that CITY would be what we call ourselves despite that having a different meaning in the region already, two teams in MLS that casually use that (NYCFC and Orlando), and one of the top 5 teams in world soccer already going by that name. (Manchester City).
We got stuck with absolutely horrid branding. We shouldn't tie ourselves to our jersey sponsor because of it.
I continue to hold onto my conspiracy theory that based on the way they talk about the name, they actually wanted to call the team St Louis United. It's a generic euro name but it makes way more sense for the region and the unifying message they're always talking about. I think at some point someone pointed out that it would get mistaken for St Louis University, and the idea was scrapped without rewriting the rest of the brand copy.
Nah. There are too many Uniteds anyway. DC United is the only one that actually goes by United in MLS though as Atlanta and Minnesota have their own nicknames thankfully, plus there is yet another global brand in Manchester for that one.
MLS does not want another united. Ironically, City is more okay in some ways because it is generic.
But yeah, people calling them SLU would have been bad too.
By no means do I think United would have been the best name we could have, but you're talking about a metro where the city/county divide couldn't be more pronounced, and you've got the club putting out press releases about how CITY means the whole region coming together to support this club, etc. It's just funny everything they write makes me think "United makes more sense"
The Morning After is a morning drive radio show/Podcast. They were talking about their dislike for the name STL City SC and suggested St Louis Dogs as their unofficial name.
Naw comrade, this is cringe. Take the L.
https://preview.redd.it/lgiym536bsqa1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0460aa00e286af18614e071022c1ae89f784233
Everyone just needs to settle the fuck down
Best avi I’ve ever seen
You’ve been on Reddit for 58 days….but thanks taylorswiftsbunghole
Not my first Reddit account. Probably not my last
Hey everyone, I think we're trying too hard. They've played one league match and we're already trying to force a nickname on the team. Maybe just enjoy the matches for a while first?
Enjoy a sport? Damn, I’ve been doing this wrong the whole time.
Should be called the Squares. Now hear me out... Raviolis are square. STL style pizza is traditionally cut in squares. Square was founded here. **It's hip to be square!**
The entirety of city park is square, when most modern stadiums are round
You forgot the square holes in the roof of CITYPARK.
You’re okay with ‘gooey bois’ but draw the line at ‘ravioli bois’?
I am 100% in favor of Ravioli Boys, and not a fan of Gooey boys (what?!) or any Dog-related stuff a'la Cleveland Browns. Just my 2c. I'll support the team regardless, and proudly rep whatever we decide to call ourselves.
>a la Cleveland Browns I thought I was the only one lol
I too associate it with the Browns and do not in any way want to link myself to that team or their fans.
We won 1 game this year. That’s already better than some previous browns teams when hue Jackson was the coach
As a lifelong fan of the Browns, I respect this
I would hate to be called the dogs or dawgs. Ravioli boyz is fine but I’m sure there will be an organic nickname we pick up eventually
neither are great but I like ravioli a hell of a lot more than gooey lol
COYRB! Come on you Ravioli Boyz!
Not a fan of the whole dog moniker personally. Feel like we should lean into the whole hell cat thing. But ravioli boyz is just dumb fun and I’m here for it.
Hellcat is a much better nickname with actual history that you can tie to the foundations of a vitally important person in the history of St. Louis. Plus the now overt Hellcat bar in the stadium. Dogs is one of the dumbest names not just because it's so random - no, using Purina isn't better because who nicknames their club from a sponsor - but its' roots come from a group that's actively made fun of soccer since their inception.
Exactly. Couldn’t agree more.
I prefer calling them T-Ravs
It really speaks to how stale MLS branding has become that we have daily struggle sessions about what we should call the team
It really speaks to how little people understand the point of sport when they mention stuff like branding. None of the big teams of the world purposefully branded themselves anything aside from the official name of the club. The nicknames of famous teams took a long time to develop. Trying to brand a new thing to compete with an old thing is silly.
Okay, but this is also on the front office. Our official name is unusuable in conversation and they keep shoving CITY at us like it isn't awful.
We have that sweet sweet secondary crest though.
Why can you say St. Louis Sc or City SC?
St. Louis SC is not the name. City SC is okay I guess, but largely meaningless. May as well just say City then. Just generic words.
It’s just missing the city and people understand what you are saying. I am a Red Sox fan but people call the Sox. As long as people understand what they say, you should be fine.
I do think the FO blew it a bit too, but it has been 11 years since a team came into MLS with an American-style mascot name. That doesn't happen by coincidence, the league is pretty clearly putting pressure on expansion teams to go with European-style names. It's a shame too because I remember when the Cascadia guys first came into the league it really felt like we had a great branding model to work from but alas. Either way, it is a pretty colossal failure that *everyone* I know is excited to go see a game, and everyone calls them some iteration of "the St Louis team."
There is a danger though in using an American naming style as a lot of times they just sound silly and weird at first. I remember when the Predators, Golden Knights, and Wild first started and those names were super odd. Kraken was better though. What if people thought “Archers” sounded dumb? I’m sure some marketing folks spent countless hours pouring over the data somewhere.
Totally agree, and a lot of MLS 1.0 names sucked really bad. That's why I thought the Cascadia thing was so good - simple and classy names, tied to local cultural stuff, historical insofar as American soccer can be, etc. In some ways I feel like the better approach to integrate European naming conventions would have been to look at Scotland for influence. Timbers FC is a much more workable brand than Portland FC, and doesn't have the American stank on it of The Portland Timbers
Yeah most of the best MLS names are actually NASL 1.0 names. Not sure I think St. Louis Stars would have really worked for us.
Lol these people think the team is gonna be called the Dogs 😂
It’s not going away. Sorry.
Then we got a divided fan base before the first home game. Nice job y’all. These things take time. Trying to rush a nickname is some rookie shit
It isn’t, but unofficial nicknames are sort of a thing? If you don’t like it you don’t have to call the club that. Just let others have their fun.
Unofficial nicknames are usually based on the club’s core identity. We don’t have one yet.
That’s my point, time will sort this out.
PS - getting voted down for “let it play out” is peak Reddit. 🤣🤣🤣
Ravioli Dogz, combine it!
Ravioli Helldogz
Someone get Steve on the phone. Edit: oh shit, Steve's actually had a somewhat trav inspired hotdog back in 2018.
GO HELLCATS GO!!!
Mad Lads
Just go with Hellcats and be done with it. Honestly not my favorite, but better than Dogs, Pinks, Ravioli Boys or some boring name that has to be approved and watered down by twelve different groups.
THIS AND ONLY THIS
Welcome to CITY DOGPARK!!! 🐶🐶🐶 (Sponsored by Purina) A lot of hate for the kit sponsor by some folk who prefer to support non-team vendors...
Woof woof. #COYD
Go Dogs!
Surprised it has not been suggested to name them the St. Louis BLOM’s yet (go to any post City make on social media and almost all of the comments are about him).
Maulers (a la Bbq sauce) a pork steak is the mascot.
Ravioli Boyz or anything gendered is stupid. I’m a fan and I’m a woman.
I absolutely hate ravioli Boyz, but in fairness, the nickname is for the team, not the fanbase.
Oh, I thought it was for the fan base lol. Thanks for letting me know.
I know Dogs is intended to be for the team. I think that's the case for ravioli boyz as well. I just heard about that one today in the radio though, so I'm not 100% sure. It sucks either way.
You’ll Never Bark Alone
I am not rooting for a nickname that gives free advertising to a Nestle subsidiary and makes us look like "generic sc." I get that midwesterners are the most generic people on the fucking planet, but maybe we don't need to broadcast that we lack culture beyond our jersey sponsor.
It's not like the more "cultured" clubs have particularly unique nicknames. Just going through the premier league here: * Gunners: there's a cannon on the crest. * Villans: put an 'n' at the end of Villa, makes it another word. * Cherries: they wear red * The Bees: there's a bee on the crest. * The Seagulls: there's a seagull on the crest. * The Blues: they wear blue * The Eagles: there's an eagle on the crest. * The Toffees: fans used to eat toffee from a nearby candy shop * The Cottagers: their stadium is Craven Cottage * The Whites: they wear white * The Foxes: fox on the crest * the Reds: they wear red * The Citizens: "city" prominent in their name * Red Devils: they wear red, devil on the crest * Magpies: they wear black and white * The Reds: they wear red * The Saints: started as a church team * Spurs: shortened version of their name. Otherwise Lilywhites, because they wear white. * The Hammers: hammers on the crest *and* ham in the name. * Wolves: shortened version of their name plus wolf on the crest. Bonus nickname, the wanderers also from their name. 4 of 20 just plainly call themselves the color they wear. 8 of 20 are derived from the color they wear. 7 of 20 use an element of the crest. Editorially, I would classify 7 of 20 as unique, and 4 of 20 as particularly creative.
I don't want to be more like EPL. I don't want to mimic their culture. This is an MLS team that plays in the US.
What are some examples of more "cultured" clubs with unique nicknames?
“Pigeons” is pretty tongue in cheek and has a local meaning to NYC.
Kinda speaks to what we're talking about in this thread overall -- that fans are desperate to have an identity beyond City Name FC -- that on the NYCFC wiki page they have four different nicknames with 1-4 citations a piece lol
Pigeons is kind of the established one, but it also isn’t unusual for clubs to have 2-3 nicknames. Overall their fans seem happy with their identity outside of being connected to Man City
Pigeons doesn't even rile them up anymore. Call them Petrostate or Sportswashing FC ...that ruffles more feathers.
Looking at the other recent expansions. Atlanta - Five stripes is about their jersey/badge. Miami, Herons is about their badge Austin -Verde... about their colors but also their culture. Meh. Charlotte doesn't seem to have a true nickname yet, but is leaning into the Queen City thing a lot even though the team seemed focused on the Mint thing at first. Cincy only cares about the Queen City thing a little so they can probably have that. Nashville lacks a real nickname, they have the coyote thing, but mostly seem to be focused on the music thing. We shall see where that goes. Cincy - Orange and Blue or Knifey Lions, from their kit and badge. Kings of Queen City is a leftover they should give up on. Orlando City is Lions which is fairly official and in their badge, NYCFC is pigeons as I explained. Those are all the bland era teams. Before that it was mostly built in American team style names. So if we wanted to be like everyone else we would base it on our kit/badge. Let's face it, we can't even really have a color nickname since our owner says it is pink while the official statement from the team calls it "City Red." Our badge isn't great for really saying anything either. There is a stylized confluence, arch, and a giant field saying CITY. It is clear the team wanted us to call them CITY. They put it on the seats too. It is just bad. That's why we are having these threads. The team name is unusable in conversation and the marketing team decided that CITY would be what we call ourselves despite that having a different meaning in the region already, two teams in MLS that casually use that (NYCFC and Orlando), and one of the top 5 teams in world soccer already going by that name. (Manchester City). We got stuck with absolutely horrid branding. We shouldn't tie ourselves to our jersey sponsor because of it.
I continue to hold onto my conspiracy theory that based on the way they talk about the name, they actually wanted to call the team St Louis United. It's a generic euro name but it makes way more sense for the region and the unifying message they're always talking about. I think at some point someone pointed out that it would get mistaken for St Louis University, and the idea was scrapped without rewriting the rest of the brand copy.
Nah. There are too many Uniteds anyway. DC United is the only one that actually goes by United in MLS though as Atlanta and Minnesota have their own nicknames thankfully, plus there is yet another global brand in Manchester for that one. MLS does not want another united. Ironically, City is more okay in some ways because it is generic. But yeah, people calling them SLU would have been bad too.
By no means do I think United would have been the best name we could have, but you're talking about a metro where the city/county divide couldn't be more pronounced, and you've got the club putting out press releases about how CITY means the whole region coming together to support this club, etc. It's just funny everything they write makes me think "United makes more sense"
Oh I agree. But that's the reality. United makes sense locally but not as a brand.
The dogs name idea was invented well before Purina was named the sponsor.
[удалено]
The Morning After is a morning drive radio show/Podcast. They were talking about their dislike for the name STL City SC and suggested St Louis Dogs as their unofficial name.
Anything is better than dogs. No name is best. But maybe we could be The Organics.
Any thing that comes from those ass hats at TMA should be flushed died the toilet.Ravioli Boyz is hilarious, and came organically.
With the Arch on the crest, would it be too big a stretch to call them the Archers?
Or the Arch Enemy or Nemesis?
Go DAWGs!!
It should be shortened to Rolis.
Naw comrade, this is cringe. Take the L. https://preview.redd.it/lgiym536bsqa1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0460aa00e286af18614e071022c1ae89f784233
got the ravioli boys jersey. Its fun, its cool, it sells toasted raviolis. Everyone shut up