Huntsville City Football Club Unveiled as Name of Nashville Soccer Club’s MLS NEXT Pro Team

November 9, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – Nashville SC News Release

Huntsville, Ala. – Nashville Soccer Club today unveiled Huntsville City Football Club, or Huntsville City FC, as the name as well as the crest and colors of its MLS NEXT Pro team in Huntsville, Ala.

In a public event hosted at Mars Music Hall earlier this evening by the voice of Nashville SC Tony Husband and local television personality Payton Walker, Huntsville City FC executives also revealed the team’s logo which was inspired by the City of Huntsville’s official seal and longstanding space industry.

“We are really excited to finally share our team’s identity with the City of Huntsville and the world,” said Majority Owner John Ingram. “The energy and partnership we have experienced in Huntsville is remarkable and we couldn’t imagine a better place for Huntsville City FC to be.”

Back in 2019, as majority owner of Nashville SC and Huntsville City FC, Ingram was intentional about creating a brand “In Nashville, for Nashville, with Nashville,” with significant input from longtime fans of the club. During the months-long process of branding Huntsville City FC, the organization embarked on a similar process of engaging with the Huntsville community, including the newly announcedHuntsville City FC Managing Director of Business Operations Chad Emerson, on how to embody the spirit of the city.

Huntsville City FC’s logo takes inspiration from the official seal of the City of Huntsville as well as its longstanding space industry, which is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Missile Defense Agency, and Army Space and Rocket Command, among others. The circular shape of the seal and rocket boosters influenced the circular shape of the logo, the shooting star in the middle represents the idea of orbiting space and Huntsville’s history with the space industry, and the checkerboard design on either side of the logo pays homage to the checkered pattern on the Saturn I rocket that was developed at the MSFC.

The Saturn I rocket is part of a series of Saturn rockets developed in Huntsville. Most notably, the 230-foot Saturn IB rocket, a forerunner of the Saturn V rocket for NASA missions, is displayed at the Alabama Welcome Center in Ardmore. While it had more power than the earlier Saturn I, it was the 363-foot Saturn V that ultimately took American astronauts to the moon.

Although Huntsville City FC will sport the same color palette as Nashville SC, the NEXT Pro team’s primary and…