This week in Boston, the NWSL’s latest franchise revealed its name and colors.
It should have been a cause for celebration… and it would have been had the name not been so monumentally stupid.
Bos Nation FC, a nonsense moniker chosen largely because Bos Nation is an anagram for Bostonian, those who hail from Boston. Every part of the brand reveal was botched — from the cringeworthy video to a marketing campaign that has been described by some as transphobic.
Within a day, the club had issued a public apology.
“Thank you to all who have held us accountable for calling for us to do better,” the club wrote on X. “We hear you and we will, together.”
From us to you. pic.twitter.com/ASHFHltb5n
— NWSL Boston (@NWSLBoston) October 16, 2024
An epic launch failure is new territory for the NWSL, which was founded in 2012. But observers of Major League Soccer, the American men’s top flight, are familiar with this sort of thing.
The league has a long and storied history of missing the mark with rebrands as it continues to reinvent itself. All of the original MLS clubs that remain have rebranded, some more than once. Even clubs that joined the league well after its inception have rebranded.
Some of those were successful: Sporting Kansas City performed a minor miracle when they shed their previous identity — the Kansas City Wizards — the same year they moved into a new stadium, becoming relevant and competitive almost overnight. Other rebrands have been too minor to offend, like the evolution of the crests of D.C. United or the San Jose Earthquakes.
But some have been truly terrible — and one was so bad that it got a fan arrested.
Here are the three worst rebrands in MLS history.
The original logo, a trio of construction workers, is arguably the most distinctive in MLS history. Designed by the artist Peter Moore — the man behind the Air Jordan sneaker, the Adidas equipment logo and U.S. Soccer’s “Denim Kit” — the crest was unabashedly American, a kitschy, unique design.
“The Crew’s name just fed into my desire to make this new league — and its teams — American,” Moore, who passed away in 2022, told in 2021. “I was convinced a professional soccer league would fail if it were to be in the image of Manchester United, or Liverpool, or any of the traditional European clubs or leagues.”
For years, the Crew embodied the logo, becoming one of the league’s grittiest, hardest-working franchises and they played in the league’s first…