By SBI SOCCER
Despite being initially used as a placeholder, Los Angeles Football Club is ready to make that name official Tuesday.
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the MLS expansion team will continue to use the name Los Angeles Football Club.
LAFC has been using social media, most notably Twitter, to interact with fans, and while the club does not currently have a coach or players, it has been actively engaging with supporters in order to determine the club’s name and colors.
“(Millennials) don’t want to be talked at,” LAFC head of marketing for culture and community Rich Orosco told the LA Times. “So from Day 1 that’s all we’re doing. We’re opening up a dialogue with this exact fan base: ‘Let’s talk about this.’
“If we weren’t doing that, we’d have a hard time. We want to engage and have a conversation. That’s key.”
LAFC is expected to enter MLS in 2018, a year after Atlanta United FC is set to begin play because of extra time needed to help construct its own stadium.
What do you think about the name? Think LAFC made the right decision to keep the name?
Share your thoughts below.
MLS is so desperate to improve TV ratings they just keep throwing teams into NY and LA and hope for the best.
Ur right Ian. LAFC should consider hiring u.
In all likelihood, LAFC will sign the most recognizable player since Beckham and Henry. I wouldn’t be shocked if they sign a guy like Ronaldo or Zlatan. What will people bitch about then?
If Ian knows so much about how to build an MLS team, go buy one.
Hopefully not Zlatan. He’s great but he’ll be 35 when LAFC starts. Ronaldo would be a great signing though, only 32 at that time although I don’t know if he’ll want to leave RM at that point.
LAFC starts in 2018. Ibra will be 36 (37 in Oct. 2018).
Nice one, Tim. If LAFC signs Zlatan when they begin play in 2018, he’ll be 36, almost 37. I hardly think he’ll be the draw then like he is now. CR7 would be an excellent buy, and I absolutely expect him to be LAFC’s first DP.
But none of that has anything to do with my criticism. Stay on target.
“If Ian knows so much about how to build an MLS team, go buy one.” Want to go in halfers?
It’s hard to top a name like LA Galaxy, so they didn’t even try.
LA United! FC!
I think FCLA would have accomplished the same thing with a nod to the Bruins (and the placement of the C would really be a nod to the whole California system even it means Club in this circumstance rather than California). FCLA is mellifluous and familiar without being repetitive and boring. LAFC sounds like it could be a new comedy club. It also doesn’t leave much room for identity. LA Galaxy are already “LA.” So what is this team’s identity? I think they could have gone another direction without losing the city branding.
I don’t like LAFC because when you say it fast it sounds like La Galaxy and I think FCLA would have the same problem. Of course you could go the American Soccer Club LA or SCLA which would be a nod to USC who isn’t a historic soccer school. I’m not sure at this point there are a lot of good ways to go for new American soccer clubs.
Except that looks like F*ck LA. Not a good way to ingratiate yourself to the community.
Agreed. Not taking over Chivas USA’s academy was a mistake. It would be a stretch, but by now they could have set up a USL team as well. They obviously have the resources to make both happen. Start their style of play at a young age and as they add professional layers to their club, the style would be completely ingrained as they come into the league.
There’s an unaffiliated USL team playing in Irvine (Orange County) called the OC Blues. They, plus the Chivas Academy, presented the perfect opportunities for “turn key infrastructure” for LAFC. With all that investor money, they could have easily floated both organizations, slapped an LAFC label on both, and called it a day until 2017.
Thing I find most repulsive about LAFC is how they’ve unabashedly treated the project like a marketing campaign. I follow the club on twitter (can’t look away from a train wreck), and all I see are pictures of other teams’ players and the occasional poll about team colors and names.
I’m not ignorant to the way the world works in terms of launching a business. I know social media visibility is key, but when you’re launching a so-called football club, I cannot understand how you spend so much time dilly-dallying over the name and colors while ignoring the most basic foundations of a soccer club: academies, lower division teams, scouts, coaches, etc. LAFC had a golden opportunity to adopt Chivas USA’s renowned academy, but didn’t give them the time of day. All those kids – kids with a ton of potential, like Bradford Jamieson IV, who went to Galaxy – were left to find new academies. That was a travesty. And all because LAFC was too concerned about appealing to millennials and didn’t want to tarnish its shiny brand with the dirty Chivas name. Lame.
Not sure what else they’re supposed to do two years before the team starts. They could start an academy but I’d avoid the Chivas name like the plague too.
It would have been so easy to keep the Chivas academy afloat while integrating it into the LAFC brand, but they didn’t. That was a big failure on their part. I’m sure they’ have an academy eventually (I think it’s a league requisite), but the fact they let a very good one fail just demonstrates where their priorities are.
Here’s a LA Times article that sums up LAFC’s priorities perfectly: “We’re going to be big into music, art and fashion. The design aesthetic. We’re going to be a great outlet for creativity. It’s one of our club pillars.”
Okay, fine. Be the artsy LA club. But also be an actual soccer club with an interest in the development of local youth.
*They’ll have an academy
*Quote from* the LA Times article.
Sorry for the typos.
Sports is a marketing campaign, period. Building brand loyalty at a launch depends far more on getting a name and colors right than it does on product infrastructure. NYCFC isn’t getting 30k a game because they have a great academy or lower division team.
“Period”? Call me (and Ian, above) naive, but aren’t you supposed to have something to market first — something real and substantial? LAFC is the ultimate realization of MLS’s “marketing above all” ethos. Get the colors right, wave the right shiny objects around, and the millennials will show up in droves. It will be interesting to see what happens when the millennials get bored and move on to the next cool thing.
Image is everything
Until you scratch the surface and realize there’s nothing there.
You think many of those kids would’ve stuck with their academy knowing they are years out from being able to move up to MLS? Hell no. Your point about BJIV is exactly why he owuld’ve moved. He’s going to rot away in their academy for a few years so he can hopefully be part of the inagural season?
There are only so many US Soccer academies in So Cal. And Chivas’ academy really was considered one of the best. I don’t know what every kid would have done, but I’m confident some poor kids in Bell Gardens would have loved to stick around under the LAFC name.