Arsenal Colorado

The rumors have been going around about he Rapids changing their name recently. Now the Colorado Rapids are going to announce an official partnership with Arsenal, the London based EPL team, one of the biggest in England.

Along with this change brings a new Jersey, which will be maroon and light blue. They do want to change their official name to Arsenal Colorado, but the league requires 18 months notice before a team can change its name, so it is likely that the team will still be called the Colorado Rapids, for now at least.

Thats great that MLS teams could make partnerships with big European teams, but do we really need to give our MLS teams the same name as the team they are partnering with? Come on Colorado, what the hell? Sure the Rapids isn’t the greatest name in the history of anything, but they have been the Rapids for over 10 years now. I’m not sure if this move is designed to build local interest in the team, or to make people lost interest. If soccer is ever going to gain the respect of the typical American sports fan, we can’t go and name all our teams after the European team they are partnered with. It gives those teams a little bit of a sense of a minor league farm team for the big European clubs, which will never, never be a good thing. The MLS should, and in my opinion can, have a goal of legitemately competing with the worlds top teams in coming years, not being their “minor league” team that they can send their old otherwise-would-be-retired superstars.

One more thing: maroon and light blue, who the hell picked those colors? If they want to be partnered with the London Arsenal, they want to be like the London Arsenal, why the hell are they picking up Aston Villa colors?  The Rapids aren’t my favorite team, but I always thought they had the best jerseys, and have been very close to buying myself one on several occasions.  Maybe I’ll buy one of the old ones if they do change the colors.

This has gone too far. What do you think?