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Rebranding the NWSL: Spirited Away

Washington DC has always been a bit of a mystery to me.

See, I know quite a few DC sports fans, and very few, if any of them, actually live within the DC city limits. Most of them live in Virginia or in Maryland. It's really this weird world in which everyone knows a team from this area (including a certain united group that shall remain nameless...) and at least supports a PLAYER from this area...but nobody actually seems to live there. It's a weird world.

But regardless, we are here to look at the Washington DC Spirit. What do they have for us?

Washingtonspirit2_medium

via www.alexandria-soccer.org

This isn't a bad badge at all, definitely one of the better looking badges in the league, but there are a few thing that do bug me about it. First of all...look at all that shit going on. We got the ball thing with the eagle claw (which shows up nowhere), an interlocking logo (also shows up nowhere), a bunch of stars and then BLAMO, Washington Spirit. But one of my biggest issues is in fact with the complete missing of the mark on what they're trying to do. This logo is fairly recent, and, as their wikipedia article states:

The badge was designed to resemble a torch reflecting the notion of "Burning with Spirit." It also contains a crown that holds 11 stars to represent the 11 players on the field and a ball with a single star to represent the 12th player (the team's fans) placed where the fuel for the torch would be representing how the fans "fuel the spirit."

...Uh huh. You wanna know what a torch looks like?

Torc_389_medium

via www.designweek.co.uk

Very nice...You wanna know what this reminds me of?

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AKA: Not a torch.

So what are we gonna do to correct this?

Get rid of the 12th man idea: Look, I know this is a popular thing, and I know several teams have done this but that's the thing...it's not a thing you could use without drawing parallels to the Seahawks (who popularized it) and the Texas A&M gridiron football team (who originated the term). If there's one thing soccer in the US could do a little less of, it's clinging to it's younger but infinitely more popular brother (at least...in the US.)

Put at the very least, the suggestion of an actual freaking torch in there: You want a torch so goddamn bad? You're gonna get one.

Simplify the ball logo: There's a lot going on in this logo. A lot. Like...a lot lot. And that eagle claw ball doesn't help. Why not just keep it a soccer ball with a star?

And with these in mind, I came up with...

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It does alot of the same things, but it tones it down so that the PATRIOTISM can shine through. Also, there's your goddamn torch.

So what do we have for a kit?

Women-s-washington-spirit-2014-jersey-red-28_medium

via ep.yimg.com

SWEET BABY JESUS IT'S A KIT IDEA WE HAVEN'T SEEN YET. I MEAN, I KNOW IT'S JUST A WHITE STRIPE ACROSS RED BUT HOLY SHIT THIS IS LIKE...WOW.

But yeah, pretty generic. Especially since their aways are just pure white. It's actually a bit of a retro-awful for the league, for it's only been a scant two years since every team in the league wore this kit at some point. I am not even kidding. It's sort of a Nike trend. If the whole league's looks are in the hands of this brain trust, let's hope that eventually they drop the sponsor with the wave of interest the soccer world's receiving from the World Cup aftermath. Now, let's see if we can shake things up a little. for america.

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Features include:

Stripes: DC, PATRIOTISM, stripes on our flag, reference to an older version of the USNT, We're walking We're walking...

Navy Away: Again, what is it with NWSL teams introducing color schemes but never really following up on them? We're fixing that today.

Hooped sleeves: Again a reference to the national team. I feel like if you're gonna be as patriotic as the Spirit are, you're gonna be basically draped in the flag.

Wow....We've almost gotten through the whole lot, haven't we. After this one we have but two teams to complete our series. Next time...we go to chi-town to get our penultimate (and cop out) edition of the rebrand.

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