Wherein I show a little love to FC Dallas, an MLS club I beat the crap out of last week

I knocked around FC Dallas pretty good last week for past re-branding gambits and general failure. So it’s only right that I point out something constructive that’s going on at Pizza Hut Park – something that’s conveniently tied into the re-branding bit, too.

The club is quietly erasing the whole "Hoops" thing. It is no longer the club’s officially unofficial nickname.

It was a call the club made much earlier this season. They never made a big show out of it, so a lot of people still don’t know. But they have, indeed, asked media not to use the term "Hoops" anymore. If you look closely you’ll see that none of the articles on MLSnet.com (the league’s official web site), nor at the club’s official website include such references. (Although the little Hoops beast is proving hard to kill in some of the organization's peripheral marketing.)

Back story: In 2004 when the club re-branded itself (uh, I think I chewed up that ground pretty good last week) it eschewed an official nickname.  Fair enough. But then officials told journalists on the down-low to call them "Hoops."  What they wanted was an "organic" nickname, the kind that rises from fans. But something is either organic or it isn’t. And if it’s planted by the club on the sly and then fed from the tributaries of corporate spin, that’s not truly organic, see?

In Toronto, "Reds" has become de rigueur, for instance. From everything I can tell, that’s a totally fan-driven initiative. (Although I believe it was originally coined in a local newspaper and then adopted by the loyal, engaged supporters.)

Besides all that, Hoops always was a silly name. "Hoops" comes from Celtic FC in Scotland; the reference’s roots are in horizontal stripes on Celtic’s jersey. Which is great and all – except that we’re not in Scotland!  You can tell, because when people speak, they say we live in "towns" and not "tunes."

Anyway, in the United States we call them "stripes," not "hoops." So, nobody really ever could figure out what the eff a Hoop was -- unless you were one of the 36 people in Dallas who happened to cheer for Celtic. 

Further, in the United States, "Hoops" conjures images of basketball. So "Hoops" never resonated in the North Texas market, where so many people are still trying to figure out what the "FC" stands for.  Seriously.

The only thing worse in life than a decision that takes you in a bad direction is refusing to acknowledge that you’ve made a poor choice – and doggedly marching in the wrong direction. Good on FC Dallas for figuring this one out.