To whom it may concern:
I'm not sure if this is the right way to contact someone about this issue, or if this will even get forwarded along to the people whom it is intended for, but I feel compelled to reach out to the club in some way after yesterday's jersey reveal. Since I first heard about NYCFC, which admittedly was earlier this year, I have considered myself a supporter of the club and the
idea of a New York team that placed local fans above corporate synergy (i.e. NY Red Bulls). I have been impressed by how much NYCFC has gotten right in terms of branding and fan involvement up to this point. The "This is your city, this is your club" ad campaign, the NYC inspired badge, bringing the fans in to vote on the badge, and contact with the supporters group from an early stage--these have all been great wins in terms of building a local identity.
Then, we have the reveal event yesterday. This event and the jersey feel like the exact opposite of the identity and fan involvement that I have been so pleased with up to this point. I was unable to attend the event itself, but from what I've heard and the snippets of video that I've seen it seems like it was a mild disaster at best. The host of the event was awkward and uninspiring in the videos I've seen, and I've heard he was worse in person. The exciting countdown to the moment that a massive jersey is slowly lowered from the ceiling--swinging like a donkey's dick, to borrow one of Gordon Ramsey's favorite phrases--was painful to watch. David Villa looked awkward and uncomfortable the entire time. And why did the event need a long video which was essentially a corporate booster for Etihad? Save that for the board room and give the fans something more exciting. This is exactly the type of corporate-synergy-over-fans display that I was praising NYCFC for avoiding earlier.
Which brings us to the kit. I admit it's not a bad looking kit on the whole. It's clean, classic, and all around aesthetically pleasing. The problem I have with it is it makes no attempt at suggesting a unique identity for the club. Do not misconstrue that to mean that I was expecting a non-sky blue shirt. The sky blue is not the issue here. The problem is that the club has said from the beginning that their colors would be sky blue, navy, and orange as an accent color. So if those are the team colors, why not involve them in the kit design? Something as simple as including navy and orange in the striping of an all sky blue kit--as in this fan-designed concept
http://i.imgur.com/Poaef0B.png--would work as a nod to the individual identity of the team, while still maintaining the overall look of City Football Group. As it stands there is nothing beyond the badges to identify this kit as an NYCFC kit and not a MCFC kit. I understand wanting consistency across the teams but a little nod to individual identity would not hinder that goal and would go a long way in keeping fans of the local team happy.
Ultimately, I think that City Football Group and NYCFC missed a huge opportunity with this kit. From day one NYCFC has been
saying that they are a team with a unique identity, but now, as we're getting closer to March 2015, the team has
acted in such a way that does not show they are walking that walk. What could have been a statement of both individuality and tradition, by using a little creativity and combining the colors of both teams, instead became a statement of profound disinterest in local identity. Literally any employee of City Football Group or NYCFC could have asked a non-paid intern to insert the MCFC colors into an Adidas template and ended up with this kit. That does not speak of local identity, passion, or fan involvement. It speaks of the worst kind of top-down corporate thinking with a complete disregard for the local fans.
Is this enough for me to renounce my support for the team? Not at all, that is why I'm taking the time to write this. Yet it shows worrying signs as to how CFG and NYCFC see their fans and the purpose of the team. Frankly I'm a little surprised that no one there saw this coming, especially after the backlash from the Melbourne Heart re-branding. Did you all really expect that we would be overjoyed to see an uninspired clone of a kit we have seen 1000 times before? As I said above, this was an opportunity for the team to make a gesture to its own unique identity--a gesture that would have been very simple to make and required very minor changes to the final product--but you missed that opportunity by a long shot.
Sincerely,
xx xxxxx
A disappointed fan, one among many others.
