With the 2024 NWSL season almost over, the Chicago Crimson Stars are looking forward to the postseason. However come subsequent season, Chicago will look slightly bit totally different: The NWSL membership introduced Wednesday that the staff will likely be referred to as Chicago Stars FC, beginning in 2025.
The change comes because the Crimson Stars usher in a brand new chapter, with the staff — led by Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts — final summer season. Chicago additionally in former Jamaica supervisor Lorne Donaldson.
The rebrand will embody a brand new crest and new merchandise that includes the design. The up to date crest is extra distinct from the Chicago flag, whose iconic blue-and-white stripes and pink six-pointed stars impressed a lot of the Crimson Stars’ branding to start with.
Chicago’s chief advertising and marketing officer Kay Bradley instructed that the rebrand was one thing that Ricketts had in thoughts when she purchased the staff, and that it has been six months within the making.
“The wheels had been turning, however clearly we didn’t wish to rush it,” Bradley mentioned. “It is a actually huge inflection level as we take into consideration the course of the final 12 months of the membership. It felt like the suitable time to suggest the longer term, and all we imagine that’s forward of us from a progress perspective.”
However the brand new look is not nearly a brand new period for the staff, however for bringing again public consciousness.
In a video posted to the Crimson Stars’ social media on Wednesday, the staff made the intention of the rebrand clear: regaining recognition locally.
“Hey, Chicago,” the video started. “You recognize this city. However have you learnt this staff?”
The Crimson Stars have had the largest turnaround within the league this season: After ending useless final within the NWSL standings in 2023, the staff has clinched a playoff spot this 12 months. (Chicago is at present sixth within the NWSL standings, with one sport remaining.) The staff’s rising fanbase broke data this summer season, with for a Crimson Stars matchup at Wrigley Subject.
The brand new branding is meant to resume the Crimson Stars’ presence in a crowded Chicago sports activities base, and make it simpler to establish as a staff.
“How will we join this membership extra carefully to town, if not in proximity, however in ethos and discover that emotional connection?” Bradley says. “That was additionally the rationale for pulling stars out (of the final crest), pulling ‘Crimson’ out of the emblem. Typically individuals shorten our identify to ‘Crimson Stars’, after which the ‘Chicago’ goes away. So by eradicating ‘Crimson’ from the identify, the quick model will likely be ‘Chicago Stars’, in order that we hold that reference to our metropolis.”
Per a number of stories, Chicago consulted gamers and followers within the run-up to the rebrand, asking them to assist decide what to maintain and what to alter.
Chicago is now the newest of the unique NWSL groups to endure a rebrand. NJ/NY Gotham FC, initially Sky Blue FC, . Seattle Reign FC, which modified names twice previously few seasons on account of a location change and a sale to the OL Groupe, to its authentic identify and (barely up to date) crest this season after . The Washington Spirit, one other one of many authentic eight groups, has a of its personal set to debut subsequent 12 months. (Different groups, such because the North Carolina Braveness, rebranded following a transfer to a different metropolis or a return to the league.)
