Hello from Seattle. We in the Emerald City Supporters are enlisting help from football fans everywhere. Forget the US presidential elections... as you may or may not know, there's an even bigger election coming up: March 27 - 31 is our chance to name Seattle's MLS team. Please go to www.mlsinseattle.com, using as many email addresses as you have, and write in 'Seattle Sounders'. Please.
The Seattle Sounders have 34 years of soccer history behind them, and are quite possibly the winningest team in Seattle sports history. They've won four national titles, lost in the championship final 3 times, and have only had a handful of losing seasons. The fans have picked this name by a resounding margin in several earlier polls (mlsinseattle.com, Seattle Times, Seattle PI, BigSoccer, ESPN,...), was the leader in focus groups, *and* was submitted to the MLS for approval. But the league rejected the name, suggesting instead names that had done much poorer in the focus groups. Fans have spent the last week campaigning *hard*, and while we wish Seattle Sounders were a ballot option, it's not. BUT we got enough pressure placed on the league that a write-in option was included in the final ballot, which was a huge concession from them. We have support from the Seattle Times, The Post-Intelligencer, the Olympian, Soccer America, the LA Times, KJR am radio, and more. Really. You'd think the Seattle Sounders continued legacy was assured, and your vote isn't needed, wouldn't you? But it is. The election is going to be counted electronically, which has the downside that different versions of the team name will be counted as different votes, so we are putting out the plea to folks to vote for 'Seattle Sounders'. Any other variation will count as a vote for a different name. Be consistent. 'Seattle Sounders'. If you really want 'Seattle Republic' to win, go ahead and vote for it, but if you feel at all that you want the Seattle Sounders tradition to continue, if you really don't care and have a couple of minutes to kill this weekend, or if you just want to shut me up: 'Seattle Sounders'.
And feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be even vaguely interested.
