Nashville FC Changes Name to Nashville SC, Eyes Fielding Development League Team Before Arrival of USL

NASHVILLE, TN — Wanting to avoid any headaches caused by a 25-year-old youth soccer team, Nashville's United Soccer League franchise has changed names.

The franchise, slated to begin play in 2018, was to use the name and logo of National Premier Soccer League team Nashville FC, but there's another Nashville FC. Nashville FC Youth has been fielding boys and girls teams in the Harpeth Youth Soccer Association since 1991.

The pre-existence of the name could potentially hamstring the USL Nashville FC's attempts to seek trademark protection, thus the team's owners, DMD Soccer, decided to rebrand to Nashville Soccer Club, with a new logo that hints at the NPSL Nashville FC logo, but, most notably, gets rid of the fleur de lis imagery.

"We started to realize it didn't have the (intellectual property) protection that we needed to be able to build the brand, both from a local standpoint but also from a national standpoint," Chris Redhage, one of the lead investors in the USL franchise, told The Tennessean. "We also wanted to make sure the name that we use really unified the city. We didn't want the confusion that could come with a local youth team using it as well."

There's another wrinkle here, as well. The NPSL team was supporter-owned and the plan was to execute an asset-swap. The USL franchise would get the marks and name, and the membership of the NPSL version of Nashville FC would be converted into a supporters' trust with a seat on the board of the new team. With the name change, that deal is dead, though the board of Nashville FC, in a letter to its members, indicated that Nashville SC still wants a place for supporters on the board.

"During the August 29 meeting DMD reiterated its desire to provide for formal supporter investment in the USL franchise on the same terms as previously proposed to NFC. In light of the foregoing, the Board of NFC agrees that the most appropriate manner of accomplishing this is through a new nonprofit corporation," the letter reads, in part.

That letter also says that DMD plans to field a Premier Development League team in 2017 ahead of USL membership in 2018. The PDL is on the fourth-tier of the American soccer pyramid, like the NPSL. The USL is on the third tier of that pyramid.

Image via Nashville SC