What if the MetroStars still existed with their name and logo? What if the New York Red Bulls were as much a figment of our imagination as the U.S. winning a men’s World Cup? Such was the premise many members of The18 staff took and ran with, spending their most productive hours of the day creating New York/New Jersey MetroStars memes.
A founding member of MLS, the MetroStars were named because Cosmos had already been done, Los Angeles wanted the entire Galaxy and a bad baseball team had claimed the Metropolitans. (Actually, it was a play on Metromedia, a company founded by one of the team’s original owners, but the above story makes more sense.)
In 2006, the energy drink giant Red Bull bought the club because they apparently have more money for marketing than for making their heavily caffeinated soda taste good. The club was renamed Red Bull New York but is now essentially known as New York Red Bulls because us Americans want every team to have the same nomenclature.
Since the name change, Clint Mathis has yet to score five goals in a game for New York and the Red Bulls have yet to win a trophy besides the Supporters’ Shield. (They also didn’t win anything before, but let’s blame the name.)
So what if the MetroStars were still around? Well, we think society would look a little like this.
From there, we imagined a world where the MetroStars were more popular than the Pope and the Mona Lisa combined. A world where NASA planted a MetroStars flag on the moon, not that stars-and-stripes number. A world where Superman wore a MetroStars jersey instead of ugly leotards.
From there the office chat devolved into the beautiful garbage of internet culture that follows.
Enjoy.
New York, please bring back the MetroStars.
