Kansas City MLS Team's New Name Is Impossibly Awful

Goodbye, Kansas City Wizards. Hello, Sporting Kansas City. Or as we will refer to them hereafter, The Fightin' Gerunds.

"Wizards" was never a great name. It's just as much a relic of what people in the '90s thought was cool as any team wearing teal. (Though it was better than their inaugural season, when they were "The Wiz." And we wonder why MLS wasn't taken seriously.)

But the trend of naming teams in European and Latin American styles has to stop. D.C. United makes a little sense. FC Dallas and Chivas USA make less. Real Salt Lake, none at all. But "Sporting," a designation only vaguely familiar to American ears from the Lisbon team, just sounds like they're trying too hard.

According to the press release, the name change "establishes a brand that will best represent their vision to bring additional sports properties to the Kansas City market." That's fine, but it's not as if the old Wizards name screamed "soccer and soccer only." This would make more sense if it were a Quidditch club looking to expand into other sports.

And say farewell to The Cauldron, the former name of the supporters group. That only made sense with the Wizards connection. For Sporting, the fan section is going to have to be renamed Supporting.