A soccer legend returns!
It seems like yesterday when I watched, a kid still, Pelé’s farewell demonstration soccer match on TV.
New York Cosmos played New York Santos on October 1, 1977 – a game that featured legendary Brazilian soccer player Edison Arantes do Nascimento, or Pelé to the rest of the world.
Cosmos won 2-1 with a goal scored by Pelé, who retired after the match. Soccer isn’t the most popular sport in the US and the team shut down its doors less than a decade later, in 1985.
Rolling forward to 2010, after a very successful and vuvuzela-laden World Cup in South Africa.
All of a sudden, the New York Cosmos is forming again!
At the end of 2009, a group of investors, led by Paul Kemsley, an English businessman who previously held an interest in British soccer team, Tottenham Hotspur, bought it along with the rights to the New York Cosmos franchise.
According to the press release:
The new Cosmos team has already partnered with Queens-based youth club BW Gottschee. Together they will field youth teams called the Cosmos Academy in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy. The Cosmos also bought the Copa NYC tournament, an competition in New York which has a 16-year history.
It’s all good until one realizes that the domain name NewYorkCosmos.com is owned by domain megastore, BuyDomains.
While there is no fixed price, the domain NewYorkCosmos.com is being flat out offered for sale, something that can cause a lot of headaches to BuyDomains, as the team is re-emerging.
On top of that, there are several registered trademarks listed at the USPTO that are linked to the new owners, which means that there will most likely be a struggle to obtain the much-coveted .com – the club currently operates from NYCosmos.com
Regardless, it’s great seeing a legendary US soccer team return, it brings back lots of childhood memories 😀
Wow Lucius you’re as old as my dad 😀 LOL
Nordi – at least I’m not as old as Pele 😛
nice piece
really enjoyed that Lucius
Pele, was a legendary footballer
only bettered by 3 imho
george best
maradona
zindedine zidane
cheers
Guy
Guy – each country had its soccer legends; here’s Vasilis Hatzipanagis of Greece 😀
Goooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Hello Beckenpower of Bayen Munich!!
If the OP did any research at all and inquired with RareNames Inc, they would see that newyorkcosmos.com is not in fact available for purchase. It is very easy these days to gain control of a domain name of your exact trademark. Being that they own every other combination of nyscosmos cosmosny dot anything, i would assume that they have this one as well.
hey SoccerDork – I go by what comes up at http://newyorkcosmos.com – And that’s a link to purchase the domain, at BuyDomains. If you showed that page to the panel at WIPO and convinced them the domain is not in fact for sale, I’d like to hire you as my UDRP attorney due to your amazing skills 😀
This post brings back a lot of memories. My dad had seasons tickets and we went to just about every game. I remember Pele’s retirement game very well, the best that played the game. Great team with some great players like Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer. Would love to see that franchise come back! It was the pinnacle of US soccer. To get players of that caliber today it would take a lot of money.
Thanks for sharing, Dan. I don’t feel as old anymore 😀 It’s funny how US soccer had a great early start, then it went downhill in the 80’s and early 90’s until the Atlanta games. Many US soccer players made it to European leagues after that. In this year’s World Cup Team USA showed that they can play world class soccer and the sport deserves to have more fans.
Lucius – Soccer in US did not really have an early start as it was already the most popular game in Europe at the time. It was the founder of Atlantic records, Ahmet Ertegun of Turkish heritage, that organized and founded the team in his NYC office on 5th Ave. I believe he teamed up with the president of Warner Bros at the time.
Bringing Pele and Beckenbauer to the US is pretty much like having Beckham play a couple of years ago. Overaged players that can create a buzz.
Popularity of soccer between young girls in U.S. as a sport of choice and (soccer moms!) is also something unusual for europeans. It is football, not soccer and it is meant for men. 🙂 Funny but true.
Juegos – I’m European and the coming (or going) of Pele – a Brazilian national – to the US was big news across Europe back then; Pele’s farewell match was broadcast live on European television channels. Yes, soccer is football when you’re not an American 😀 The sport has received great visibility this year in the US, thanks to the participation of the US team at the World Cup finals. I guess, soccer moms in Europe are a rare species, good point 😀