Sporting Kansas City? What happened to the Wizards?

Ah, the MLS. The American attempt at soccer, gone almost completely wrong.

First it was the fact their marketing campaign aiming at soccer moms. Then, it was the tiny ten thousand spectators watching a game in an 80,000 capacity NFL stadium. But now, all of that is in the past, it doesn't matter now as new "soccer specific" stadiums were built, and the marketing is geared toward a younger generation.

But this is just stupid.

So today I woke up to find the rosters of the US Men's National Team for the January 22, 2011 match against Chile. In the roster, there were twenty MLS players, including this one guy from "Sporting Kansas City". At first, I thought that the writer got the name from a USL division team, because I was pretty sure that there was no team with that name in the MLS. But I was wrong.

The team we all knew of as the Kansas City Wizards was one of those teams stuck in high school quality stadiums right in the middle of no where last season. But this coming MLS season, not only is the team moving into Kansas City (the one that's in Kansas), its also changing its name and moving into a new "state-of-the-art" stadium.

Rebranding from a franchise that hasn't had much success in marketing itself. So far, there has only been one year when they have had crowds of 15,000 or more. But now, with a new name and a new home, the Kansas City Wizards have a chance to prove their worth.

But they also have a chance at messing up, much like FC Dallas did. Of course, FC Dallas is a good team stuck in the middle of a snobbishly rich suburb almost as far as they can get from the center of the main population without getting out of Dallas completely. Kansas City, on the other hand, has the best of both worlds. They're not only stuck in the middle of no where, in a city of only 140,000 on the Kansas side of Kansas City, but they also haven't done as good as they would want to in the MLS.

I really can't see where they even got the money to afford to move into their state of the art new stadium (which is a really awesome place to play and watch the game, by the way). But the stadium might also help the club, if the 2011 team is a good team.

As was seen in the MLS's debut season, any new sports team or sports facility creates more fans, at least for the first season. If Sporting Kansas City can make the 2011 MLS season a good season, they will get themselves some needed fans. They already averaged 10,000 fans per game last year, selling out almost every game in their tiny stadium. That's pretty good for a team playing in a small baseball stadium.

Since the real, populated, Kansas City (in Missouri) is just across the border, Kansas City can avoid the fate of FC Dallas if fans do decide to cross the border into Kansas. The Fifth Official thinks that Sporting Kansas City will experience a growth in attendance next season and beyond. A stadium in a dense city like Kansas City has the ability transform Kansas City into an MLS success story. Maybe the rebranding only serves as a precursor of good things to come.