Talk:Seattle Sounders FC

Jersey names

The Sounders don't refer to their jerseys as home and away. They prefer the terms primary and secondary since the color they wear does not depend on their location. Although looking through the team store and press releases they seem to shy away from the term "secondary" preferring to call it purple or Hendrix.76.175.64.189 (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

All MLS sides do the same, however this should be discussed at the template. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:41, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Club culture and traditions

Just going to stick some notes here that would be useful in developing a "Club culture" section (which would probably encompass the Supporters and Rivalries sections as well).

• Jingle bells sung after away wins since the 1990s

SounderBruce 23:58, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Club History - Multiple Pages

We love our club and our history, which I believe legitimately dates back to our 1974 founding as a NASL club. I never really questioned splitting the wiki accounting of our history into 3 top level pages, until I started looking closely at the pages of other clubs. Primarily the Rangers of Glasgow Scotland. The Rangers famously went bankrupt in 2012, and ceased being a football club. They were reformed and entered the Scottish football pyramid at the very bottom, and have progressed back up to the top level. I do not begrudge the Rangers their singular page, but I do envy it, as they are as much a "new entity" as the Sounders are from the NASL days to the present. When we get our Supersonics back, will they suffer the same indignity of a "lost history" as the Sounders, relegated to a new but seperate wiki history? Or will the wiki sporting gods recognize the continuity of fandom and records? (Almost?) everyone recognizes the modern Sounders as the spiritual continuation of the club established in 1974. It is time it (and the ASL/USL Sounders) were included on the same page as the MLS iteration. Wasn't Adrian Hanuar (our current owner) also the owner of the ASL/USL Sounders?

I would also point out that in the wiki telling of the Sounders-Timbers rivalry, the 3 legal entities are treated as one, as are the 3 legal Portland entities. bgix (talk) 18:34, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

They are separate entities and treated as such. Most teams that move between closed leagues have separate articles for each incarnation, and the differences in rules and norms for each of the leagues are wide enough to cause issues when merging the histories together. For example, the season lists that I have been working on have to explain the mechanics of six different points systems used by the NASL, A-League/APSL, USL, and MLS. SounderBruce 18:39, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

You make a good point about the points system, and I agree that it would be non-trivial. Even the pre-Sounder MLS hockey style shootout muddles the records. But then we also have to account for histories that bridge the gap, like our supporters and rivalries. Are the rivalries of the earlier iterations relevent to the current iterations? I would argue yes. Does it matter to modern Sounder fans that our earlier iteration competed against Pele in his final competitive match? I argue yes. Are the titles won by earlier iterations relevent? That our coach was once a player? That the literal fandom of past iterations is largely responsible for voting our stadium into existance? At the end of the day, I do not believe Wiki should be beholden to MLS. We defy the "history begins at MLS" in so many different official and unofficial ways. Our newest 3rd jersey speaks to that defiance. The very fact that we must accommodate "different points systems" and have effectively done so, seems to eliminate that as an arguement *against* merging the history. bgix (talk) 19:02, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, this might be a little long-winded, but trying to be thorough in the reasoning.

It's easy to argue that the original NASL Sounders are a separate entity with the same name, but the same can't truly be said about the team starting in 1994, with some ownership, staff, players and the name carrying over to MLS, and no hiatus.

In fact, as a counter-point to SounderBruce's statement above about the team being treated as multiple entities and most teams that move between closed leagues having separate articles, treating the pre-MLS years as a fully separate iteration seems to be about a 50-50 split for MLS teams with lower-league history. Seattle, Portland and Minnesota are currently worded as to completely disown any history prior to MLS, which I disagree with. Vancouver is written nearly the same, but uses the founding date of the original NASL team, so that page can't seem to decide what it wants to do. Montreal's main page is MLS focused, and while the pre-MLS years still have a separate page, the main page treats the earlier years as part of the team's history, which I find acceptable. There's no separation at all for Nashville, Cincinnati, or Orlando.

Idea A:

I do think there could be a slight reduction in the number of history and list-of-seasons types of articles. For instance, I think History of Seattle Sounders FC should either be merged into this page, or Seattle Sounders (1994–2008) should be merged into History of Seattle Sounders FC. I also think List of Seattle Sounders (1994–2008) seasons should be merged into List of Seattle Sounders FC seasons, even if their info lives under different headings within. In fact, History of professional soccer in Seattle has basically already proven out this approach to an extent.

Idea B:

The situation could be improved without any merging by keeping the histories separate without totally disowning the fact that the MLS Sounders is the direct continuation of the pre-MLS Sounders. The current wording on everything sounds like someone is trying to expunge the existence of the 1994-2008 years. Those years should be treated as history of the current club, but at the same time that history can largely stay in its own article. This only requires slight wording tweaks without having to make significant changes. I think that would be a happy medium between a bunch of merges and the current completely disowned state.

There may be other good approaches besides the two mentioned here, but either way, I agree that the "history begins at MLS" complete separation approach is not correct.

I'm going to roll with idea B for now since it's relatively innocuous and easy to roll back if there's disagreement. Word66 (talk) 20:03, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Merging back into an already-long (by FA standards) article is not ideal. There is no disagreement that the previous incarnations of the Sounders are part of the club's history, and that they should be summarized here, but they are not the same entities. The USL franchise was relinquished to one of the minority owners, who used it to start up the Kitsap Pumas. Having separate articles for separate entities with a shared history is not uncommon on Wikipedia (mostly cases of relocation or phoenix franchises), so there's nothing particularly confusing about the Sounders situation. The status quo works, for the most part. SounderBruce 02:34, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Full name of club

The full name is Seattle Sounders Football Club, not »FC« - see here: . Previous discussions were from 2009/2010, which means they’re no longer representing current facts or changes that happened in the meantime. --2A04:4540:640C:9000:5D13:B01E:6405:359A (talk) 14:35, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Recent press releases still use "FC". . It would be one thing if there was statement from the club discouraging the use of FC in favor of "football club" but that doesn't seem to be the case. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:01, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I think there’s a misunderstanding here: full name doesn’t mean exclusive use or the only variant being permissible to be used. Abbreviations are common in sports. Thus, Sounders FC or Seattle Sounders may be what is normally in use, but it’s not the full name - WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIALNAMES are two different things.

A Statement »discouraging the use of the FC abbreviation«? Are you saying that is a requirement to include the full name in the info box or the article? How does that make sense? By that token, »football club« as part of a club’s or organization’s name would be virtually non-existant, as the overwhelming majority uses abbreviations, e.g. FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC et al.

The club’s website says: »[…] the Rave Green celebrate 50 years of Seattle Sounders Football Club […]« ;

The club’s official Facebook page says: »The Official Facebook Page of Seattle Sounders Football Club« ;

The club’s official Twitter page/status says: »We are Seattle Sounders Football Club« ;

The MLS refers to them as Seattle Sounders Football Club ;

The official supporters’ organization calls itself »Seattle Sounders Football Club Alliance« (in line with the first source I listed, mentioning both club and the supporter group spelled out)

James Woollard, the club’s public announcer, says Seattle Sounders Football Club

Glassdoor entry says the same:

So does Stoel Rives, the law firm responsible for drafting and setting up the contracts pertaining to the construction of the club’s hq and training facilities:

The opposite makes sense: Unless there is an official statement from the club discouraging the use of »football club«, it has to be included in the article, either in the info box or in the lead, possibly like this: »Seattle Sounders Football Club, commonly known as Seattle Sounders FC or just Sounders FC, […]«.

Add-on: I have just found a press release from 2009, introducing the website: »Welcome to the new SoundersFC.com, the official online home of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders Football Club! […] The Digital Media Team, Seattle Sounders Football Club« 

The claim that FC does not stand for »football club« has been false from the beginning, then - either inadvertently or deliberately.

--2A04:4540:640C:9000:5D13:B01E:6405:359A (talk) 19:15, 29 August 2025 (UTC)