AP photo by Mark Humphrey / Nashville SC fans celebrate during the official unveiling of the MLS expansion team's name, logo and colors on Nov. 20, 2019.NASHVILLE - Playing in Nashville means tapping into Music City, and the Major League Soccer team that will debut in 2020 unveiled its name as the Nashville Soccer Club along with a logo and colors Wednesday in front of approximately 1,500 fans.
Nashville SC's logo features a blue "N" surrounded by lines meant to mimic sound waves, and the team's colors will be "acoustic blue" and "electric gold," with the latter the primary color for home uniforms and used as much as possible for road games.
"The whole sense of sound, we kind of took that and didn't want to just do the normal Nashville guitar," majority owner John Ingram said. "There's nothing wrong with guitars, but (we) wanted to have something that (represented the) sound and energy and the vibe here in Nashville."
MLS commissioner Don Garber took part in the presentation by the group that was awarded an expansion franchise in December 2017, and he said the league worked with Nashville SC and local designers for the final brand.
"I love the idea of sound being important because sound is such an important part of this city," Garber said. "You think of all those lines. It's almost like a pulsing movement. You think about that on an LED board, you can think about that going on in the stadium. I do think they have an international brand opportunity here, and I think this brand will deliver that."
The logo and colors leaked online last week. That didn't stop Nashville SC from holding its big announcement with food and drink followed by a concert, nor fans from turning out.
Nashville's United Soccer League team is helping build support for the future MLS squad, and a 30,000-seat stadium at the city's fairgrounds is scheduled to open in 2021. Nashville SC will play its inaugural season at Nissan Stadium, home to the NFL's Tennessee Titans.
Garber noted Nashville SC already has sold passes for a third of its stadium's seating.
Using Nashville SC as the name is a nod to the fans who turned out at council meetings supporting both the push for an expansion franchise and funding for the soccer-only stadium, Ingram said. They already had bonded with the colors as well from the announcement of Nashville being awarded an expansion franchise.
"At the end of the day, it was more important to me to continue on what we'd started here," Ingram said. "I thought that was better for the team and for the city and for our fans."
Nashville SC CEO Ian Ayre said not having a full MLS identity with the logo and colors had been hampering efforts to promote the team. The former Liverpool FC chief executive was hired last spring to help build Nashville's MLS franchise, and Ayre liked sticking with a traditional name.
"I'm new to Nashville, but talking to our supporters and talking to our owners, Nashville isn't celebrity," Ayre said. "It's authentic and it's cool and traditional, and that's what the name is. That's what our supporters wanted to keep, is a name that's kind of typical of a soccer club."
Garber said both of Nashville's other top-level pro franchises, the Predators and the Titans, have been very supportive of Major League Soccer coming to town.
"Nashville's a small town that's punching way above its weight in so many different things ," Garber said. "The fact we're all partners here to raise the profile of the city, I think, is very positive."