With the popularity of women’s sports seemingly reaching new heights by the day, leagues like the NWSL are taking advantage of this moment to expand into new markets.
This week, the NWSL celebrated its new team in Boston and revealed its new team name on social media. BOS Nation FC. They hoped to hit the right points: empowering female athletes and appealing to a 21st century audience.
Instead, they released a one-minute Rob Schneider movie-like hype video. In it, one writer decides to spend the entire screen time talking about testicles.
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As the video begins, a dramatic voiceover says, “Boston: The City of Champions. A legacy filled with trophies, banners, rings, and…balls.”
It didn’t bode well for the fledgling women’s sports team that the promotional clip reached testicular territory faster than most Pornhub videos.
Unfortunately, the wits didn’t improve from there. “Boston loves balls.” “There are too many balls in this town.” “We don’t need balls.”
In the BOS Nation video, the word “ball” was mentioned nine times in 60 seconds. This was the first time I watched an NWSL show and thought it was going to end with “Shut up, Beavis.”
Yes, I realize that reference is old. In my defense, every six seconds there was a joke with a ball promoting the women’s soccer team.
While soccer fans slammed BOS Nation in the comments sections of all social media platforms, several NWSL players also voiced their opinions.
Most notably, Instagram comments Screenshot by journalist Frankie de la CretasQuinn, a midfielder for Seattle Reign FC, said: “I feel like it’s transphobic. You did it.”
Although their comments later disappeared and were presumably deleted, Quinn’s rebuke was echoed by hundreds of NWSL fans who were appalled by the tone and content of BOS Nation’s video.
When Quinn, one of the most prominent transgender and non-binary athletes in the world, accuses his team of transphobia, their words carry special meaning. Especially when that team is new to the league that Quinn has settled into over the past six years.
A day after a Titanic-sized deployment, BOS Nation appeared to be in damage control mode. Tweet by author TL Pavlich The club has removed its ‘Too Many Balls’ merchandise from its online store and revealed that it has redacted all references to the ball in videos on most of its social media accounts.
Pavlich also pointed out“As of 9 a.m. ET, the full video is still available on the team’s official Twitter account. They have not paid the premium fee and therefore cannot edit it.”
At first glance, it sounded laughably cheesy. But honestly, BOS Nation not giving Elon Musk any money might have been their best PR move at the time.
In short, BOS Nation made its mark on the sports world one day after embarrassing its growing fan base and angering one of the league’s most famous pioneering athletes.
Thankfully, the club is not scheduled to begin play until 2026. By then, you might have come up with a slogan that doesn’t feel like getting rejected by Barstool for lack of subtlety.
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Source: Outsports – www.outsports.com
