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Expansion rumors are nothing new to North American Soccer League fans, who hear about potential expansion all the time, especially as the league has made no secret about the fact that it wants to get much larger as soon as possible. Most of the recent talk has been focused on West Coast markets or the city of Chicago, but the following Tweet has sparked some speculation that we might see a local rival for the New York Cosmos in the not too distant future:
Anyone want to venture a guess why a int'l sports media rights agency just trademarked the name "New York United FC" pic.twitter.com/P11QKaCZuH
— Bill Reese (@ReeseCommaBill) January 27, 2016
Sure enough, a search of the database finds this, this, and this, with all three trademarks belonging to MP & Silva LLC. For those unfamiliar, Ricardo Silva, the company's President and main shareholder, currently owns Miami FC.
Does this mean that the North American Soccer League is targeting New York expansion? Certainly not, as simply trademarking a name is just one step in the very long process of building a club. It is a step, though, and the fact that someone with ties to the league has done so is definitely worth taking note of.
For now, this is probably nothing more than something fun to speculate about, but it's hard to think that finally having a local rival in the NASL wouldn't be an awful good thing for Cosmos fans. The more New York derbies, the better, as far as I'm concerned.