Cleveland Soccer Group has unveiled the name for its new MLS NEXT Pro franchise which will be known as Forest City Cleveland when it takes the field in 2027.
The organization decided on the name and branding after actively engaging with Cleveland soccer players and fans, according to Gina Prodan Kelly, the group's chief marketing officer.
“We've had a total of about 3,000 people be part of this process,” Prodan Kelly said. “In our focus groups, we talked face-to-face with about 300 to 500 people about the specific concepts, colors, names and things that we were considering and continued to develop and iterate on the concepts until we got to the right crest, icons, names and message behind each of the brands.”
Cleveland Soccer Group is also moving forward with plans for a Downtown stadium. The group owns a site near Progressive Field, Prodan Kelly said, which was once considered as a home for a stadium for the Cleveland Browns. The group hopes to get a new RTA rapid transit station at the complex.
“We want this to be a location that is a hub of activity, not just something that is open on game days and closed the rest of the year ... across our two soccer teams (the group is also launching a women's pro team), and about a dozen letters of intent from local high schools, colleges and other professional sports leagues, we do intend to have at least 60 events or more each year.”
The organization has partnered with Cleveland Metroparks to develop infrastructure that will make the stadium a key location in the park’s trail system.
“This plot of land will connect their trail network from the Slavic Village connector all the way through their trails that take people to the lake,” Prodan Kelly said.
Forest City Cleveland’s branding is heavily based around the “Die Hard Tree,” a Moses Cleaveland Tree located nearby in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Moses Cleaveland Trees were a designation given in the mid-20th century to trees that had survived from the time of Moses Cleaveland’s landing at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. According to the National Park Service, at some point in the 1940s, there was an attempt to blow the top off of the tree with dynamite due to concerns of the threat to traffic from large branches. The tree lived and continues to grow today.
"What we hoped it could inspire is, one, to feel a sense of that die-hard feeling that you have for your sports team, but also inspire the idea that even in the face of adversity,” Prodan Kelly said, “that it's not about just bouncing back, but finding new ways to grow.”
Cleveland Soccer Group is also launching a Women’s Premier Soccer League team, according to Prodan Kelly, who also that team’s co-founder. The name for the team, which will be the first WPSL franchise in Ohio, will be announced in May.
