The Columbus Crew no longer resemble the team that Anthony Precourt purchased in July of 2013.
Fourteen months into his reign at the helm of the Crew, Precourt has completely altered the club's front office structure, brought in his own head coach and now has changed the crest and slightly altered the name of the team.
The Columbus Crew became Columbus Crew SC Wednesday at a swanky reveal party hosted at a Columbus concert venue that featured Columbus mayor Michael Coleman, MLS commissioner Don Garber, a host of Crew celebrities and the band New Politics to provide the evening's tunes.
"I've been to a lot of events, and this one is at the top of the list," Garber said.
And with the tweak in name came a new crest, one that separated itself from the cartoonish designs that remind fans of the early days when the Crew - the league's first official club - originally launched.
Next up, Precourt said, is a change in attitude.
"We need to live and breathe it every day, and that's what we've talked a lot about," he told assembled media after the event. "This isn't just changing a crest for us, it's a changing of our internal and external mission statement and what we stand for as the club. It's our values, and it's how we're going to conduct ourselves in terms of being ambassadors and living the brand on and off the field day-in and day-out. So it really reset things."
President of Business Operations Andy Loughnane said that the rebrand can help focus the club's future and attract new fans while galvanizing veterans.
"This allows us to move forward together," Loughnane said. "Something that's important for the club is to be able to take it to the next step, accumulate new fans. We don't want to in any way abandon our amazingly strong, loyal fanbase that the team has accumulated over the first 19 seasons, but hopefully this allows us to hopefully be able to participate in the momentum of the sport, the momentum of the city, the growth of the city and build our fanbase."
Even the players feel a mood changing, and midfielder Wil Trapp likes the way the team's new crest stacks up against the rest of MLS.
"They put up a graphic yesterday of the logo mixed in with all the other teams and it popped off the page a little bit," Trapp said. "That's what I was most impressed with. On its own it looks great, but when you see it around the other ones you're even more impressed."
The "Soccer Club" designation may ruffle some feathers. But in a midwest city famous for its Ohio State Buckeye football, Precourt said it was important to designate the club both in town and around the world.
"We're in a marketplace where American football is obviously very relevant," Precourt said. "We want to differentiate ourselves. We're competing with them on Saturdays and in the sports pages and we want to differentiate ourselves there. It's also nomenclature. People in Europe understand more what Columbus Crew means, and I think that when we recruit players, what we stand for will make us more attractive in the global soccer landscape."
For Garber, the move helps to liven a brand that he said is important to MLS, one that he believes can be an asset as it continues to grow under Precourt.
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"This is a new beginning for the Crew, and it started when Anthony Precourt came in," Garber said. "Now they've been able to execute on Anthony's vision, which is to be a bigger part of the city to capture the new energy in this town, relaunch the brand and try to build on all of the history that's existed here."
When can Crew fans expect another rebrand? They might be waiting a while.
"We don't want to change this again, so we want it to be timeless," Precourt said. "Our old crest had some retro aspects to it that are sort of endearing. So we want something that - I look at it and see a little bit of retro and a little bit of progressive."
