I don't know the story behind the Seattle naming snafu. I know what I've read and I know what people have said about how the league quashed certain names and touted others. But if you're looking for first hand information, check elsewhere.

What I can say is that the team and the league got it right.

It doesn't always work out that way whether owners (Dallas Burn? Real Salt Lake?) or followers choose the team name.

But with the ownership's bent towards the wacky (Will the marching band perform during halftime? Does the general manager rent or buy his house when he moves to the city?), there needed to be a democratic resolution to the question of the name and it needed to involve more than FC.

Sounders is part of the soccer fabric in Seattle. Is it a great name? Not particularly. Will the team possibly channel Tampa Bay when it creates its new uniform? There's a decent chance.

Yet even though it doesn't look like the name has much going for it, Sounders does have character. It has people willing to back it in the face of other options. It has history.

When the people spoke, the ownership listened.

For a franchise trying to do things differently, a nod to tradition in the face of increasing modernization may not be such a bad way to do it.