New York City FC Supporters: Meet The Third Rail
May 22, 2013; New York, NY, USA; From left New York City Football Club director Claudio Reyna , MLS commissioner Don Garber , Manchester City Football Club chief executive officer Ferran Soriano , New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg , New York Yankees managing partner Hal Steinbrenner New York Yankees president Randy Levine hold t-shirts at the event to announce plans for the new Major League Soccer team the Manchester City FC at P.S. 72 The Lexington Academy. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports
At the heart of every football club are its supporters groups. In Major League Soccer, we have a number of notable supporters groups, from Seattle’s Emerald City Supporters, to Portland’s Timbers Army, to Philadelphia’s Sons of Ben, to Los Angeles’s Angel City Brigade, and that’s just scratching the surface. Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers on the MLS Multiplex, may I introduce to you, from New York City FC…The Third Rail.
“The second they were talking about NY-2, I was in with this team,” said Third Rail head honcho John Malone to MLSSoccer.com’s Dylan Butler. “This is finally a team I could be all-in on and would pull on the heartstrings for some reason. This is finally my first soccer team. I don’t care who is on the team. This is my team.”
“The ability to help establish the framework and build a culture from the ground up is one of the things that was so attractive to me and to many of our members,” Brooklyn’s very own Chance Michaels said. “We get to do something that hasn’t been done in our city.
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“I honestly didn’t know what to expect. When we first started this, there weren’t any players, there wasn’t a logo, there wasn’t anything, I thought if by the first match we could have 500 paid members, I’d be happy. We passed 500 members in three weeks.”
How did they come up with the name, by the way?
“We wanted to find something that was uniquely New York,” Michaels said of the name. “This had the added the benefit of also incorporating some really powerful electrical imagery.
“They participated in what the badge was going to look like, we let them choose where they wanted to sit at Yankee Stadium,” NYCFC Chief Business Officer Tim Pernetti said. “That’s the culture we’re trying to create. I think supporters are growing because they have access to this club.
“No matter how far we go, how long we’re around or how good we are, we will never deprive the supporters of the access they deserve because we want this to be, much like our sister clubs, our community clubs,”
“It’s going to be an interesting fit for everybody,” Michaels added. “The club has been very interested in clearing as much room for us as possible. They’ve been very responsive to our concerns and interested.
The Third Rail already participated in a Halloween party and a FIFA World Cup 2014 semifinal watch party with the club. However, there are a number of other events that TTR will take part in next year, including the Carolina Challenge Cup during the preseason.
“We’re also looking at the first day of the SuperDraft,” said Michaels. “We’re looking to have a presence there as well. It’s been so long coming that we’re all champing at the bit to actually do something.”
The Third Rail will sit in Sections 236 and 237 of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for New York City FC matches.