Fire could be getting a new logo and tweaking name

The Fire are tweaking their official name. Their logo is apparently undergoing a thorough redesign.

According to an application by Major League Soccer with the United States Patent and Trademark Office dated Nov. 15, the Fire’s official name will be Chicago Fire FC, instead of Chicago Fire Soccer Club. The FC is an apparent nod to the global game.

A new Fire logo is no surprise. President/general manager Nelson Rodriguez and owner Joe Mansueto have acknowledged the team is working to revamp its identity.

“There’s a team of folks here, talented people looking at that issue,” Mansueto told the Sun-Times in September. “They are toward the end of their process, so I’d like to kind of wait, let that play out. It’s complicated because there are a lot of pieces to it. It’s not just the name, or even in the name, is it FC, SC? There’s the crest, the logo, so there’s a lot of pieces to it. So if you did want to change something when you move locations, that’s something that I think is valid to take a look at.”

The logo on the filing is an oval design with CHICAGO on top and FIRE FC on the bottom. Inside the oval are six triangles.

The filing only shows the logo in black and white, but the design matches one that popped up last Thursday night on social media. That widely circulated logo is predominantly blue, with CHICAGO and FIRE FC written in white or possibly yellow. The top three triangles are yellow, the bottom three red.

When that design surfaced, it was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews. Tweets on the #cf97 hashtag used by Fire diehards have been against the potential new badge, with positive feedback harder to find.

If the design is the Fire’s new look, it would be their first change since the team was established in 1997. The Fire always have worn a badge based on St. Florian’s Cross, which is symbolic of firefighters.

The Fire declined to comment.