New York Cosmos

History

Creation and naming

The club was founded in December 1970 by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, renowned executives at Atlantic Records, along with eight other executives from Atlantic's parent company Warner Communications, including CEO Steve Ross, president Jay Emmett, and Warner Bros. studio head Ted Ashley, each of whom put up one-tenth of the $350,000 NASL expansion fee. After several months of mounting financial losses, Emmett convinced Ross that the company should take on the financial burden. The ten investors sold the club to their employer Warner Communications for one dollar, and Ross threw the conglomerate's weight behind the Cosmos. Emmett later said of the move "(the Cosmos) was an entertainment vehicle, (Warner) was an entertainment company."

The team's first recruit was the Englishman Clive Toye, a former sportswriter who had moved to the United States in 1967 to become general manager of the short-lived Baltimore Bays; he was given the same post in New York. Toye sought to convey the new team's ambitions within its name, and reasoned that he could outdo the "Metropolitans" label referenced by the then-nine-year-old New York Mets baseball team by calling his team the "Cosmos", shortened from "Cosmopolitans". However, the owners preferred other possible names: the Erteguns wished to use the name originally suggested by Nesuhi, the "New York Blues"; and another part of the ownership group wanted to adopt the name "New York Lovers". Toye then staged a rigged "name the team" contest, receiving 3,000 entries and selecting one that just happened to match his pre-determined winner. Two NYC physical education teachers, Meyer Diller and Al Capelli, from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, had arrived at Cosmos the same way Toye had, earning a trip to Europe as a prize. The team name was officially unveiled on February 4, 1971.

North American Soccer League

The North American Soccer League (NASL) was founded in 1968. The New York Cosmos entered the league in 1970, and made their field debut in the league's fourth season in 1971. The first roster signing of the club was Gordon Bradley, an English professional who had moved to North America in 1963 and played for the New York Generals in 1968. He was made player-coach, a position he would hold until 1975. Bradley's team finished second in its division in its first year, playing at Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees baseball team and the New York Giants football team. Randy Horton, from Bermuda, was named the league's Rookie of the Year after scoring 16 goals and 37 points, the most by any New York player. In 1972, the team moved to Hofstra Stadium where they won their first league title with a 2–1 victory over the St. Louis Stars. Horton was the league's top scorer and Most Valuable Player, with 9 goals and 22 points from the 14 regular-season games and two post-season matches. The Cosmos reached the play-offs once more in 1973, but were knocked out at the semi-final stage. Bradley coached the United States national team for six games during 1973—picking himself in one, despite not being an American citizen—but lost them all. Before the 1974 season, the Cosmos moved again, settling at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island. In their first year at their new base, they finished bottom of their division. Horton top scored for the Cosmos in every season before he was traded in 1975 to the Washington Diplomats.

It was during the 1975 season that the Cosmos acquired the Brazilian star Pelé, whom they had been attempting to sign since the team was created. Ross had apparently not heard of him before getting involved in soccer, but agreed to finance the transfer when Toye compared the Brazilian's popularity to that of the Pope. Pelé joined the Cosmos on June 10, 1975, on a salary of $1.4 million per year, an enormous wage for an athlete at that time. A number of contracts—only one of which mentioned soccer—were set up for Pelé to ensure that he paid the lowest amount of tax possible, including one as a "recording artist" with Warner subsidiary Atlantic Records. "We owned him lock, stock and barrel," Toye retrospectively boasted. They also signed Mike Dillon in 1975.

The Pelé deal was later described by Gavin Newsham, an English writer, as "the transfer coup of the century". His arrival turned the Cosmos from a motley crew of foreigners, semi-professionals and students into a huge commercial presence. The club's groundsman, on hearing that the Brazilian's début for New York was to be broadcast on CBS, spray-painted the pitch green to disguise how little grass was on it: the match, against the Dallas Tornado, was broadcast to 22 countries and covered by more than 300 journalists from all over the world.

Major Indoor Soccer League, demise and youth soccer

Following the collapse of the NASL, the team competed in the Major Indoor Soccer League during the 1984–85 season, with Klivecka briefly returning as coach, but withdrew after 33 games due to low attendance. The organization tried to operate as an independent team in 1985, but could not finish a single season and the club finally folded.

Former club employee Peppe Pinton, who started with the Cosmos as Giorgio Chinaglia's personal assistant and was promoted to General Manager when Chinaglia assumed control, ended up with the club's assets largely because he was the only one at the time who felt they had any value. Pinton put the trophies, uniforms, and equipment into storage and took over the club's day camp for children at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey changing the name from "Pele Soccer Camps" to "Cosmos Soccer Camp".

Revival attempts

Since the original New York Cosmos club's demise in 1985, there had been attempts to revive it. With the rise of Major League Soccer (MLS), various New York area entities—including two different ownership groups from the Metrostars/New York Red Bulls—lobbied Pinton for the acquisition of the Cosmos name. Pinton refused to sell to an MLS team, believing that the league would not acknowledge the Cosmos' legacy. However, when old NASL names such as the San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps were revived as MLS franchises, he reconsidered. He sold the Cosmos name and brand to English businessman Paul Kemsley in 2009, whose group announced a new team with the Cosmos' name in August 2010.

Kemsley put the original club's trophies on display in the new club's office in SoHo. He and the other owners initially intended to become an MLS expansion franchise, but ultimately turned down the invitation to apply. Kemsley's team instead joined the new second-tier incarnation of the North American Soccer League, starting play in its 2013 Fall season. It played for the next four seasons before the league folded. The Cosmos then joined the third-tier National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), but played only half a season before going on hiatus.

After the second club had been dormant for five years, the owner sold the name and logo to a new ownership group based in north New Jersey, which had already been announced as an expansion team in the third-tier USL League One. That expansion team was announced as the third incarnation of the Cosmos, with plans to begin play in 2026.

Cultural impact and influence on American soccer

When Pelé arrived at the Cosmos in 1975, American soccer was, in Newsham's phrase, "dying a slow, painful and largely unnoticed death". The sport was not taken seriously by the bulk of the American media, and was of little interest to the public. Matches were often played in front of almost-empty stands, receiving modest press coverage. The signing of Pelé by the Cosmos transformed soccer across the country almost immediately, lending credibility not only to the Cosmos, but also to the NASL and soccer in general. Within days of the Brazilian's arrival, the increased media attention had caused the Cosmos' office staff to increase from five people to more than 50. Soccer briefly became to be seen as a viable alternative to more traditional "American" sports such as basketball, baseball and American football. The Cosmos, in particular, became an internationally famous club – "the most glamorous team in world football", in Newsham's words, or "soccer demigods" in those of ESPN writer David Hirshey.

The Cosmos, as the flagship team of the NASL, embodied what Hirshey labeled the "nexus of soccer and showbiz", and became Warner Communications' most culturally visible asset. After Pelé signed for New York, many other European and South American stars joined NASL teams; the Los Angeles Aztecs, for example, signed George Best and Johan Cruyff in 1976 and 1979 respectively. Cosmos road trips, described by traveling secretary Steve Marshall as "like traveling with the Rolling Stones", saw the team pack each stadium it visited, while at home, the team attracted numerous high-profile supporters. While soccer had previously been largely ignored by the American press, the Cosmos and other NASL teams now became regular fixtures on the back pages.

However, just as Pelé had kick-started the development of soccer in the U.S., his retirement in 1977 would mark the start of a decline. With nobody of the same stature to personify the sport, the popularity that had been built up nosedived just as quickly as it had appeared. The league's television deal with ABC was lost at the end of 1980 and a salary cap, enforced before the 1984 season, caused many of the remaining overseas stars—lured to America by fat paychecks—to return to the European and South American leagues. The NASL collapsed abruptly in late 1984, and was not replaced by a new professional soccer league until Major League Soccer's first season in 1996.

A feature-length documentary about the Cosmos, called Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, was released in theaters in 2006. The film, narrated by Matt Dillon, featured interviews with many of the players and personalities involved with the team.

Uniforms and crest

For the team's initial uniform, Cosmos general manager Clive Toye chose the green and yellow of the Brazil national team as part of his strategy to lure Pelé, one of that country's star players, to the United States. The club's initial uniform was all green with yellow trim, with the colors reversed on the road uniform. Coincidentally, the colors were the same as those of the previous New York NASL team, the New York Generals, which had folded after the 1968 season.

When Pelé came on board in 1975, the uniform was changed to all-white, resembling those of his club in Brazil, Santos FC. The green and yellow elements were relegated to the trim. The green shirt was concurrently matched with white shorts to become the new away uniform.

For the post-Pelé era, the Cosmos intended to retire the green color with him and make the team colors navy blue, gold, and white. The club explained in its press release that green was being dropped in part because "(i)t had been felt for some time that green uniforms against the playing surface of the field presented visual problems for both the players and for television." The NASL determined that the Cosmos hadn't provided the required one year's notice of the color change, so the league forced them to play the 1978 season in white and green.

The Cosmos officially unveiled their new color scheme in 1979 with uniforms designed by New York native and fashion designer Ralph Lauren; the home uniform remained all-white, with navy and gold trim replacing the green trim of the previous outfit. The new away uniform featured navy shirts and shorts with yellow trim, paired with unusual yellow-and-navy hooped socks, which were later replaced with plain navy blue ones.

In 1981, the navy was lightened to royal blue, and the Cosmos kept that royal blue/gold/white color scheme through the last four years of the organization's existence.

Atlanta sports artist Wayland Moore was commissioned by Toye to design the team's logo. Moore had already worked on the logo, uniform and program covers of that city's soccer team, the Chiefs, and attempted to create a design that was simple, using colors representing the great outdoors of sports stadiums. The three colored "blades" surrounding the soccer ball in the center represent movement and reference the logo Atlantic Records founded by the managing partner Ertegun brothers. The logo font originally used was chosen simply because it was easily legible on the uniform. The text on the logo was shortened to "Cosmos" in 1977, concurrently with the team's dropping of the "New York" label. The city name was restored two years later, but the badge remained unchanged.

Uniform suppliers

Uniform suppliers used by the team:

Theme song

Ahmet Ertegun used his connections to recruit Atlantic Records artists the Average White Band to create a theme song for the Cosmos. The resulting "The Cosmos Theme" was written by band members Alan Gorrie and Steve Ferrone, and recorded by the band under the pseudonym "The Cosmic Highlanders".

Team management originally wanted to use "We Are the Champions" by Queen as the club's theme, but were convinced by team cheerleaders to pick a theme they could dance to.

The Cosmos Theme was played extensively at Giants Stadium, and on television broadcasts of Cosmos games.

Stadiums

The Cosmos' first home stadium was Yankee Stadium, home to both the New York Yankees baseball team and the New York Giants football team, where they played throughout the 1971 season. Attendances during the club's first year averaged at 4,517, less than 7% of the stadium's capacity, which was at that time 65,010. The Cosmos therefore moved before the 1972 season to the 15,000-seat Hofstra Stadium, on the campus of the namesake university 25 miles (40 km) east of metropolitan New York. After two seasons of continuing low crowds at this out-of-town location, the Cosmos moved again, relocating to the 22,500-capacity Downing Stadium before the 1974 season. It was at Downing Stadium that attendances started to rise significantly, buoyed by the arrival of stars such as Pelé, who arrived in 1975. For the Brazilian's first match, the stadium was full; "there must have been another 50,000 turned away", coach Gordon Bradley later claimed.

These larger attendances necessitated another move, which occurred in 1976, when the Cosmos returned to Yankee Stadium. This time the team averaged 18,227 fans over the course of the season, over four times the average 1971 gate. The team then moved yet again before the 1977 season, to the newly built Giants Stadium, where attendances skyrocketed; crowds peaked at an average of 47,856 during 1978. The Cosmos remained at Giants Stadium for the rest of their time in the NASL. Attendances gradually fell as the league declined during the early 1980s, then finally slumped in 1984, when they dropped by more than half from the 1983 seasonal average.

The largest crowd to attend a Cosmos home game was set in 1977, when the Fort Lauderdale Strikers visited for a playoff match. The game was attended by 77,691 fans, which, at the time, was a record for American soccer. The lowest average attendance for a season was 3,578, in 1974. As of 2011, only Hofstra Stadium remains, now renamed James M. Shuart Stadium. Downing Stadium, the original Yankee Stadium and Giants Stadium were demolished in 2002, 2008 and 2010 respectively.

While playing indoor soccer, the Cosmos' home arenas were the Brendan Byrne Arena (now the Meadowlands Arena) and Madison Square Garden.

Supporters

The Cosmos sought to maximize their fanbase by appealing to as wide a demographic as possible. The club's name reflected New York's cosmopolitan makeup, and the logo purposefully avoided the standard American red, white and blue. In this the Cosmos succeeded, attracting noticeable support from local Europeans, Middle-Easterners and South Americans. The adoption of the team by members of the city's high society and association of it in both social and sporting contexts led to it becoming very popular among celebrities, both American and international. "We transcended everything, every culture, every socio-economic boundary," goalkeeper Shep Messing said in 2006. "We were international, we were European, we were cool, we were Americans from the Bronx. We were everything to everybody."

Players

The New York Cosmos are famous for having fielded numerous well-known players, almost all of whom were from outside the United States: examples include Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, and Carlos Alberto. American players of note include goalkeeper Shep Messing – who was notoriously sold after posing nude for a magazine in December 1974, then brought back two years later on Pelé's insistence. The Cosmos also fielded Werner Roth, a Yugoslavian-born U.S. international defender, from 1972 to 1979. Three Cosmos players were named in the NASL all-star teams selected by the league at the end of each season. None was born in the United States or Canada, where all of the league's teams were based: like three-time All-Star Roth, two-time selection Siegfried Stritzl was born in Yugoslavia, and one-time pick John Kerr was born in Scotland.

Retired numbers

10 – Pelé (Forward, 1975–77)

Head coaches

The New York Cosmos' first head coach was the English-American professional Gordon Bradley, who had played in the English Football League's lower divisions during the 1950s before moving to America in 1963. Bradley came out of retirement to become player-coach, a role he retained until his departure in 1975. Bradley's team won the league championship in 1972, but after it failed to reach the playoffs in both 1974 and 1975, he was dismissed. His replacement was another Englishman, Ken Furphy. His Cosmos succeeded in reaching the post-season, but lost the divisional championship game to Vancouver, prompting Furphy's own departure in favor of a return for Bradley, whose second spell lasted only half a season before he was promoted to an advisory role. Eddie Firmani, the South African-born former Italy forward, took over midway through the 1977 season. His star-studded team won two consecutive Soccer Bowls—1977 and 1978—but lost the National Conference championship game in 1979. Firmani lost his job after falling out with Giorgio Chinaglia, a favorite of the Cosmos hierarchy. His assistant, Ray Klivecka, who was born in Lithuania, became the team's first American head coach when he took Firmani's place midway through 1979.

Klivecka was replaced before the 1980 season by Brazilian coach Júlio Mazzei, who won the Cosmos' fourth title at the end of that campaign before being succeeded by two joint head coaches, Hennes Weisweiler & Yasin Özdenak, in 1980. This duo's team came second in the 1981 NASL before Mazzei returned in 1982 and won his second championship with the Cosmos during that year. Firmani returned in 1984, the NASL's final year, in which the Cosmos failed to make the playoffs. Firmani remained as the team entered the Major Indoor Soccer League for the 1984–85 season, but was fired in early December, halfway through the season, and replaced by Klivecka, who returned after two games under the caretaker management of goalkeeper Hubert Birkenmeier. Klivecka was retained until the team ceased competitive play.

Honors

With five championships and seven first-place finishes, the Cosmos still rank as tied for the most successful franchise in the history of North American soccer.

Friendly matches and world tour

New York Cosmos had many friendly matches in domestic and abroad.