Boston Drops the Ball(s)

Introduced earlier this week as the newest team to join the National Women’s Soccer League and begin play in 2026, BOS Nation FC — “BOS Nation” being an anagram of “Bostonian” — launched with a provocative campaign titled “Too Many Balls”. The spot lists the types of balls in Boston — “Old balls. New balls. Steel balls. Cold balls.” — accompanied by images of professional male athletes, hinting not so subtly that there are too many men with balls in Boston and that now, a team with athletes sporting no balls, was the new attraction. The campaign provoked in the wrong way, with various trans athletes and members of the LGBTQ+ community calling it exclusionary and transphobic. Certainly not a good way to start but at least it drew attention away from the questionable team name.