The Boston-based National Women’s Soccer League’s team, BOS Nation Football Club, publicly apologized to the transgender community and general public on Wednesday after launching a brand campaign that featured the slogan, “Too Many Balls,” a reference to the city’s male-dominated sports scene.
BOS Nation revealed its name while kicking off advertising on Tuesday with a singular message: “There are too many balls in this town.” The slogan appeared on local billboards, and a social-media video referred to various types of “balls.”
“Old balls, new balls, steel balls, cold balls,” the narrator said, adding a “goat balls” reference with a cameo appearance from former quarterback Tom Brady. The video, which has since been taken down, also showed clips of Boston’s professional sports teams — the Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, and New England Patriots.
The advertising campaign angered fans and players alike for its supposed transphobic undertones in the campaign’s implicit assumption that only men have testicles. The backlash prompted the women’s soccer club to issue an apology.
“While we had hoped to create a bold and buzzworthy brand launch campaign, we missed the mark,” BOS Nation said in a statement. “We fully acknowledge that the content of the campaign did not reflect the safe and welcoming environment we strive to create for all, and we apologize to the LGBTQ+ community and to the trans community in particular for the hurt we caused.”
The club added that it strives “to be part of the most inclusive sports league in the world” and promised to “to do better” for its fans.
Among the campaign messaging’s detractors were current players in the NWSL — Sydney Leroux of the Angel City FC, Bethany Balcer of the Racing Louisville FC, and a transgender, non-binary player named Quinn who plays for the Seattle Reign FC.
Quinn commented on one of BOS Nation’s Instagram posts, claiming that one of her previous comments was hidden on the platform. “Calling out transphobia shouldn’t be hidden,” Quinn wrote. “This doesn’t represent the league and it is such poor messaging.”
Jennifer Epstein, who leads BOS Nation, addressed Quinn’s comments during the big name reveal on Tuesday.
“The whole intent behind the brand was to be inclusionary, and so we take that very seriously,” Epstein told reporters at the event. “And I would look forward to talking to that player and thinking through why this made them feel that way.”
“This is an important moment for women’s sports in Boston — and for Bostonians to see that they are fully represented in the team name, brand identity, and even in the tongue-in-cheek tone of the unveil campaign,” Epstein said, defending the campaign rollout at the time.
A Change.org petition started on Tuesday to demand the team change its name, garnering nearly 1,500 signatures in two days.
“The leadership of this organization not only want to market this professional women’s soccer team by yammering about testicles,” the petition reads, “but they are also giving us a cringey name completely devoid of regional identity.”
Regardless of whether the BOS Nation name will remain the same or not, the club won’t start playing in the NWSL until 2026. The team follows the 2018 dissolution of Boston’s previous women’s professional soccer team, the Boston Breakers.