Carolina Railhawks rebrand to become North Carolina FC

The current incarnation of the North American Soccer League is in major flux right now, but that hasn’t stopped one of its teams from going ahead with a rebrand. In fact, this rebrand was done with an eye on Major League Soccer, as the ownership of the former Carolina Railhawks has decided to transform the team into North Carolina FC. The hope here is that this will be the brand that carries it into MLS.

As far as the look itself goes, the team has completely changed its colors as well, leaving an orange-and-blue look behind in favor of colors that represent the state flag’s colors of red-white-and-blue. As usual, they’ve got to give us a long and detailed reasoning behind their color choices, and they explain here why they went with “Atlantic Blue,” “Cardinal Red,” and “Southern Gold.”

When it comes to the gold, there’s a very good reasoning for that. The golden part of the star represents the “Triangle Area” of that particular part of North Carolina.

I’d imagine that once they get their league situation for next season figured out, we’ll get a look at new kits as well. But for now, we have this new crest to focus on. What do you all think? Would this look fit in with the rest of the identities that we see in Major League Soccer, or is it still a design that’s stuck in the lower tiers? Let us know what you think.