From the Article:

Litigation Capital of America

The phrase “soccer capital of America” has been passed around like the common cold over the years. Poke around any newspaper archive and you’ll see it assigned to dozens of American cities. There are the obvious ones, like Kearny, NJ and Portland, OR, and then there are population centers whose claim on the title feels a bit more tenuous: Bloomington, IN. Clifton Park, NY. El Sobrante, CA.

The first mention of the phrase, though, comes in the mid-50s and appears in a small, Los Angeles-area newspaper. And it’s in reference to St. Louis, MO.

Dozens and dozens of times over the past 70 years, the city is referred to as America’s soccer capital, and for good reason. The city has produced 12 Open Cup champions and nearly as many college title winners. Five players from the city were on the 1950 World Cup squad that shocked England, and modern soccer is full of folks from the city as well, names like Taylor Twellman, Tim Ream and Becky Sauerbrunn. The city can even claim to have what was possibly the first-ever organized women’s league in the United States.

Back in 2021, the four St. Louis City SC fans who run the River City Ramble podcast were keenly aware of all of this when they named their then-new show the “Soccer Capitol Podcast.” That phrase — “soccer capital of America” did not feel owned by anybody, it felt like a part of the American soccer zeitgeist. Even if the phrase itself was trademarked, who was going to bat an eyelash at a quartet of random soccer fans running an unprofitable podcast from their collective bedrooms?

Sporting Kansas City, that’s who.

Unbeknownst to anyone, SKC thought that the place they call home had its own claim to the title. And for one reason or another, they applied for a trademark on the phrase in the summer of 2021, a couple of months after the River City Ramble guys broadcasted their first episode. A year later, in July of 2022, that trademark became registered.

“Then we see that (Sporting) puts out their own podcast, called ‘Soccer Capital of America,’ and I was like ‘uh oh, we’re in trouble,’” River City Ramble co-host Mike Turner told The Athletic last week. He had good reason to be suspicious. In February of this year, Sporting KC general counsel and vice president Andrea Kimball reached out to him. “Do you have time to chat on about the federally registered trademark (Soccer Capital of America), that our legal department believes is being infringed by the name of your podcast?,” she asked.