Orlando City dominates at Disney

Members of Orlando City SC pose with Mickey at Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

Earlier this week, I posted about my search for fans wearing Premier League club apparel over four days at three Disney theme parks. In the end, I spotted 54 different people wearing clothing representing 14 of the 20 EPL teams.

On Day 2 of my trip, I decided to document every piece of MLS apparel I saw after I noticed a man in an Orlando City SC hat and jersey early in the day.

I predicted that Orlando City SC would win this competition. They are the local club and, according to a March 2015 press release, Disney is a “founding sponsor” of the team. As such, Disney World is the club’s official theme park, Disney Cruise Line is the official cruise line and Disney Vacation Club is the official vacation club, which means Kaká will never even consider purchasing a timeshare through another resort. Seriously, don’t even ask him to sit through your 90-minute presentation about the benefits of vacation ownership. He’s spoken for.

A brief aside: These inane sponsorship deals raise a lot of questions for me. Are there enough cruise lines to support all 20 MLS clubs? Where are we Red Bulls fans supposed to vacation? Do other teams have so many inane regional affiliations? For example, who is the official self-propelled corn harvester of Sporting Kansas City? Who is the official marijuana dispensary of the Colorado Rapids and Seattle Sounders?

In conducting my search, I was interested to see who would win the Hudson Derby between the Red Bulls and NYCFC. I hoped to see people wearing Houston, Portland, Colorado and San Jose apparel because I do not remember ever seeing those clubs represented before.  I also really wanted to see a Carlos Valderrama Tampa Bay Mutiny throwback jersey.

MLS clubs represented at 3 disney parks in two days

After three days, I saw seven clubs represented by 22 people. Orlando City accounted for 59% of the total pieces of MLS apparel. Orlando City’s 13 tied Manchester United for the second most after Barcelona, which seems to captivate children between 5 and 15. Seriously, there were so many kids in highlighter-pink, yellow and orange Barca shirts. I plan to discuss Barcelona fashion (they’re everywhere, across ethnicities) at length in a future post.

Three people wore Red Bulls clothing, including one kid in a long-sleeve Lloyd Sam jersey near the Teacups ride despite the 90-degree heat. No one wore NYCFC clothing. I guess Disney, like New York, is Red.

Unfortunately, I saw no Tampa Bay Mutiny (or Miami Fusion or Chivas USA) apparel.

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