Comets unveil new sponsor and uniforms

The Missouri Comets unveiled their new jersey sponsor as well as their new uniforms in a press conference this week in preparation for the MASL season kicking off Saturday.

Borden Dairy is the new jersey sponsor and Elsie the cow and the Borden logo will feature on the Comets' new uniforms. The new home kits bear a strong resemblance to the U.S. national team "bomb pop" uniforms.

With the MASL forming from the old MISL and PASL teams, the new league has a national presence like never before and that appealed to Borden Dairy. "We have a national foot print and anywhere the Comets can go with the Borden brand on it only makes sense for us to continue to increase consumption in those areas as well," Borden vice president Ted Sowle explained after the press conference.

Sowle acknowledged they have looked at sponsoring the Comets previously but the time was not right until now. With the national exposure(and international with teams in Mexico) and Borden is launching a new product that will ship in February, Sowle said it was the right move.

The new product will combine natural cheeses and pretzels as an easy snack for people on the go and would seem to be a natural fit with soccer moms and their families.

"The Borden brand is a national brand and is a 168 years old; it's one of the oldest food brands out there. In this case old is good, it means you have stood the test of time so we are proud of that," Sowle explained. "One thing that sets us apart from other cheese brands is when you buy a package of Bordens cheese, 100% of our proceeds goes back to American dairy farm families. Most brands cannot say that, it is one of the things that set our co-op apart. Our proceeds do not go back to Wall Street, they go right back to the dairy farmers in and around this area. There is about 1100 farmers in our organization that are supported in the Kansas City and Kansas Missouri area by purchases of Bordens."

More photos from the press conference

Re-Building the team

With the formation of the MASL, all of the old MISL contracts were voided so teams have been busy re-signing their players.  Most of the Comets return for the 2014-15 season with a couple notable exceptions, Stefan St. Louis signed with the Ambush, Alex Megson with Rochester and while Lucas Rodriguez signed with the Comets it sound like he may have moved to an outdoor team.

The Comets still have some roster room to add players and have people in camp (players remaining from open tryouts and even a former Sporting KC player) but Comets head coach Vlatko Andonovski does not feel rushed to add players.  "The guys that came from the tryouts are good but I don't think they are quite ready yet," Andonovski stated. "There is definitely a lot of talent there and we are going to keep a few of those guys with the team, maybe some on a reserve team, maybe some on the roster eventually."

When asked about being under roster size, Andonovski responded, "We are way under roster size but we won a championship with eleven players; I'm not worried about starting the season with less than a full roster."

One big concern is Andonovski himself

As of late Monday, the Comets did not have Andonovski under contract. "We've been negotiating for a while now but don't know when it is going to happen," Andonovski admitted.

That has not stopped him from getting the Comets ready in preseason but asked if would go to Dallas for the first match if he did not have a contract Andonovski replied, "Probably not, but I will be with the boys until the very last minute."

Look for a breakdown of the Comets roster and the new MASL this week.