The club was founded in December 1970 by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, renowned executives at Atlantic Records, whose parent company Warner Communications acquired the Cosmos in April 1972. The team's first recruit was the Englishman Clive Toye, a former sportswriter who had moved to the United States in 1967 to become general manager of the short-lived Baltimore Bays; he was given the same post in New York. Toye sought to convey the new team's ambitions within its name, and reasoned that he could outdo the "Metropolitans" label referenced by the then-nine-year-old New York Mets baseball team by calling his team the "Cosmos", shortened from "Cosmopolitans". However, the owners preferred other possible names: the Erteguns wished to use the name originally suggested by Nesuhi, the "New York Blues"; and another part of the ownership group wanted to adopt the name "New York Lovers". Toye then staged a rigged "name the team" contest, receiving 3,000 entries and selecting one that just happened to match his pre-determined winner. Two NYC teachers, Meyer Diller and Al Capelli, from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, entered the contest and submitted the name "Cosmos". The two physical education teachers had independently used Toye's method of deriving it from "cosmopolitan". The two men were awarded a trip to Europe as a prize. The team name was officially unveiled on February 4, 1971.Newsham (2006). p. 22.
