It was a slog to live through Hauptman. The last 5 years the only thing driving my purchase of season tickets was stubbornness. I was going to outlast that shitheel. So, now there's a new owner and some things looked hopeful...but there's no way in hell I can look at the complete cock-up with the logo/slogan and not see that as symptoms of some of the worst disease Hauptman had...that of not really caring about the fans the team did have. It's chasing mythical unicorns at the expense of the people who've been here for the team over it's whole existence (no matter when those folks started supporting). With every new release on their "PR campaign", they keep getting the same fan feedback and it doesn't seem to be slowing them down or giving them pause....so it seems clear that *we* don't matter to them. So, the new logo pretty much instantly slagged all the building enthusiasm I had for the club for next year and put me in a "how am I going to outlast *this* asshole" mentality.....which just makes me feel so damned tired. I am tired of having to recall AEG's active disinterest of us as "the good ol' days". I wish I had some positive plan of how to move us towards better, but at the moment I don't have any more energy than it takes to just say that this all makes me so damned tired.
I couldn't have said it any better. Maybe I'll feel differently come the new season after we presumably make some high profile signings, but right now I just want to put my Fire fandom on hiatus and come back in a few years. This club makes me feel like my support is worthless.
You, me, and most of the rest of us are tired of it all. We all hang onto hope we return to the first decade of quality. And management has a lot of cost sunk into the rebrand. I am against THIS rebrand. Honestly, I'm against ANY rebrand. But a well done tweak that keeps the Fire name, colors and iconography could be palatable. Whether there is a rethink of the rebrand or not, I'm boycotting any licensed merchandise associated with the rebrand. I'm also redoubling my spending on fan/supporter created merch. There's nothing stopping a creative individual from producing a line of red merch featuring, a blue Florian Cross, a red six sided Chicago star, and a white block capital C in the center. My dream is a stadium full of fans repping the OG like that as a big F-U to the powers that be behind the rebrand. THAT (or something like it) would make it all worth while. Last week Twitter metrics show a big thumbs down to the new badge. It's a fight far from lost, and well worth winning.
I hope this doesn’t sound like a criticism of anyone. I think if we look to the FO for direction or guidance, they can wear us down. If we see the owner as some leader, he can wear us down. Supporters (those from all over the stadium, not just standing singing fans) should only look to ourselves for direction. We need to push our own agenda. That’s how a club works. We can get there if we want.
This all just seems so avoidable. I'm mad at the team for creating something so universally despised and then sticking to their guns in the hopes of attracting fans who never cared in the first place. Why they couldn't engage Section 8 in a collaborative brand refresh is beyond me. This didn't have to be this way.
I haven't seen it written any better. I'd like to share it on social media (without credit if desired).
I don't know how apparent it's been, but ever since the season's ended I've been kinda trying to distance myself from real soccer conversations and the Fire specifically. It's just too much at this point. Earlier this year, I'd been writing a weekly wrap-up article about the team and every week I was writing about the same problems that were going completely ignored. Then one day in July I got a report from my source that a rebrand was imminent, so I panicked, wrote a 3000 word article, and waited to post it. I got scared. And I backed off, trying to prepare myself for life without the Fire (remember, I'm only 20. I've only ever had the Fire). But, while I backed off, I realized how much of my life involves the club. But in a good way. I write about the team for (very little) money, many of the best people I know are in Section 8, and most of my strongest childhood memories are related to the Fire. And I agree with you. Realizing all of this, just made me even more tired of the situation we're in. There's my favorite phrase: "Something stupid always happens," but it's exhausting to have it ring true so much. The Fire needs some mundanity, some normalcy for once. We need big changes and ask for big changes because that's what we need right now. But at the same time, it's just all too much. We've got so much going on off the pitch, that it's hard for me to constantly remember that we don't have a full squad. There's supporters vs the club on the logo, supporters vs the club on supporter registration issues, supporters vs supporters on who the hell even knows anymore! Being six years old was easy. The team was good, I didn't know anything about owners or supporters' charters. By the time I was 14, I realized how much the team sucked and that spurred me into researching things and eventually getting more involved. I think I've said this story so many times now, but it was essentially the stupidity of the Fire that led me down the path to wanting to get into sports journalism. And now, I don't know anymore. Maybe I thought if I wrote well enough and if my voice was loud enough, things could change. That's the purpose of "having a platform", right? But, nothing's moved. Even with a new owner and promise of change, nothing's different and honestly it could be described as worse. All that's happened is that the situation's so much more volatile. Everyone has a source saying we're doing something, we can't go more than a day without some sort of major rumor. I can't get carried away by that stuff any more because it's so exhausting. I seriously doubt covering/following other sports teams is this tiring. So I've been trying to do my best to take a step back. I haven't been talking here very much, I have been attempting (and failing) to avoid conversations about the Fire on Twitter, and even after I re-acquainted myself with reddit, I've ended up avoiding the Fire subreddit in favor of anime stuff. I've been very stressed over the past few months and the Fire has been no small part of that. Which is dumb, I shouldn't leave that room in my head for a soccer team over personal/school stuff, but I guess it seeps in from my heart. Anyway, I don't know what exactly I've just been saying, I just know that I am also very tired of the Fire and everything that's been surrounding it. Not even the offseason can give us a break.
Oh yes, s8c, the group that has been ever so willing to work with the FO... Probably because the ever-shrinking, ever-infighting, Fire fanbase has long since stopped being representative of pro soccer fans in this city and has been completely uninterested in growing their numbers if new fans don't meet certain standards of purity. The sneering at "millennial urban fans" from multiple members of this board and others is so pathetic. Do you want this team to grow, or do you want it to be an insular little clique rotting away under a financially awful stadium deal in Bridgeview? Actually, from DLM's previous posts, I already know the answer to that qustion. The idea that the FO isn't listening ain't true. They're listening, but you're not sending the message that you think you are.
I'm fine with marketing to those people. The problem that I see arising is sacrificing and alienating current fans in the hopes that it could possibly reach that market. It doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of marketing is growing your fanbase while maintaining your current base. What I'm seeing is an attempt to completely toss out the current base, while using language in marketing that contradicts the very actions that are being taken.
I agree with everything that has been stated. Don't like the logo, don't like the fact they ignore the fans opinions. To Joe I have one thing to say, just win and I won't care so much about the logo. I won't buy any clothes with it on but just fricken win.
I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest about fans who dislike the rebrand, but I don't want to argue with you or even talk about this stupid, self-inflicted error. I'm so damned tired...Mansueto wins. It's his team. He can do whatever he wants with it. I don't have to buy the merch or watch the games or give a hoot. This is supposed to be fun! When it isn't anymore, then I'll stop. It's not fun right now.
I'm sure you think you know the answer, but I'm positive you're full of it. Perhaps the reason that you're the "only non-pissed off Fire fan" is because really, you aren't one. People's image of themselves is frequently pretty far from the reality of them. The finances of the Bridgeview stadium isn't what killed the fanbase, it was the ownership and the brass tacks of it is we have *yet* (from day one) to have an ownership that was really committed to building a successful franchise here. AEG's goal was not to lose money. They cared about the Galaxy, the smallest amount of brainpower to keep us for costing them even more was all it seemed we got from them. Hauptman I don't know what Hauptman wanted to do...but if it was "to build a successful franchise" then you have to allow that he had the soccer version of the anti-midas touch. The new owner was a hopeful thing, but he's keeping on one of the most toxic-to-fans elements of Hauptman's idiocy and doubling down on a change that is alienating all the folks that have been here for decades. We are *NOT* a European soccer team. We're never going to be a European soccer team. I have been going to games for *decades* hearing folks who never come to games talking shit about the stuff I love that they couldn't bother to try in any of the previous incarnations....which involves a BUNCH of years at Soldier Field already, so that clearly isn't the magic sauce that will get them to show up. There are (and have been) folks coming to the games from day one, if you want to grow *this* club, you build from that. If you don't want to grow *this* club, you shouldn't have ********ing bought it. Columbus' former owner at least had the decency to be honest about his horrid plans.
You really think that fight began with s8c not being "willing to work with the FO" and not the other way around? That is delusional. What they hell does that even mean? Who is "representative of pro soccer fans in this city"? Very few people require a "purity" test, but many of us want the history of the team, and the history of soccer in Chicago, honored and respected, not pissed upon. Why is the "Fire fanbase" "ever-shrinking," do you think? Do you really believe it is due to "ever-infighting" and "standards of purity"? I do not subscribe to this idea and, if this is the idea of the "rebrand," (attracting millenial urban fans), the idiotic, meaningless logo and "football club" are not the way to do it. The stadium deal in Bridgeview was not "financially awful." It was not working as the team was not drawing. You seem to place the blame for this on an "insular little clique," as opposed to a decade of mismanagement and bad decisions. What, praytell, is the message you think people are sending? What message should the FO be sending?
I agree with this, and I am also dumbfounded and horrified at the utter shambles of an effort to pursue that broader fanbase. Alienate the existing hardcore and do nothing but embarrass yourself in pursuit of anyone else, and that's not a pretty picture. $60 freakin' million they paid for this.
You know what that $60 mill could have been used for instead of the move, players coaches USL team. Things that would bring people in from making a bette team. They pissed on everyone in the Western suburbs to chase the 20 somethings in the city. Guess what? Most won’t cross Congress on a Thursday afternoon. What makes you think they are going to take the red line on a Saturday night to Roosevelt.
All of this is absolutely exhausting, especially from the perspective of a current s8c board member. We're striving to maintain some culture and do cool, fun things for the community, but instead, it's a constant battle with the FO. (And no, absolutely not an unwillingness to want to build and maintain a working relationship with them, @CMeszt.) I understand that people are sad, angry, burnt out, annoyed - the list can go on - the reason I would encourage anyone to stay active in the community is simply because we need one another. The more people that "boycott", the less supporters we have around to carry on past traditions or at least share the stories and knowledge of the past. This is not to say that we shouldn't evolve as a supporters' base, we should, but it's important to merge the past with the new.
I need to point out this straw man argument. People aren’t sneering at “millennial urban fans”. Many of them already come to games. Many of them are our friends and family. We want them to come to more games. The “sneering” is at the sight of the FO giving up on all other aspects of the potential and current fan base in pursuit of those urban millennials. It’s pathetic and damaging. Please don’t confuse the two. I think you know this, hence calling your words a straw man argument.
Ah yeah... more purity tests. Nevermind I've still got my old Fire jerseys from going to school in rural Michigan twenty years ago where it made me a total weirdo to be a soccer fan, much less one of an MLS club. With shitty gatekeeping attitudes like that I just can't imagine why the SGs aren't attracting new members. This club has needed a reset in the worst way, because the fanbase has been too busy patting themselves on the back for what they used to be to realize how toxic they are today. You're never going to gain members/fans back if you're insistent the team be a neverending Peter Wilt personality cult... and based on post after post after post it seems a lot of people are fine with that.