I have just paid $190 for a season ticket pass for an Australian rules football club, Carlton FC. Not DC United who will see me for 4-5 games next year. Guess we know how I chose to spend my disposable income.
So interesting thing, last night I was listening to some podcast and they tossed out a factoid that some absurdly high percentage of the DCU fanbase comes from Northern VA. I wish I could remember the actual number. I wonder how true or accurate it was because literally every decision made by the club the last 3-4 years has been made like the VA and MD fans were fairly trivial numbers that they could easily afford to walk away from. It makes me wonder what the trends were 4-5 years ago that have informed and drove these decisions.
"Literally every decision" I'm trying to think of a single decision outside of printing DC neighborhood names only on a t-shirt or something.
I don't think that the FO is trying to drive away VA and MD fans. Having said that, here are a few things that have been done recently: > Moved to Audi Field. For folks driving to games from VA and MD, RFK was more convenient for access and for parking. > Let bar partners in VA and MD fall off, and not recruiting new partners. Combined with the Flo experiment, this was particularly unfortunate this year. > No radio coverage (or streaming audio). This affects fans region-wide, but there are more people in the region not in the District than in it. > Hosting events such as watch parties with players/coaches, local schoolkid partner events, and any other team function only at DC locations, as far as I know. This may change once the non-business offices move out to Leesburg. Again, I'm not saying that the team doesn't want fans from outside the District. Just noting a few examples of recent moves (or lack thereof) that aren't catering to those fans.
My understanding is the Players Association negotiated for limiting the amount of time teams can ask players to participate in events without paying them extra.
All of this is work. The FO can't properly negotiate a media deal, do you think they could are willing to do all this. Besides while the potential pool of interns in the Washington area is large, it is not limitless.
Donald Trump Jr. is probably the only person on earth who is more spectacularly venal, personally vile, and sociopathically evil than his father. I would enthusiastically pay gobs of money to watch the PPV of him getting thrown into a volcano. Also, he's a dead ringer for Ben Olsen.
I've seen some doozies in here over the years, but this ^^^ is by far the meanest, most vile thing ever said about Ben Olsen and he deserves an apology
Side note: once again tried to listen to the RFK Refugees podcast yesterday -- blech, beyond amateurish. Mumbling, meandering and no apparent preparation for the podcast. What was funny was they were dissing BigSoccer as so "yesterday" (which it probably is). They then searched Big Soccer for mean things said about their podcast -- mine was the first one they read. Made my day.
Adjacent to funny. So last century would have been better. Don't be selfish, link to it. It's time for UnitedMania to come back.
I’m a fan RFK Refugees (I give them money every month). I enjoy listening to it. There are differing levels of quality from episode to episode regarding content. I do wish the audio was consistent. One host sounds much louder to me than the other (most noticeable when I am in my car). Regarding comments about bigsoccer, I do recall an episode a few months ago where they were mocking Goff for referencing comments in bigsoccer, wondering if he actually printed the pages to read them. The podcast is my only connection to regular talk about DC United aside from Pablo Maurer articles in The Athletic.
I like their podcast. I question their marketing savvy when they mock potential fans for being on bigsoccer. Although, in fairness, I suppose I mock people for being on bigsoccer too.
is there another site where DC United fans are gathering online to discuss the team? Asking for a friend. P.S. Don't say Reddit or BlackandRedUnited because I'd say there's more activity here...
BlackAndRedUnited is pretty active. During games it's far more active than game threads here. It actually has a lot of great analysis, but you have to wade through a lot of homerism too. And I find it pretty dull during the offseason so I haven't been much in the past few months. During the preseason and season I use it pretty often... again... taking it all with a grain of salt due to the homerism. I don't tread into the waters of reddit so I can't comment on that.
I really like DC United Kingdom, a podcast by a huge DCU fan in the UK. He stays up late to watch every game. He scored interviews with Amerikwa and I think Birnbaum. Very insightful. Also if you throw in a few bucks there's a Twitter group he'll put you in of super committed fans. I like that he balances knowledge of training and management of UK clubs as a point of reference for MLS. It's helpful to see the team and league through his lens.
B&R is useless. I don't mind the homerism of the site's commentary, but they're all so POR-ownership that it's beyond painful. I know I grind that ax hard, but they go so much further in the opposite direction. It's like they believe Levien is a good owner. And Ryan Keefer is the only person I've ever agreed with and still been wrong. I hit Reddit once in a while. I am here obviously. I read the Athletic which at half price was a screaming deal that I'll re-up at full price when the time comes. I have next to no need for Goff at this point. I'd like another outlet, but this is MLS in America.
I wonder if it is generational? Its been 12 years since DC United has won a Supporters Shield. That is practically infinity in sports terms. There is a large group of fans who know nothing of a DC United that has been anything better than mediocre. To them I can see why they might think Levien is a good owner.
I don't believe the Stockholm Syndrome applies in sports fandom. It's been a generation since the deadSkins were any good and the fans still know that Snyder is shit. Levien's goodwill is based on the fact that he was in ownership when AF was built thereby ending a period of uncertainty regarding DCU. The problem is this franchise is undercapitalized and while it has a stadium, the ownership group as constituted can't even begin to spend with the likes of Atlanta, LAFC, Galaxy, Toronto, NYCFC and now, maybe, NE. Also, this team doesn't have anyone as smart as Garth Lagerwey evaluating talent and running the operation, so it's not like the team is making smart acquisitions at lower value. Give everyone a few more years, another TV debacle and the fact that AF doesn't sell out now and won't have a Rooney to draw in casual fans, and everyone will see how awful this ownership group is at putting a successful team on the field.
Objectively DC United hasn't had a good owner since AEG sold. I'll always have a soft spot for William Chang and will be thankful to Thohir for getting a stadium built.
There is/was a rumor going around that Chicago's new billionaire owner was looking to lure Lagerway back to his Chicago roots. A Duke graduate, he sorta has roots in this part of the world. I know it won't happen, but a Lagerway-lite signing for the FO would be a good start for a team makeover.
I wouldn't call it generational. I feel like they basically shill for ownership on any subject of critical feedback about the team and how they do business, such as the stadium, roster construction, fan relations, etc. It's like they don't want the new fans to adopt an accurate view of ownership or at least a negative one. I'll be frank about the stadium, it's not sufficient and ownership can't actually afford it. Ownership has been the primary beneficiary of the "a stadium will fix everything" narrative ... it hasn't and it isn't really ever going to fund the team like Atlanta, LAFC, Miami or Charlotte. They've managed this investment really well, but from a competitive standpoint, we're headed for the B circuit. At this point, it can only serve to make the team more worth buying, but at the same time, they stuffed the new stadium into about 75% of the space it needed. They built an MLS2.0 stadium, well into the MLS3.0 era. I accept that there were a host of circumstances and constraints, but choosing to accept those also means you accept the criticism that comes with the outcomes of making those compromises. If you're happy that we have a team, then the new stadium is a colossal boon, but if you wanted a competitive fan friendly team that you've rooted for the last decade or so, you're not going to get that with the current cash poor ownership and the stadium they built or the training facility, academy and USL team they set up 45 miles away. I'd like to think I can wait these suckers out, but at the end of it, they're getting close to $5M a year in SUM money and a share of what is now $325M buy in fees for MLS. And my guess is that there are another 6-10 teams needed to fill out MLS. I view it as an east/west league with no interleague and 16-20 teams per conference that play toward an MLS Cup final like MLB was before interleague. Might be too much with the real estate income to make it worth them selling at the end of the day.
No one has ever leaped to own DC United. AEG ended up owning it because the original ownership group fell apart. They would have sold earlier but it wasn't until they found someone who was working on a real estate play could they unload the team. At no time has a "good owner" been interested in buying the team.