No. I think getting the Haslams and Edwards experience as owners (or investor-operators, depending on how Dan Courtemanche felt when we woke up this morning) and going through this season and seeing how far we have to go is worth the growing pains of a bad season. A year of learning what not to do, what has been done that hasn't worked, what needs improved, etc., is all valuable. Plus, I love watching live soccer. Even if the product hasn't been great, the guys still had "Columbus" on their jerseys, so I support them.
Can you imagine this board if we didn’t have games to talk about for a year? My lord, the research that could have taken place would have been invaluable.
Oh for crying out loud, hiring ticket takers is not the most complicated thing. Yes, I am well aware off all the difficulties and obstacles the FO had. Heck, I even started a thread listing them (more than 20, IIRC). And I am sure Prescum & Grima salted the earth in many ways. But, going dark for a year was a craptastically stupid idea and deserves to be mocked, and so does anyone who gave it legitimate consideration.
Let's just say I'm not exactly convinced the club gave it legitimate consideration. Despite there being a thread on BigSoccer about it, even.
With the acknowledgment that the statement about going dark was made by Be Bezt, do you think that has any bearing on future decisions to can Porter?
It would have been easier for me to stop supporting the Crew after 10/16/2017. It would have been a lot easier for me to stop supporting all MLS. I did not stop and I firmly believe my difficult decision to tweet regularly about the team saved them. It was tireless work. I was honored to do it for the sake of the team I love.
As is pretty much unanimous in the responses before mine, the answer is no. Had they gone dark, I would probably have not come back. To me that would have meant that Precourt, Garber, et al would've "won" in their battle to kill Columbus Soccer. I wouldn't have been able to stomach that.
What were the numbers again? Something along the lines of the Crew only having 40 employees when the number should have up around 110 or 120, right? I mean at some point, someone in a half-empty Crew FO meeting obviously had to raise a legitimate question: will we be able to successfully operate as a business this year? Let's not pretend like our current leaders were thinking about shutting down the Crew for the fun of it.
No. It may have been a herculean task to continue uninterrupted given the hand dealt, but they did it. They had a poor season but made improvements and amongst league wide poor seasons historically, they dont standout. The continuity and the joy it provided the fans for this team to rise from near death was worth it.
To add to what I said before, saying "it would have been easier to go dark," is absolutely true. It's not very often that doing something is easier than doing nothing, especially when the deck is stacked against you. Just because he said it would be easier doesn't mean that it was ever really considered. I do think there were likely some early discussions when the MLS/Haslem/PSV plans were being hashed out that relaunching the team with a new stadium was talked about. Glad that they all decided that this plan (at least as far as our team is concerned) was the one to go with.
It may have been easier to go dark, but this isn't a team that shys away from a challenge. We are too massive to ever need to take a year off. Even missing a year is a small victory for preschool. We can't let him have that. We must succeed at all costs and difficulties.