I mean, there IS a Fire Berhalter thread. People have been saying that. I have no interest in his taste in oral sex, but that doesn't mean I may not have said something otherwise after a few gins. There are probably three distinct groups of Crew fans with opinions on Precourt. One group thinks that he is fantastic. They point towards his engagement. The rebrand. The hiring of Berhalter. And the success of last season's MLS Cup run. This group essentially thinks Precourt is the greatest thing since sliced bread and can see no wrong in anything he does. This first group's fawning spawned a second group, a skeptics group. This group, like most sports fans of most teams around the world is skeptical about ownership. They know that not everything is great. They are skeptical of some decisions that have been made at the club. These can range from personnel, to branding/marketing strategy, to ticket prices, and anything in between. This group sometimes increases the volume on their grievances due to the fact that group one never sees wrong. This is not uncommon in Columbus Crew history. Every few years the Sunshine Brigade needs to be brought kicking and screaming to the side of truth, or at the very least reality. There is a third group, of which you, Bill, may be a part of that looks at both groups and thinks that each is equally insane. Sometimes people travel between these groups over the course of a season, month, week, day, or even a given interview. It happens. Sports fans are passionate. At kickoff before every match, I honestly believe the Crew will win. I'm an idiot. Back to the question of a crappy interview. As stated sports fans are passionate. We root for laundry. Shitty ugly re-branded laundry, but we want to be proud of our team. This extends to all areas of the team. It's why fans care about stadiums, crests, and even our beloved Columbus Crewzers. And while we take pride in our team winning, any time that someone is acting as the face of our organization we want them to act accordingly. The organization has many faces at many times. Sometimes the face is even the fans themselves. That's why people care so much what happens in the Nordecke, or get pissed when bottles are thrown on the field from the Nordecke because in some way it reflects on us all. So when the owner of the team puts himself out there as the face of the organization, of course there is going to be a higher standard. But even if there wasn't an extreme elevated standard there should be two basic things that you would wish from the owner. First, obviously...don't insult the fans intelligence. That's our job. We'll insult eachother's intelligence just fine. Thank you. Second, just don't insult the fans period. Beyond taste in music (and I defended power ballads and Bittersweet Symphony REPEATEDLY, thank you), clothes, hair product, or whatever else, people want a good product on the field, and people want to see accountability at a team they love. Many have said so repeatedly. They also don't want their intelligence insulted by someone (albeit a very rich and successful someone) who just got here. That's all.
And if anyone has info on his taste in oral sex, I'm not interested. And I'm even less interested in finding out how you acquired such knowledge.
I've already decided it's firsthand knowledge and no amount of reason or evidence will convince me otherwise, because that's simply not as funny.
While we have not always agreed on other points, I think this is a fine summary of your position, and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
Precourt means well. I like him. He hired the wrong guy and gave him way too much power, but at least Precourt cares about how he is doing. Hang finds his need for validation to be weak, but I actually think it's a useful quality. It means we don't have a sociopath running our organization, and for an extremely rich man, not being a sociopath is a nice and rare quality. But, I think Precourt's organization is full of dopes at the moment from the tone-deaf twitter author on up to the head coach/technical director. Get back to making the soccer product better and spend less time trying to trick the Stanek's among us that we are playing great soccer now or that our being in 19th place is some random accident.
With the addition of two new teams next year, probably one team in each division, that we could end up in 21st place next year!
Once team is going to be the first team in the history of MLS to finish 22nd. Let's make sure that's not us.
The love or hate of Precourt and Berhalter is not so black and white. For most of us I think it is more of a spectrum. Like 75% sunshine and 15% thunderstorm. Or 25% sunshine and 75% thunderstorm. It all depends on the day and the amount of beer or for some medically prescribed anti-depressants. Or desire to be the first to the opposite. Or anger at skinny guys who shave their head.
IDK if this is Greeley's most recent interview, but: AP gets sold here as being 'hands on', and from what I can tell, continues to portray himself as such. So with all due respect for Bill's opinion, unless this image is a complete invention, I think people on this board are well within rights to call out the owner until we have reason to believe this is just for marketing sake. Honestly, at this point, which is worse? Second, that article makes a big deal about "staying the course." It's viewed as an organizational virtue. "Make the right decisions" and then stand by them. Which completely throws out incorporating new information, accountability, etc. It also leads to "we've decided something so obviously it must be right, let's keep doing the same thing forever..." Boy does that sound familiar. Finally, why *isn't* Greeley getting hauled before the reporters, save for polishing jobs like that SBD article? Are they just ignoring him? Does he not do anything? Is he that bad at PR?
I really do recommend everyone reread this entire conversation. Then look at the date of the posts and realize what was going on in the background with Austin. Some were really close on what Greeley was doing. I dont want a cookie, but my assumptions on Prec@nt were pretty close......but @Hangdadj.....are you my Mr Robot? Cause you had this puppy nailed. Is Prec@nt moving not for financial gain but because he doesnt feel loved? Most trust fund kiddies have that problem.