News: Fire Moving to Soldier Field

Discussion in 'Chicago Fire' started by lncolnpk, Apr 2, 2019.

  1. krolpolski

    krolpolski Member+

    Yeah, this really doesn't make much sense.

    You go to Soldiers Field and ya gotta deal with the Park District.

    And they are gonna put the interests of their longest and most connected tenant -- a certain team, with a name that starts with Bear and ends in ssssssss -- first.

    And yes, I remember the days when the Fire played there. After the first game -- and despite having an exciting and competitive team -- attendance never passed that number. And the pitch was destroyed by the primary tenant during the fall. I think they ended up putting down sand that was painted green to fill in the divots.

    As said before, the second tenant don't control the concessions, so the team's take would be lessened. There's limited on-site parking that -- last time I parked there for an international match -- cost close to $50. And you had to deal with Chicago's finest traffic control (which is as bad as Bridgeview's). So if you gotta drive, you park away from N.S.F. and then walk. I've done it and, yeah, it's not bad -- unless it starts to rain (like after the home opener).

    Or you take public transit, which is a pain, especially if you live in the suburbs outside the CTA service zone. Yeah, it's great to take Metra (especially cause they've got restrooms in the train cars, which is quite important after a Fire game), unless you just miss the train leaving the station and have to wait an hour for the next one and then you hit every station on the way home, which takes another hour or more, depending on where you live, by which time you could've driven home.

    And if you got a super big stadium -- like N.S.F -- that means you really are gonna have a lot of available seats, so the ticket scarcity that a SSS can create -- provided you have a winning team -- doesn't materialize. And so the prices always stay low and you don't have fans trying to score season tickets to ensure they get in for all the games.

    There's no guarantee that just moving downtown will increase the attendance. Unless this is a temporary move while a new SSS is built in the city. And you still end up alienating the suburban fans.

    So I'm mystified that this is gonna work. Unless I'm missing something that hasn't yet been revealed. James, what am I missing?
     
  2. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    Michael Reese.
     
  3. skinut

    skinut Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jun 25, 2000
    Castle Pines, CO (or often elsewhere on earth)
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Did someone say "balls?"
     
  4. Sting111

    Sting111 Member+

    Jan 17, 2011
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Unless you take the Pacific Northwest line on a Saturday evening. Miss the 10:30 pm train and the next train isn't until 12:30 am. Nothing to do for the next two hours but sit in that dreaded food court.
     
  5. CMeszt

    CMeszt Member+

    Farewell Sweet Prince
    Jan 9, 2004
    Gentrification's Apex.
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union

    Well the only way that you can really save the organization currently called the Fire is to spend a lot of money, either in the form of a new stadium or somewhere else. The rumor only makes sense if Monsueto is willing to lose a decent chunk of money in the short term, but I'm not sure that's entirely unrealistic.

    [IWantToBelieve.jpg]
     
  6. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    I think there's some reason to reserve judgment, since there are two very different potential rationales:

    1. Rebrands worked elsewhere in MLS to essentially wipe the slate clean and create a fresh entity to pander to poseur eurosnobs

    2. "Chicago Fire" has just inherent, unavoidable, and unmitigatable search engine problems, those problems significantly hurt the brand value in the modern environment, and that can't be tolerated as part of a broader effort to get the business side of this club up to an acceptable level

    "Chicago City Soccer Club" as an entity with same/similar uniforms and badge and symbology and which embraces the Fire's history and even perhaps which encourages or at least doesn't object to continuing to be colloquially known as "the Fire" I think is super understandable and a minuscule price to pay for an ownership situation committed to actually trying.
     
  7. Der Stich

    Der Stich Member+

    May 3, 2005
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    With the way Hauptman operates the team I'd expect the Fire to train on the unpaved gravel lot just east of Rush Univ Medical Center.
     
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  8. wolvesfirehope

    Chicago Fire, Detroit City FC, Swansea City, Chicago Red Stars, Edgewater Castle
    United States
    Apr 6, 2018
    replacing "fire" with "city" or "sc" at the bottom of the badge while keeping everything else would irk me for a second, but would probably be a fair compromise.

    (i don't like the name "chicago city" since there are soooo many of those in mls now and that would irritate me most of all. if you really want to go that route, try to be a little different. maybe "city of chicago soccer club?")
     
  9. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    Can we just step back for a moment and ********ing admit that “Chicago City” isn’t going to fix this “search engine optimization” non-issue? You’d have to be a ********ing moran to think that’s somehow going to return soccer results over the other potential results any better than “Chicago Fire”.

    It’s almost 2020. People have figured out how to search the ********ing internet.
     
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  10. xtomx

    xtomx Member+

    Chicago Fire
    Sep 6, 2001
    Northern Wisconsin, but not far from civilization
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    You GET to deal with the Park District! :thumbsup:


    Always, and that will be difficult part.

    It is a new MLS world now...I hope.

    We'll see about that. It is true that the Fire essentially "rented" Soldier Field without a cut of concessions or parking. I would suspect it will be different now.

    Taking Public Transit to Bridgeview is worse, way worse.

    And that "scarcity" argument NEVER panned out in Bridgeview.
    That was the entire reason for a 20,000 seat stadium, expandable to 27,000-28,000.
    The need never arose, even as the league attendance has increased.

    Again, this is a different MLS than when the Fire left Soldier Field in 2007.

    Yes, the MOST important thing is not "alienate" the suburban fans, when every other Major League Chicago team is in the City of Chicago.
    This is the Chicago Fire (or whatever), not the Schaumburg Fire.
    I would imagine that this would be step one of a multi-step process with another stadium to come in the future.
    However, Seattle and Atlanta seem to do pretty well in large stadia.

    There is one tweet from a lawyer who used to do some work for the Fire years ago and is not a particularly reliable source.
    One tweet.
    That's all.
    Nothing has been revealed.

    The rest is pure speculation.

    [I am only participating as I find the discussion interesting]
     
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  11. Joe in CO

    Joe in CO Member

    Dec 1, 2015
    Jamestown, CO by way of Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    #136 Joe in CO, Apr 4, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2019
    Has G said anything about this at all yet? I scrolled his twitter feed real quick and didn’t see anything. I don’t have a twitter account so I can’t directly ask him but it seems strange that he’s so mum.

    If it’s true that Andy cried broke and that Joe and MLS paid the buyout I would sure hope they would be demanding that Andy sell his stake in the team...

    Also fück a rebrand. I really hope folks take @bunge advice and write letter to Joe pleading to keep the club name/logo.
     
  12. pena pirata

    pena pirata Member+

    Sep 28, 2013
    Batavia
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    My whole opinion of this is ownership taking the "Everything is at fault for this situation except us" stance.
     
  13. xtomx

    xtomx Member+

    Chicago Fire
    Sep 6, 2001
    Northern Wisconsin, but not far from civilization
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Who is G?
     
    Joe in CO repped this.
  14. Maybe the best argument I've seen in favor of the rebrand, IF they embrace the history.
     
  15. G is Guillermo Rivera for those of us too lazy to type out his whole name.
     
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  16. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    Eh, you're wrong.

    Seriously, google "Chicago Fire" right now. The soccer club appears in none of the first page results, nor anywhere on the initial screen. You can scroll down to the bottom of the page to click on "See results about Chicago Fire Soccer Club". That's a branding disaster, and Chicago City would completely solve it overnight.

    I totally hate the idea of "rebranding", and "Chicago City" sounds dumb to me too, but there are just some hard facts about the current brand.
     
  17. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    Are you insane? “Chicago City” has thousands of relevant results that will bury a soccer team’s results in the exact same way.
     
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  18. JBReynolds

    JBReynolds Member

    Aug 30, 1999
    Chicago, IL
    Google "New York City". NYCFC doesn't come up until the middle of page 2 and there's no "See results for" link.
     
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  19. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    That’s my point. The proposed name change doesn’t improve on the current suboptimal situation.
     
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  20. JBReynolds

    JBReynolds Member

    Aug 30, 1999
    Chicago, IL
    I was replying to the post above yours.
     
  21. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    Put it this way, if you're right, that won't be the name.
     
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  22. Joe in CO

    Joe in CO Member

    Dec 1, 2015
    Jamestown, CO by way of Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Sorry about that, Guillermo.
     
  23. Fighting Illini

    Fighting Illini Member+

    Feb 6, 2014
    Chicago
    Orlando has all the same municipal departments and websites and whatnot as Chicago does.

    Check out what happens when you Google "Orlando City".

    Those prefab Google-built landing pages are all the rage nowadays. And the Fire have one too, you just have to google "Chicago Fire Soccer" to get there.

    I'm not going to do the work to Google 150 teams, but I am extremely confident that the Chicago Fire are the only major pro sports team in the US whose short title won't get you to that page.

    "NYCFC" was a clever workaround. I think we could probably do better than "Chicago City". But "Chicago City" would get that specific job done.
     
  24. lncolnpk

    lncolnpk Member+

    Mar 5, 2012
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So does it hurt MLS that they aren’t the number one hit when you google it?
     
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  25. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    I was agreeing with you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
     

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