Long day, so tl;dr about the “bubble”; So there will be a temporary bubble over the (soon-to-be artificial) field in the actual stadium for training in the early offseason (ie Feb)?
I haven’t spoken with any Applebee’s waitresses but if I had to put in a guess, I’d go with they might have worked out something to get Pelotonia on the jersey.
Assuming your suggesting Nationwide, that seems like it would conflict with the Mapfre sponsorship. Maybe, like some have speculated, we just sign someone as a stop gap for one season before we go into our new stadium. I also believe we should have a new primary (yellow) shirt that season too. If this is the case, then I think it would be nice for us to go with a charitable cause for that one season... @BigStern suggestion of Pelotonia would be cool (and look decent too as long it's not bright green like I see on their website). Then in 2021, when we unveil our new yellow shirts, we also unveil our new big sponsor who is on our side. I also like the idea of Cardinal as @Indy83 said. That's a biggg company. Would also look clean/simple on a shirt too.
As has been noted, Honda was the Fire jersey sponsor in Toyota Stadium. So there's precedent for having sponsors who compete with each other, though I'm sure it's not ideal. I won't venture a guess. I'd prefer a legitimate multi-year deal over a one year stop-gap, but either is much better than no sponsor at all. That said, a first-in-league-history charitable organization (The Columbus Foundation or Pelotonia) would be pretty cool. And would likely see me buy the new black jersey (which, otherwise, I'm very unlikely to do).
Ah-ha! You're right! Mapfre, for all intents and purposes will become a domed stadium in winter. The announcement clearly says the bubble is over the stadium pitch. And it was previously mentioned that that surface would be shifted to artificial turf. While all the other training surfaces will be grass. It's a pretty brilliant concept, if you ask me. Mapfre, to date, has been mentioned as a shared space. That is, the Crew would use it, but also the community could have events there, too. Creating a huge, domed playing surface all winter makes the entire community/rec center part of the project that much more compelling.
I'm sure it also depends on how contracts are drawn up. I suppose it's possible Mapfre could have required an agreement that the Crew not accept any of their competitors as sponsors.