Sports Illustrated’s Brian Straus recently dropped the bombshell that Chivas USA may take a hiatus for the 2015 season (or longer) as the incoming ownership group prepares to re-brand the team. Since then there have been multiple reports saying different things with MLS Commissioner Don Garber recently admitting a hiatus may be necessary, while ESPN reported that the league is “dead set” against the idea.
Current Chivas USA President Nelson Rodriguez clearly wants the team around in 2015, and he believes the team can be successful, saying that even if the rebrand isn’t ready for 2015 the team could still be successful:
“I also think if we returned as Chivas USA, but improved our investment on promotion, and marketing and driving fans to the game, I think we could still be successful.”
Success may be a long shot for Chivas USA in 2015, but they should continue to play regardless. The team and the league owe it to the fans that have continued to support the team to give them a team to support. It won’t be easy, it won’t be simple, but they should do it anyways. Here’s three reasons:
The fans
They exist. There are real Chivas USA fans. There may not be tens of thousands of them, but there are die-hard fans that have followed this team for years. One of the things that has made recent additions to MLS successful have been the fan bases, specifically the die-hards, the supporters groups. If Chivas takes a year or two off, they risk losing those die hard fans, and those are exactly the ones they need to keep to have around when they push “reset” and do a re-brand. Imagine what it could do for the re-branded team if they already have an established group of die-hards. They may not be a huge group, but they’re devoted to this club. With how bad the product has been on and off the field, they’ve still shown up to games week after week, year after year. THESE are the people MLS should want forming the base of the new club’s support, and any hiatus will risk alienating those fans.
The players
Chivas taking a year off would be complicated for the players involved. MLS has proven time and again that it is not good at handling complicated things involving rosters. Look at the recent Jermaine Jones acquisition. A blind draw? Seriously? And that was just for a player who two teams were after.
Now imagine a scenario in which a whole team worth of players (or maybe half a team with expiring contracts and ones that can be terminated easily) needs to be dispersed across the league (or out of the league) either permanently or temporarily (and return to the new club the following year?). There’s no way MLS handles that situation well. More than likely they’d come up with some overcomplicated allocation order which would leave nobody happy and the league looking bad.
As for Ives Galarcep’s idea to drop Chivas down to USL Pro, that still doesn’t solve the player issue. Chivas USA may not be a good team, but they do have some good players. They’ve shown, in stretches, the potential to not be an absolute dumpster fire on the field. Most of their players, will at least believe themselves good enough to play in MLS. Collectively they may make a bad team, but individually many of them could contribute on good MLS teams. Are they really going to want to play in USL Pro, especially if there are MLS teams that want them?
Contraction
This is supposed to be an era of expansion for MLS. The league is growing. Fanbases are growing. Television audiences are (supposed to be) growing. There’s two new franchises joining the league in 2015 (Orlando City and New York City) and more to come. Putting Chivas USA on hiatus, even for a year, feels like contraction. It might not technically be contraction, but it feels like it.
In suggesting dropping Chivas to USL Pro, Galarcep said the new owners could use the year as practice running a club. However everyone knows that MLS is its own beast when it comes to roster rules, etc, so how much would that “practice” really be worth? Wouldn’t they be better off “practicing” in MLS for a year?
Even if the new ownership group isn’t ready to rebrand the team for the 2015 season, they can’t do a worse job than the last ownership group, and they’re certain to learn a few things along the way. In the process, they’ll the die-hard fans they still have and maybe even start to gain a few new fans as interest builds around the re-brand fans will know the owners are working on.
Whatever happens will not be perfect. It won’t be simple. But MLS must remember that above all else, it’s the fans that make the league. Without fans there’s no ticket sales, no TV audience, no merchandise revenue, nothing. So when deciding how to handle Chivas USA, priority number one must be to the fans, however many or few there are.
I’ll close with this thought from Alicia Rodriguez from The Goat Parade on the idea of the thing she and other fans have poured so much into simply vanishing:
“But please — consider that which you love, something you spend your time, money, and energy on, something that may not be perfect, but it’s your thing — and consider it disappearing, maybe temporarily, maybe permanently, and through no fault of your own.
You would deserve better, wouldn’t you?”
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