Rewrite

"I'm working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash"

-Paul Simon

I was so excited about the Crew's new "Dare to be Massive" campaign. The idea of working to get the season ticket base back up to 10,000 is an important step for the club and honestly is very overdue.

I said I was excited. Then someone decided to go and shit all over it. Honestly this article just re-hashes the same lame excuses that I've heard from everyone as to why the Crew aren't moving tickets. There was something that I found interesting in the article however. This quote:

“The Buckeyes dominate the sports landscape. They dominate the media and they extract a significant amount of resources from a small market,” (Mark) McCullers said. “If fans say we’re not marketing enough, it’s because we have a hard time getting a lot of attention because of the Buckeyes’ dominance. We spend just as much, or more, than most MLS teams in their markets.”

There's the key word there. SPEND. In case you didn't get the memo traditional advertising doesn't work anymore. That money that you are spending to advertise on the radio, buy billboards, put spots on TV? Why not just set it on fire? It would generate about the same amount of revenue.

Mr. McCullers. I beg of you to buy the following books.

Punk Marketing.

Creating Customer Evangelists

There is a reason the Dallas Mavericks attendance doubled under Mark Cuban. It had nothing to do with winning and it had nothing to do with giving away tickets on the radio.

It also probably didn't have to do with putting all of their advertising money in to promoting the AWAY TEAM.



Honestly. Kudos to the Crew for selling out the game tonight against LA, but I don't believe that the above promotion had anything to do with it at all.

Silence the Sounders?
Black out the Galaxy?
"It's Vancouver's first trip here so lets give them a not so warm welcome."

How do any of these tag lines convey what to expect at a game? What do any of these tag lines say about the Crew? What does a casual fan think when he or she reads/hears/sees these tag lines?

Direct quote from a friend of mine who is a 1 to 2 game a year attendee, but not someone who follows the team.

"Are the Crew so bad this year they have to promote the away team to get people to show up?"

That is the brand that these "marketing" messages are cultivating. The team is so horrible that nothing good can be said so the away team is the most marketable feature of this game.

This is the brand that the Crew have established for themselves.

Fortunately I don't believe it's too late to change this.

A few things right off the bat. Re-work the sponsorship booklet. Page 5 shows the Crew doing an appearance at a Home Depot. The only people there are the people working the booth. There are NO FANS in this picture. I've been to events where fans have actually showed up. Maybe next time someone could bring a camera? Also on pages 2 and 3 eliminate the pictures where you can see huge rows of empty seats. Why would anyone pay to sponsor a team when the materials that you distribute can't even show the best results?

Find a brand. "Work Hard. Play Harder." just doesn't say anything. Also it's not being paid attention to in the marketplace or there would be more awareness of the team. Pick something shorter that generates excitement.

STOP MARKETING THE DAMN AWAY TEAM. It's much easier to establish one really good brand than establish 17 temporary brands. Also when you focus your effort on branding the away team you give the casual fans nothing to hang their hat on.

On a related note... stop putting a large portion of your media spend on marketing the one game a year that sells out and instead focus on the other 16 home games.

Stop wasting money. When putting together next year's advertising budget take the money you were going to waste on television and radio and use it to hire someone who understands Guerrilla marketing.

This can be fixed, but it must start now.

"Every minute after midnight
All the time I'm spending
Is just for working on my rewrite, that's right
I'm gonna turn it into cash"

Oh... Canada.

"They've got trees, and mooses, and sled dogs,

Lots of lumber, and lumberjacks, and logs!
We all think it's kind of a drag,
That you have to go there to get milk in a bag.
They say "eh?" instead of "what?" or "duh?"
That's the mighty power of Canada."

It's weird. I don't want to be that guy that just rants at other bloggers. I really don't want to be. I had something written for tonight that was completely different than what I'm about to post. I felt good about it. Then I saw this. It was so insurmountably stupid I had to respond.

Ben... Can I call you Ben? Ok awesome. Meet me over at the right side of the page.

Have you been smoking crack? Just the fact that you have to write this sort of nonsense negates your point. May I present my bevy of counterpoints in silly blog link form? Also... this is my favorite. I honestly don't get it. Is it the hipster thing to do to talk on the internet about how much you "don't care" about tomorrows match? Tomorrow's match is on my calendar. I'm much more excited about tomorrow's match than Wednesday's against Houston. Do you want to know why? The Crew have lost to Houston at one point.

It seems awfully convenient that every time the Total Failure Club gets close to being eliminated from the playoffs the fan base begins to switch the story. Have you kids considered a career in politics? Oh look. Toronto has a 0.00539% chance of making the playoffs. So now we have to deal with this crap again. Listen. We told you that we thought you were nice, but didn't want anything serious after we took you to prom. Would you quit blogging about how over us you are and just admit you fracking hate us?

I get why you would write something like this. Toronto quit being the flavor of the month when Seattle came along. They moved even further down the food chain when Portland came along. Toronto fans thrive on one thing. Attention. You are now a third place team as far as attention goes and a last place team as far as skill goes. Don Garber got a new shiny toy. It's called the Cascadia Cup and now nobody cares about poor ol' Toronto.

Here's a tip from someone who's been around the block a few times. Start caring about what happens on the pitch and less about who sees you put up what banner or who hates/loves/doesn't care about who.

On an unrelated note, I had a great laugh with the whole we didn't piss on a church fence thing your folks bring up in your comments section. Umm... your buddies whipped their junk out in front of a road. It's an actual public road not an access road. It happened.

Anyway, sorry for all of you that had to sit through that, but I get sick and tired of Toronto fans acting like some sort of scorned 17 year old girl. "Oh my God. We have so much fan support!!!!" Well... your product is horrible and your fans act like 12 year old douche bags whenever they travel. Oh boo hoo. The Columbus police wouldn't let us light shit on fire and throw it on the pitch. Sob sob... we can't break the benches at Crew Stadium! If we aren't allowed to get drunk and break a lot of laws then get on our bus and go home we aren't coming back! Seriously. Good riddance.

It just rubs me the wrong way when I can't even read about tomorrows match without some Toronto fan trying to prove to me "how little he cares about Columbus." If you don't care about Columbus... DON'T WRITE ABOUT COLUMBUS!

I'd normally do one of my dumb match previews here, but I would rather go get sushi.

One last thing... the Vegas odds have nothing on the match tomorrow, but there is an estimate that at least two Toronto fans will end up acting stupid enough to get tased.

"Don´t fret precious I´m here, step away from the window
Go back to sleep
Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils,"

A Response to a Conversation not Directed at Me.

"You don't use words like that. Saint Louise is listening."

I love reading soccer blogs. Seriously, I do. Some of my favorites, Pitch Fest, MLSUK (although the Seattle kid seems like a twat), Massive Report, Soccer By Ives, etc etc. So I'm always excited to see a new soccer blog come on the scene. I'm especially excited when it's different. So I was actually pretty excited by the premise of Football Not Soccer, a new blog by an English kid who has decided (according to his blog) that he is going to become an MLS fan.

Well. Not quite an MLS fan. He's decided to become a TFC fan. For all reasons due to it being the closest bad team to him. (Honestly though the Red Bulls are pretty horrible and last time I checked Boston is way closer to Sheffield than Toronto is). At least he has realistic expectations. From his blog: "Fittingly, Toronto FC’s next game is on September 10^th away at top the table Columbus Crew. I expect them to lose."

In his second blog post he goes on to discuss the "secret garden" of the MLS. "Talking of intrigue the MLS and its brief history is crammed full of amusing little details that draw me further and further into its circus. Take my new adopted team Toronto FC. Any guesses on who scored the clubs first ever competitive goal? Why it is former Millwall and Preston striker Danny Dichio of course! It turns out Toronto FC were founded just five years ago and Dichio is now a bit of a cult hero for the clubs supporters. In fact in honour of that landmark goal Toronto fans now sing a Danny Dichio chant in the 24^th minute of every match! Major League Soccer is honestly a secret garden full of weird and wonderful football facts and I have found the way in." That's ADORABLE. I assure you here in Columbus we don't have a Thor Lee chant although I would second his nomination for the Crew Circle Of Honor (I wouldn't even mind if they put his name up in red and black) I kid... I kid... Honestly though. What is it with new supporters groups seeming so contrived? Look at TFC's support. It's like someone Google'd "How to be a Soccer Fan" and then just followed that playbook literally for 5 years. I do think that if Toronto decides to do another time sensitive chant it should be a John Carver chant during the 8th minute as he is the last Toronto coach to last a full season.

So yeah. I'm having a bit of fun. I'm honestly happy that this guy is getting in to Soccer in the US. Then I read this post. The first part deals with stadium naming rights. He seems to take issue with Dallas' Pizza Hut Park. I take issue with this too. Their pizza is total crap. Buy pie from a local shop. It's way less expensive if you find the right place and probably a thousand times better tasting. On the naming rights angle though I believe he's all wet. Maybe he's never heard of York City's Kit Kat Crescent. Granted, it's not as prevalent in jolly old England, but it exists. Also the BARCLAYS Premier League? I'm sorry, but we aren't Major League Soccer presented by Chase Bank. (Although if the check was large enough I believe Garber would roll over and take it like a champ.) If it's just offense to the fact that a Fast Food restaurant is sponsoring the venue that's just silly. It's kind of silly to talk about questionable sponsorship when a large percentage of the Premier League's teams are sponsored by gambling websites.

As for promotion and relegation which seems to be a dead horse that everyone enjoys kicking the crap out of I'll put it very mildly. The league makes a HUGE profit off of expansion fees. Portland and Vancouver both paid $40 MILLION DOLLARS to join the cool kids club this year. Seattle and Philly paid less but not as little as Toronto who got in for the pittance of $10 MILLION DOLLARS.

I'm bolding those numbers for a very specific reason. Lets listen in to a conversation taking place in an alternate reality between an American businessman (we'll call him Bob) and Don Garber.

Businessman Bob - "Thanks for meeting with me Don. I'm very excited about talking to you about bringing Major League Soccer presented by Chase Bank and co-presented by Trojan Condoms to the fine city of St. Louis!"

Don - "We'd love to have St. Louis on board. I'll just need a check for $40 MILLION DOLLARS."

Bob - "Boy howdy that sounds great. The Budweiser pitch inside Trump Casino stadium has just been finished and the Boons Farm supporters terraces will be rocking when our first Major League Soccer presented by Chase Bank and co-presented by Trojan Condoms match happens in 2014!"

Don - "Perfect. Can I get the check please? St. Louis kind of smells and I'd like to leave now."

Bob - "One quick question for you."

Don - "What is it?"

Bob - "What's this relegation nonsense that I've been hearing about the owners voting in during the off season?"

Don - "Nothing you need to worry about."

Bob - "But what is it Don?"

Don - "It just means bottom three teams have to play in the NASL the next year and 3 NASL teams get promoted to our division."

Bob - "How much do they have to pay to get in to MLS?"

Don - "Nothing"

Bob - "Oh, and... what's the success rate of expansion sides in their first season in MLS?"

Don - "In the expansion era only one team would have finished outside of the relegation zone. Seattle in 2009. Every other expansion team would have been relegated."

Bob - "So I'm paying you $40 MILLION DOLLARS for a team that may have to play in the minors in a year?"

Don - "Yes"

Bob - "Don, are you high?"

That, my friend, is why promotion and relegation will never happen in MLS. I do look forward to continuing to read your blog.

To all 5 of my regular readers match "preview" for Saturday's match against the Total Failure Club will be up in the next day or so.