How did everything go wrong with Bridgeview and the Fire?
On Tuesday, the Chicago Fire and the Village of Bridgeview agreed to an amended lease that ideally allows the Fire to move back within city limits while cutting checks to Bridgeview including one for $10 million up front this year.
The Fire moved to Bridgeview and what is now SeatGeek Stadium (nee Toyota Park) back in 2006 and becoming the fourth MLS team behind Columbus, LA Galaxy, and FC Dallas to move into a soccer-specific stadium. It even was awarded the 2006 MLS All-Star Game.
Since then though, the club’s fortunes have soured as well as fans’ feelings for Bridgeview. It seems like the only people who really benefitted from SeatGeek Stadium were political insiders according to a 2012 Chicago Tribune investigation. What went wrong? Who’s to blame? To be honest, it falls squarely on the two parties involved.
WHERE BRIDGEVIEW IS AT FAULT: Bridgeview not only offered the land (formerly an intermodal and 3M plant), but offered to foot the bill for the stadium at an estimated $100 million making it the only soccer-specific stadium entirely funded by public money. Bridgevew Mayor Steve Landek, who doubles as a state senator, insisted that the Fire games, other sporting events, and concerts will bring in the revenue to help pay for the stadium. Much like the extra savings that you would theoretically put into the economy are supposed to pay for tax cuts, it did not materialize. As a result, Bridgeview residents saw their property taxes skyrocket and the village’s bond rating go into free fall to junk status.
It wasn’t helped that development around SeatGeek Stadium was very slow into becoming reality. It took over a year to turn a railroad crossing on 71st Street into a viaduct where fans going that route would not have to worry about being stuck by the train. Only in the last few years has a gas station and a bus depot pop up as well as a sports dome, a Hampton Inn, and shopping and restaurants on the way. Before all of that, the only thing of note close to SeatGeek Stadium was a taco stand kitty corner to the grounds.
Plus, there was that episode during 2015, where Bridgeview were lackadaisical with the pitch prompting then-coach Frank Yallop to publicly apologize to fans for the state of said pitch. The pitch has since improved, but the product from the main tenant has not.
WHERE THE FIRE IS AT FAULT: In the first few years, the Fire did draw at SeatGeek Stadium with averages over 16,000 in 2007 and 2008 and filling the place up for the playoffs in 2009. But after Ned Grabavoy put in the deciding penalty for Real Salt Lake in that Eastern Conference Final over the Fire, it has gone downhill extremely fast.
Since then, there have been just two playoff games (one in 2012 and one in 2017) and just three seasons where the Fire won more than they lost (2013 being the other year). On top of that, relations between the Fire’s biggest supporters and the front office led by owner Andrew Hauptman have soured considerably. The two lowest points being after the infamous editorial in 2013 and the blanket ban of season ticket holders in Section 101 after the actions of a few fans last season.
There has been a revolving door of staff, club presidents, coaches, and players. Andrew Hauptman, who has not spoken to the press outside of press releases since 2013, has been the one constant. Lately, current president and general manager Nelson Rodriguez, hired as GM late in 2016 and promoted to club president in early 2018, has drawn (no pun intended) immense heat for the Section 101 debacle and his inability both to build a winner and clear fan perception that he is arrogant and uncaring about the fans.
With the losing, more and more fans (particularly those in the Loop and points north) have decided making the journey to Bridgeview was not worth the effort. Granted, it is not the easiest place to get to despite being closer to downtown Chicago (12 miles) than Dignity Health Sports Park is to downtown LA (14 miles) or Rio Tinto Stadium is to downtown Salt Lake City (14 miles). Indeed, the Stevenson (I-55) between Cicero and Central can be brutal with trucks and people heading to Midway Airport.
There are pub-to-pitch buses as well as a public shuttle from the Orange Line CTA stop at Midway to the stadium, but it is not enough for some people.
The culmination of all of this is that the Fire have the lowest average attendance in 2019 by a distance in MLS at a paltry 11,417 (which would put them behind New Mexico United at 12,836).
The Fire’s marketing, or lack of it, has not helped matters. Putting the games on ESPN+ may have yielded a rights fee, but it also denied it of a local media presence which they really do not have outside of Spanish radio. They also failed to market more in the South and Southwest suburbs and even Northwest Indiana which is home to about half of Chicagoland. Those are the two main problems in my opinion.
CONCLUSION: As I stated before, the problems are not with the stadium itself. The biggest problems have been with the Village not developing fast enough and the Fire descending into irrelevance thanks to mismanagement to the point where one Fire legend wondered aloud if they were purposefully trying to destroy the franchise.
Some people think Nelson Rodriguez is trying to do just that with a proposed rebranding. However, no amount of rebranding will be of value unless major changes are made to the leadership of the club and the club starts winning. Then, you have something of value to sell to Chicago and the surrounding suburbs who are every bit as important as the city itself.
The reason this team is named the Chicago Fire is because of how the city recovered from that devastating fire in 1871, not just for the disaster itself. (Miami or Carolina Hurricanes anyone?)
There is a lot of blame to go around for why things have gone downhill ever since the Fire moved into then-Toyota Park back in 2006. Teams like Seattle, Toronto FC, and Portland making it cool to be downtown in one reason, but the two main reasons lie with a Village who thought things would work out on their own and a soccer club that was once one of the MLS elite in the third-largest market in the country now being run as a third-rate organization.
