Tifo has been traditionally made by supporters for the benefit of the team not corporations
Photo: Casey Woodrum
After a tumultuous week in Seattle, Prost Seattle Editor Steven Agen looks back on the press release that turned supporter discontent into rage, and a fan op-ed that forced a rare mea culpa from Sounders Majority Owner Adrian Hanauer.
No going back for Hanauer on corporate sale of supporter culture
by Steven Agen, Seattle Editor
A botched press release, a phone call to a fan from the COO, a town hall meeting, and a home loss to Colorado. Needless to say, it’s been an eventful week for the soccer scene in Seattle. In a season that has featured as much on-field tumult for the Sounders as any in MLS so far, fan groups and ownership alike turned their focus away from the pitch and onto the working of the club. Standing ninth in the Western Conference at 4-6-1, the fact that we’re even discussing these problems at this moment is a testament to the volatile nature of issues the club faced this week. As the dust settles, we can now take stock of just what we learned from the latest scuffle between the Sounders FC Front Office and the Emerald City Supporters.
The start of the saga was unambiguous. A press release, proclaiming a joint “tifo” project between the Sounders and Delta Airlines, set off a storm of discontent from the club’s most passionate supporters. Other fresh wounds such as dynamic ticket pricing and the hiring of Keith Costigan were still fresh in the fanbases’ collective memory, meaning the relationship between fans and ownership was already tense.
The Delta press release was like an unassuming match striking a barrel of already-angry TNT. The scorecard looks the same for this move now as it did at the time — it was an unfathomable mistake from a club that’s been around the block enough times to know better. After past flare-ups over league advertisements featuring supporters using pyrotechnics and seven years of watching real tifo displays rise out of the Brougham End, it’s hard to understand how anyone in the Front Office could remain this tone deaf. The club must reflect on the fact that the last week of turmoil was easily avoidable. The onus was on them to do so.
However as the negative reception to the dreadful release grew louder, the club performed a 180-degree turn. Bart Wiley, the club’s COO, reached out to Jim Strother after the long-time ECS member voiced his decision to not renew his season tickets for an eleventh year.
The phone call didn’t change any hearts or minds but it was the first time this week that we saw the front office look like they were trying to get things right. It’s tough to overstate just how cataclysmically cringey the initial press release was, and it lent to the idea that Wiley and co. were irredeemably prone to disregarding their hardcore fans. Calling Strother didn’t change that but it showed the first signs of goodwill and attempted understanding from the front office after their mistake.
Jim Strother’s Fan Op-Ed sparked the chain of events that led to the Hanauer admission
Then Wiley, majority owner Adrian Hanauer, and a group of other prominent front office officials agreed to attend an ECS town hall meeting that had already been called to address the recent issues surrounding the club. They deserve credit for this decision. It amounted to accepting ninety minutes of angry criticism from supporters who felt grievously harmed by the club’s actions. Public accountability is a positive for any club. If this sets a precedent for how fans will communicate with the club when major issues pop up, then some may argue that this entire ordeal was worth the trouble.
Hanauer and Wiley refused to walk the Delta decision back 100% to start. ECS members pushed back, and rightfully so. Changing the wording in releases from “tifo” to “artwork” didn’t fix the damage caused by the situation, nor did the club seem to understand that its predatory advertising practices were at the heart of the issue.
Hanauer spoke at length on how advertisers wish to interact with the fanbase. While some initiatives, such as the Halo 5 marketing that appeared on jerseys during a Seattle home game last year, have been received positively, it’s clear that the club’s logic on this point is still deeply flawed. In relation to these non-standard marketing adventures, Hanauer said, “That’s what they’re [the advertisers]paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to do – engage with our fans, not just put up a sign in the stadium.” This statement sounded like a clear indication of future intrusions on fan culture for the sake of profit.
It’s almost as if he said, “We’re going to sell the parts of you that advertisers want to buy, and it’s going to be up to us.”
Do advertisers really have a right to parts of fan experience, beyond signs in stadiums and on jerseys? Placing an ad where a fan may see it is one thing, but selling off aspects of organically-developed matchday traditions that aren’t even owned by the club is another.
The club officials at the town hall would drop their PR act eventually. But first they left us with the impression that, even if they understand the Delta situation to supporters’ satisfaction now, they see fan matchday experience as a commodity to be divided, altered, and auctioned off to the highest bidder. It would be a great surprise if the “tifo” debacle is the last one of its kind in Seattle, and Hanauer said it himself.
About half an hour into the town hall, supporters had heard enough rhetoric. Hanauer was forced into what amounted to a full apology for the Delta situation. At the very least, he stopped mincing words and levelled with his audience when he simply said, “We fucked up.”
It was the most candid remark we’d heard from the Seattle ownership group since Joe Roth’s overt racism at the Alliance Council meeting last December. For the normally reserved Hanauer, it was unprecedented. The club rarely admits fault for anything, but this was the first time the club’s facade had slipped on purpose. Such were the lengths necessary to appease the anger they provoked.
The final hour of the meeting was mostly spent rehashing questions from the first half of the gathering. It was in this stretch in particular that one felt the club making an effort to heal fans. They withstood honest criticism mixed in with vitriol and abuse. Not everything directed at them was constructive and they took those remarks on the chin. Some will argue that they owed this venting session to fans, but they still deserve credit for actually taking part in it.
In the final assessment, the town hall was a positive experience. Even if no new agreements were codified, it was an educational opportunity for both sides of the equation. The front office learned more about what exactly had ticked supporters off (if it wasn’t clear before) and supporters were allowed to see a human side to their owners. Both sides had a chance to clear the air and reinforce the notion that everyone in the room was working towards the same goal. That sense of goodwill was probably the most defining qualitative observation of the experience.
“After seven years it’s time to wonder what the Alliance Council is good for, if one ECS town hall meeting clears up more misconceptions than 12 Council meetings a year with the front office do.”
The front office did their best to assure everyone in the room that they weren’t ever trying to anger their own fanbase. They made vague promises about better communication and about trying to stay out of supporters’ culture. It is therefore now up to the club to follow up on the promises it made at the town hall. If they show a genuine effort to understand and respect supporter culture from here on out and deliver on communicating with ECS more, then they’ve done themselves a massive service. From their perspective, this could be the start of turning over a new leaf.
As mentioned before, it seems dubious as to whether the club fully understands the scope of what’s off limits to them when it comes to advertising. If their promises were merely water on the dumpster fire that was the Delta release then the next scandal they perpetrate will rock them far harder. This was a chance to build trust and rapport with the fans of the club. If they throw that away with another glaring mistake in the near future, they’ll be seen as capable of saying anything to get their way in the moment. In short, if they break their word now the damage will be irreparable.
The ECS side of things is moderately straightforward. The group should keep pushing for frequent meetings with ownership. They should also push for more occasions like the town hall. Face to face interaction and exchange of ideas can only benefit the two parties and cut down on miscommunications.
It’s time for the club to put up or shut up when it comes to being a “democracy in sports.” Showing up to the town hall was a start, but real change to give the fans a voice within the club is necessary, at least, if you’d like to call yourself a democracy. The abject failure of the Alliance Council is the most glaring deficiency of the club in this respect.
The Alliance Council was shown the Delta project ahead of its release and somehow failed to stop it from happening. For a group that is supposed to represent the average fan, the Council didn’t seem to convey the anger that a huge segment of the fanbase felt towards the project. After seven years it’s time to wonder what the Alliance Council is good for, if one ECS town hall meeting clears up more misconceptions than 12 Council meetings a year with the front office do.
A mechanism like the Council is only effective if it both properly conveys the will of the fanbase to the club, and then if the club heeds that advice. In this instance it has let Sounders fans down on both counts.
The FO has made money by selling space on the Alliance logo
The Alliance Council, in a play for validity, should threaten the resignation of every member in it unless the club allows them an up-or-down vote on all advertising deals that involve the sort of “fan engagement” that Hanauer spoke to, and that the Delta “tifo” deal fell under.
The Council is meant to give fans a way to participate in the operations of the club, and this particular aspect of club operations deals specifically with the property of fans, their culture, and their matchday experience.
If Hanauer must continue to pursue non-traditional advertising opportunities to rake in the big bucks, he should at least do so with the consent of supporters. If he doesn’t, then his club looks less like a democracy and more like a well-connected big corporation subjugating the experience of its customers.
If the Alliance Council must continue to exist as a source of advertising revenue for the club (first it was FSN on their crest, now it’s ROOT Sports), it should do so with some type of function that actually has a bearing on fans. If it doesn’t, then it’ll continue to be a kangaroo court mocked by fans of other teams as a failed piece of the club’s grandiose delusions of a Barcelona-esque system right here in America.
The solution seems simple enough. Give the fans a say in the “engagement advertising” deals that involve them, or stop calling it a democracy.
