Plus, potential hunt for a sporting director and another scathing review of the rebranding.
FIRE AWAY TO SEATTLE: The Fire will begin their 23rd season away to defending champion Seattle Sounders FC on Sunday, March 1st at 2pm CT. The Fire will also travel to New England for the Revolution’s home opener on Saturday March 7th at 12:30pm CT. As stated earlier, the home opener at Soldier Field will be Saturday, March 21st at 2:30pm CT against Atlanta United.
Inter Miami will join the Eastern Conference this season while Nashville SC joins the Western Conference. The schedule will remain at 34 matches with each team playing everyone in their conference home and away and against 10 teams from the opposite conference. It will be the first time in which a team will not play all of the other teams in the league during the regular season.
REPORT: FIRE HEADHUNTING FOR SPORTING DIRECTOR: According to Paul Tenorio of The Athletic, the Fire are in the search for a sporting director and have hired consulting firm Sportology to assist in the search. The sporting director would report directly to owner Joe Mansueto while current president and general manager Nelson Rodriguez would move to the business side of the club. It is also being reported that the Fire are looking outside the league for the position and hope to have a person in place “by the end of the year.”
The sporting director would have its work cut out from the start as he or she would have to hire a new technical staff after the previous one was sacked on November 13th. The roster also has to be built with preseason beginning in January and three Designated Player spots to fill among plenty of other positions.
In other words, the new sporting director would have to hit the ground running and get fans hopeful as the club return to Soldier Field and would need to get most everything right.
NOT LIKE THIS THOUGH: Getting most everything right from the get go after the 2018 was essentially a must if the Fire were to start on the road back to being relevant, let alone being an elite club. This rebrand is not a step in the right direction. The change in logo was completely unnecessary and the finished product makes you question a lot of things.
First, you want a logo that a third-grader could draw, not one that looks to have actually been drawn by one. It has also been derided as the love child of the logos of Real Salt Lake and Vancouver Whitecaps. Worse, it has similarities to the notorious Latin Kings street gang.
It’s hard to convince anyone that this whole process lasted 18 months and sought “consultation, focus groups and surveys with fans, partners, staff and MLS”. You wonder where the stupid began in this process.
Chances are, the “fans” are not those who have been around at least longer than front office people like Nelson Rodriguez, COO John Urban, or VP of Marketing Kyle Sheldon. The “fans” and “focus groups” in question appear either uneducated, have goldfish memories, or more than happy to tow any company line fed them because they are under the mentality that any bad word about the club would “aid the enemy”. It also speaks to the miseducation of Major League Soccer in a way in regards to some of their older clubs.
The old logo was actually one of the better ones in MLS and it wouldn’t have hurt to educate people who may be new that this is not the logo the actual Fire Department. That also speaks to the miseducation of the current front office.
I also said that fairly or unfairly, fans of the club who have followed since the early days will not take this logo change well and will factor things like the current front office, the fact that the firm is based in both New York and Los Angeles, and that they felt the logo change itself was unnecessary. They will also treat this as a continuation of the front office’s contempt for them.
Bob Bradley himself said that one of the earliest mistakes MLS made was not to shore up the soccer fans that were already there instead of trying to attract new fans with gimmicks. Again, miseducation.
Joe Mansueto has made an early mistake by allowing this rebranding take place in the way that it has. Some will say he made another mistake by keeping Nelson Rodriguez. If I were Mr. Mansueto, I would have the old logo and colors restored in 2021 and hire people who will treat fans with respect and not the contempt that has brought things like “The Editorial” and the Section 101 fiasco.
It appears Joe Mansueto has quite a lot to learn about the actual history of what is now Chicago Fire FC as do some in the front office. Much to the consternation of many fans, they appear intent on learning the hard way.
