Here’s to Crew fans who might have saved a team
The past weekend’s raucous celebrations aside, #TheCrew isn’t totally #Saved yet. “MLS is committed to keeping Crew SC in Columbus…” was a thrilling start to a sentence in an official statement, but a lot could go wrong with the rest of it: “…should we continue to make progress on these critical components and agree to key terms with this investor group.”
Those components include working out the sale terms and finessing a deal that gives current Crew “investor-operator” Precourt Sports Ventures a way to have a team in Austin plus coming up with a plan for a new stadium close to Downtown.
Tuesday’s news that discussions are happening with owners of two prime parcels next to Huntington Park gives fans more to mull anxiously over.
Still, for right now, let’s put those concerns aside and revel in what a passionate cadre of folks who love Columbus and love Crew SC have made happen. Having a betterthan-even shot at keeping the Crew in town, with committed local ownership, no less, is a genuine grassroots win, even if the shot ultimately falls short.
Since one year ago today, when PSV owner Anthony Precourt announced he planned to move Crew SC to Austin, the deck seemed stacked against any resistance. When big-moneyed team owners decide to move them, they usually get their way. Columbus has enough Cleveland Browns fans to know that.
How perfect, then, that Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam could end up saving Columbus the pain of losing a team that has become ingrained in the city’s culture. Even better, the participation of longtime team physician Pete Edwards Jr. and his family’s company, one of central Ohio’s foremost development and realestate firms, would give Crew SC the local ownership it deserves.
Make no mistake, though: The heroes in this story are the Crew fans who refuse to give up their team without a fight, along with behindthe-scenes leaders, especially Columbus Partnership CEO Alex Fischer, who had the contacts and did the work to put the potential investor group together.
The resistance started before the first beer was downed at a gathering of distressed fans last Oct. 17.
Within days, the brandnew #SaveTheCrew movement drew 2,000 people to a Sunday morning rally at City Hall. #SaveTheCrew signs popped up in yards, along with chalk messages on car windshields. Headbands and signs were spotted at Buckeye and Blue Jackets games.
Sure, social-media magic helped propel the message. But the true heartbeat of #SaveTheCrew — what kept it alive through long months of announcements about potential stadium sites in Austin and a cold shoulder from MLS officials — was the unflagging loyalty of fans.
That’s what won 12,000 season-ticket pledges and 400 businesses partners.
That, along with Columbus’ history as the original MLS team and the site of four legendary “dos a cero” victories by the U.S. men’s national team against Mexico, is what drove the campaign to national and even international audiences.
That’s what will keep the pressure on as negotiations continue between MLS and the potential investors.
It has been, in the words of Dispatch sports scribe Michael Arace, “real, pure and 100 percent organic.”
To borrow a favorite Crew rallying cry, we’re rooting for a Massive victory.