The Rebrand - Is It On Fire?
The Chicago Fire are heading into the 25th year of MLS refreshed, relaxed, and recharged. Well they are really just going through this weird rebrand that I personally don’t know where it is going. They’ve done a lot of good as well as a lot of “huh?”. Here is my take and my view point of what the brand new Chicago Fire FC have done.
The Good!
The Chicago Fire have decided to get their asses out of Bridgeview and head to Solider Field in downtown Chicago. Everyone rejoiced! The players, the fans, and MLS fans alike have all shown positive support for this move. This location is easier for fans to get to, has the capability to hold more fans, and I think can potentially bring in more players of a higher caliber. This new stadium move also comes hand-in-hand with new owner Joe Mansueto. Mansueto seems like a owner that wants to best for the club and for success on and off the field. He has relationships with his players and wants the best for them. Under a new ownership group may come some big changes and those came positively with some fat cutting. The Fire fired Veljko Paunovic as head coach as well as getting rid of bigger contracts like Nemanja Nikolic and Aleksandr Katai. Paunovic was done and should have been done last season as Fire head coach. Paunovic just never truly got a system set in place and constantly rotated players. His lack of success also might have impacted talented players like Nikolic and Katai. Both of these players are undoubtably talented, but just not getting it done for the size of their contracts.
The Bad!
New ownership means changes! But are all changes good? The Fire rebranded their name and logo. So the Chicago Fire SC are now known as the Chicago Fire FC. Do I care about the SC to FC change? No. But Do some people see this as a negative? Yes. Honestly the more negative part about the rebranding is the new logo. The Fire have gone from one of the greatest logos in world soccer, to now some weird Pokemon Day Care version of the RSL logo, the Whitecaps logo, and a messed up Ditto somewhere. You can tell the Fire were going for that modern simplistic look but sometimes too simple is not good either. I have seen so many fan created logos for the Fire on Twitter that are much better than what the Fire marketing crew have put out. With the lacking of a new sleek and sexy logo, the Fire have also lacked in new sleek and sexy signings. The Fire and the city of Chicago are connected to two major nationalities in my head, German and Mexican. With the rise of talented Mexicans in MLS, I am surprised we haven’t seen a move to Chicago from a standout Mexican international. I would love to see some German internationals too, but I know for sure that won’t happen. What about a new sleek and sexy head coach?! There have been ZERO rumors that I have seen for head coaches connected to Chicago. Inter Miami have had names connected, NYCFC have had names connected, Chicago… where you at?!
What is the solution to this mixed rebranding coming out of the Fire? Winning. To turn the tide for the Chicago Fire they need to decide on a head coach soon, sign some talented and DP quality players soon after that, and put results on the table! Winning and winning trophies can change this mixed weird and almost nauseous feeling around the Fire right now. And finally, have you guys seen Season 8 of Chicago Fire? Totally disappointing. This was just some other information I found in my research for this article.
