But No One Cares

Oh hi! I’m Jiggly. And it’s a Tuesday.

Man, there really wasn’t any soccer this week. Sure, there’s international soccer, but who actually cares about that? I’ve always been club over country to the point where I generally don’t pay attention to international soccer. So I tried watching some football this past week. The football was kinda trash too, with most of college football still in the “Camp Cupcake” portion of the season and the first week of the NFL being filled with a lot of bad offenses. Hopefully this coming week we can see some good football in Montreal, right? We both know that’s a stretch. Anyway, let’s get into something I want to talk to you about.

But No One Cares

I have two major heroes when it comes to my style of sports journalism, and that’s Jon Bois and Pablo Maurer. Despite having been in the press box for a game against D.C. United, I still have yet to have had a chance to meet the man; but I do get excited when I see someone like him even mention the Fire. Most of his tweets about the Chicago Fire are usually when they play against D.C. and suck, like they did the other week. However, there was another tweet he made later in the week that I wanted to focus on. This one didn’t mention the Fire by name, but it was so Fire-coded.

https://twitter.com/MLSist/status/1699615296384905279

This tweet kicked off a lot of conversations about MLS coverage and the possibility of MLS pushing out smaller outlets from having the opportunity to cover the team, but I don’t think that’s what happened. I think we accidentally caught the perfect storm at that moment and only one team could’ve created it. As I said, Pablo mostly covers D.C. United still. I also know a lot about the Fire’s media landscape and while there are people who cover the club, there’s only a handful of them. This means there’s a possibility that there can be a day where none are available or even willing to call-in for a post-game press conference with a fourth-month interim coach after his fourth loss in a row was one of the most apathetic 4-0 losses I’ve ever seen. I have not actively sought confirmation that the tweet was about the Fire, but all the evidence lines up. Even if it wasn’t the Fire, this still got me thinking about where the problem lies.

Look, the Chicago Fire have absolutely no media interest. In sports game franchise modes, you get a little tracker for “Media Expectations”, but I think if you gave the Fire a realistic grade for that, they would have “N/A” because most of the major outlets would forget that they’re there. I’m not just talking about places like ESPN or Fox Sports that would ignore most MLS teams anyway. I’m talking about The Athletic and MLS’s own site, outlets that are known for their thorough work covering MLS. Most of the people you probably follow on Twitter for MLS news work for those sites. I cannot find any mention of the Fire on The Athletic outside of box scores since the Fire signed Ousmane Doumbia on June 24th. As for MLS, the Fire do get fairly regular mentions thanks to articles that take the whole league into account, but the Fire’s segments are some of the shortest. At least there’s some humor in these blurbs, with almost tongue-in-cheek nudges that the writer knows how irrelevant they are, but it’s hard to find.

I generally don’t believe in conspiracy theories and hate when people bring them up because the only true conspiracy theory is the idea that the world is simply ruled by idiots subject to random acts of violence or stupidity, but I do believe in one. I firmly believe MLS doesn’t talk about the Chicago Fire because when the Fire were on top and one of the best teams in North America (yeah, I said it), MLS as a whole was literally about to fold. So, with the league finally gaining a foothold, they try to suppress the Fire’s ability to talk about themselves so that no one is reminded of those bad years. The Kansas City Wizards rebranded, so they’re allowed to be around again. This sounds incredibly mean-spirited, and I know that none of those writers mean anything by it, but it’s just the only conspiracy theory I like to spread. But, taking my own feelings about conspiracy theories into consideration, it’s really simple to see why they don’t talk about us. Chicago hasn’t made impressive signings or won anything in forever. 2017 is always the grand exception, with Bastian Schweinsteiger and a surprisingly potent summer getting them back into the limelight for a hot second, but that was gone in a moment, and the much larger portion of the past decade has been the same. Since Basti’s exit, the Fire have been made to sit around next to the other forgotten clubs like the Houston Dynamo and Vancouver Whitecaps. Except the Dynamo are actually starting to make some noise with Herrera and Bassi, which means the Fire have been left standing off in the corner of the gym with a team that will still probably make the playoffs anyway. Maybe we can hang out with the Rapids or something.

It’s not just that national media ignoring the Fire, it’s local media where it really gets ya. That was a main part of the conversation surrounding Pablo’s tweet and I will say, the Fire suffer a lot in the City of Chicago to find any outlet that really wants to cover the club. I remember having an argument back in high school with someone who said that Chicago is just too much of a football town, but there is clearly enough room around here for other sports. Others bring up winning as a necessary thing, but clearly the past year of Chicago sports has shown us that that doesn’t really matter much either. To me, I think that it comes down to a lack of identity to the rest of the city. Yeah, I said that the team didn’t have an identity the other week, but this isn’t about the current squad, this is about the overall club. The team doesn’t really have anything to pitch to the average Chicagoan as cool or interesting about them. Like, think of our poor friends writing for the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Sun-Times who have to do that every week when they place whatever blown lead the Fire perpetrated in front of a wider audience, who probably have to convince their bosses every season that they still need to send someone to cover this team. It’s hard enough to get non-soccer fans to notice soccer, but it doesn’t help that there’s nothing really fun about the team. Even the teams that aren’t fun right now can still lean on the era when they were. The Bulls have Jordan’s legacy, the Bears are still synonymous with “defense” (even if they’re an automatic door this season), and even the Sox still have people who remember Paul Konerko and Mark Buehrle. The Fire had their winning era that people can remember, but… That’s a different problem.

Maybe I talk too much about it, but I will keep mentioning it: The Fire have very little care for chronicling their history. There’s just not enough record-keeping. It goes back to my conspiracy theory, because it’s so incredibly weird how many players seem willing to come back to Chicago to hang out and love talking about their good times with the club, but so little of it ever gets published. Seriously, I think my article on Henry Ring is one of the few historical pieces that the Fire have received over the past few years, which is surprising considering the fact that so many club legends have been showing up to games every once in a while during that same span. This ignoring of the club’s history may seem a bit stupid, but it does play into the lack of interest surrounding the club. Without a greater understanding of club history, much of what made the team fun back then is lost to time. There’s so few people who share in the memory of when “Firehouse East” was genuinely the most important game of the season or that one time Humo peed on a Landon Donovan Quakes jersey. Or, I guess, remember Humo at all. The mass exodus of fans during the decline of the club has taken a lot of the history away from us. That history was supposed to preserve us through the bad years. So many historically bad teams in American sports have been able to get by with just their history. The Cleveland Browns, the Oakland A’s, the New York Knicks, even the Montreal Canadiens have all been able to retain fans and even grow their bases by looking to their older history of success in spite of recent failures. They are kept alive by the legends that are passed down from generation to generation, stoking the passion that remains.

Somehow, there are so many people in Chicago who have no clue that we have a professional soccer team. We literally have two, but I won’t get into the mess that is promoting women’s soccer today. But with a severe lack of interesting content surrounding the club, there’s just not enough people who know anything about the team. It’s already bad enough that the club literally allowed a copaganda show to be made with their name slapped on it, but soccer in Chicago has been made to feel anonymous because of that lack of record-keeping. Even those who know about the Fire don’t really know anything about the club and even less understand the history of soccer in the city. That’s why we’ve got so many people who believe that soccer just can’t work in Chicago, because they only look at the last 15 years or so. The Chicago Sting and even Walter Payton were major proponents in growing the game in this area back in the day, but there is so little written about it that I tried to link out to something on Walter Payton’s work to promote AYSO, but could only find the high school named after him. It’s hard to find info and that’s what makes it even harder for people to seek that info. The WGN deal was one of the most amazing things at the time, because it was the Fire becoming the premier partner of a local fixture. I remember the old lady working at the comic book memorabilia shop in Westmont asking me about the Fire because she’d heard the team was going to be on WGN and she knew I liked soccer. She even said that she’d start watching because it was easier to watch than the Cubs, who had moved to Marquee. With the move to AppleTV+, it got harder to reach people like that. Without that easily accessible media presence, I’m sure a lot of us have had to become the “news source” for a lot of people around us who just don’t watch away games anymore. No one wants to make the extra effort because that extra effort has been made so difficult.

All of this leads into an apathetic fan base. Apathy is the real killer here, as it’s something that is so indescribable but so palpable. It’s hard to define when apathy begins or even exists, but it’s right there when you walk into Soldier Field when it’s barely breaking five digits. It’s there when the fan base is too tired to demand accountability for poor results. When concentrated efforts die out because no one wants to actually step forward and do any work in service of a team that doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. Even if there’s some hope for the players, the hope for the club to grow just feels missing at times. That’s what apathy is. And while we’re inching ever closer to that reality, we still have some space between here and there. There’s time to turn back. Unfortunately, one of the most destructive symptoms has already popped up, a misdirection of passion. In-fighting among fans, an inability to pull in the same direction, often comes from frustration, but may also come from that same apathy. There’s nothing going on on the pitch, so why not look around out here and try to find something that I can change out here? While a commendable feeling when put so simply, it unfortunately leads to the contentious situation we’ve seen within the supporters’ section recently.

I guess the big question is what we can do about it. The apathy of the fanbase, the lack of interest from the media, both local and national. There’s always us, here at MenInRed97, where we’ve done our best to do our part at covering the club (even if we may have been complicit in the event that kicked off this line of thought). In fact, I welcome anyone to message Matt or Alex if you’re interested in joining me and those of us working here. We would love to welcome your passion, even if your writing needs some work. That’s what editing is for. More people wanting to write about the Fire can only be a good thing as we try to diversify our viewpoints of the club. But other than that, there’s not really much that we can do as fans. There’s not even much the media outlets can do either. They’ve gotta do what’s right for them as a business and there needs to be some level of growing interest in order for them to try to amplify it. And that excitement needs to be created by the club itself. The lack of winning, the lack of personality, even the lack of content can be placed on the club as a lack of getting people to care. The Fire need to take control of their own story in the same way that fans need to as well. They need to actually make themselves look interesting before the media can help them grow that even further.

If you’ve been following the game previews, you’ll notice that I like to have a music quote for every prediction I make. I’m not a big Jimmy Eat World fan, my favorite artist remains and always will be Jamie T, but I’ve gotten a lot more into them over the past few months. They’ve become a bit special to me, even if I only listen to the Bleed American and Invented albums. It’s actually Bleed American that I’ve been listening to as I’ve started taking more afternoon walks recently. There’s one song that always sticks out to me from the record: My Sundown. The lyrics aren’t that complex, it’s a lot of repetition. But when I think about the Chicago Fire’s place in the world of American soccer and Chicago sports, those lyrics are what comes to mind:

“With one hand high, you'll show them your progress

You'll take your time, but no one cares”

“I could be so much more than this (No one cares)

I want to be so much more than this (No one cares)”

Every time we talk about the Fire, we can say so many things about them. They can make minute changes to their offensive set-up, they can quietly develop youth prospects, they can even build a new training facility. It can feel like there is progress, that things can change for the club. But at the end of the day, it always feels the same when you talk to someone about the Chicago Fire.

No one cares.

Miscellaneous Notes

WE League Legend. I somewhat follow the Japanese Women’s Empowerment League, so I was interested when I saw that Mynavi Sendai loaned 19-year-old attacker Manaka Matsukubo to the North Carolina Courage a couple months ago. Not only was she the youngest player to start in the NWSL Challenge Cup, but this weekend she won the finals MVP with a goal in NC’s 2-0 victory.

Rough Week For QBs. Man. I just wanna take a moment for all the quarterbacks in the NFL this past week who got absolutely beat up either from getting sacked or throwing so many picks. The only competent looking QB this week was Tua.

I Should Actually Read bell hooks At This Point. I finally watched Barbie and I was right, there’s a lot of really interesting philosophy in there about how men are held back by the patriarchy as much as women. I’ve referenced bell hooks so much that I’ve really gotta actually read her work now at this point.

Jennifer Lawrence. Since there’s not many other notes, I also watched No Hard Feelings a couple weeks before that. It’s a solid comedy that more people should be talking about. I feel like I related to the protagonist way too hard despite being a half decade older than him. That’s probably a Me problem.

I love you.

And I’ll see you next week.