Shine A Light On The Mess

Last week a small kerfuffle broke out among some Rapids fans (not me, for once) on Twitter/X over how the media covers this team.  Media being both "traditional" media like Brendan Ploen at the Denver Post as well as "new" media like Matt Pollard, the Rabbi, and others who cover the team on Burgundy Wave or the Holding the High Line podcast and other such outlets.  The debate was about if those media members were pushing the leadership of the Rapids enough when they got the change to in interviews and such.

First, to make my opinion clear, reporters throwing metaphorical bombs in a press availability isn't the way to get anything accomplished.  All that results in is the loss of access for everyone as the team representatives decide to end the event early, or not do an event the next time, o not talk to certain reporters.  That doesn't mean tough questions shouldn't be asked, but the question asked has to be one where there's an answer than can be given beyond "What do you want me to say?  We suck?  Yeah, we suck.".  Nobody is going to give that answer unless they're heading out the door (see Hudson, Anthony).

I have been noodling on the idea for a bit though, and then I read this article by Jon Greenberg from the Athletic about the Chicago White Sox issues.  The details aren't important, what I keyed into was the opening lines:

As I walked onto the field at Guaranteed Rate Field late Monday afternoon, I saw the only man in the stadium who could fix the Chicago White Sox’s many, many problems.

It wasn’t the chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who declined an opportunity to talk to reporters about the disastrous state of his organization Monday. It wasn’t executive vice-president Kenny Williams, who has a job for life as long as Reinsdorf is alive. It wasn’t Rick Hahn, whom we already talked to, along with manager Pedro Grifol.

That made me think.  When was the last time we say anyone at a level higher than Burgundy Wave write something about Colorado like that?  Because "disastrous state of his organization" is a good description of the Rapids right now, both on the field and off.  Yet we don't see a Tom Bogert or a Matt Doyle calling the Front Office out like that (and this isn't a slam on either Bogert or Doyle, who do great work.  I understand that Matt in particular, being a league employee, might be a bit handcuffed in what he can say.).

I think some of the frustration that came out on Twitter last week towards the people who cover this team, many of them for nothing more than free food in the press box, is the lack of this kind of coverage in the "bigger" MLS media.  Rapids fans have been suffering a long time and because of being a "smaller" market they don't get as much coverage as a team like the Galaxy.  They're a team going through their own freefall and everyone from the league's website to the Athletic to major MLS bloggers have covered the complete mess that organization has turned into.  Meanwhile fans here in Denver have to hope that we can get a crumb of info about what might be happening in our Front Office from a good local fan.

I'm not sure how we get a better team at this point, but I'm willing to bet shining a light on the current disfunction in this organization wouldn't hurt.  None of the comments here should be taken as me calling out the reporters I named.  Consider this a suggestion, not a criticism.  Fans, and media, talk about how some owners in this league are willing to coast while others do the hard work.  Kroenke is a perfect example of that, and I'd love to see him and/or KSE called out for it.  They more than deserve it.