Wherein I beat the crap out of an MLS side and the whole flim-flam concept of 're-branding'

by Steve Davis on Sep 23, 2009 8:24 PM EDT Comment 15 comments

Big ideas are great and all for MLS sides. ... But at some point you just have to produce

I can’t believe I let such an important anniversary go by unrecognized. Shame on me! I shall punish myself with a marathon iPod session of Hanson, those titans of the training bra set.

If was five years ago last month that FC Dallas, the MLS team closest to my home and therefore the one with which I’m most familiar, foolishly did the rebranding thing. The whole nine yards, too. New name. New logo. Newfangled, fancy-pants marketing gambits.

Actually, it wasn’t the anniversary per se that I’m so upset about missing. More than that, it was about missing the perfect chance to say this: "Well, how's all that working out for you guys?"

Yep. Five years ago in August the Dallas Burn became FC Dallas. A year after that, they moved into a dandy little stadium, where tens of hundreds of people now show up 16-18 times a year to watch a poor product while frequently taking a beating in customer service and then putting the cherry on the bad experience sundae by getting stuck in traffic on the way home. (OK, the club has done something about the wacky traffic congestion. By stinkin’ up the joint pretty much everywhere else they have largely eliminated all traffic entanglements. Well done, kids.)

FC Dallas is dead last in league attendance, averaging 9,311 a game. Next week’s doubleheader at the Cotton Bowl with Mexico will (artificially) gin up the numbers, so they might be able to sneak ahead of Kansas City and its minor league baseball park band aide, but Dallas probably won’t catch third-from-the-bottom Red Bull. Two words: Pa. Thetic.

Here’s a memo for any club mulling over the re-branding thing: it doesn’t work! It’s a colossal waste of time and energy. You are what you are. (And I’m hearing through the league grapevine that at least one club out there is considering a spin on the re-branding wheel. Step away from the wheel!)

MLS teams that continue to struggle simply have to understand that there are no magic formulas. You just have to work at it, and you have to work smart at it. That’s it. There’s all kinds of virtue in hustle, humility and a dogged desire to be better at what you do. You can’t just say you’re a kick-ass club determined to out-hustle, out-perform and out-smart the competition – you actually have to be a kick-ass club that out-hustles, out-performs and out-smarts the competition.

This re-branding nonsense is all about spin. It’s all about telling people what you want to be and hoping they buy into it, instead of just shutting-the-heck-up and doing it already. (It’s also about ego, about certain people needing to feed the id by putting "their stamp" on the product. Whatever.)

I have lots of friends who hit the matches at Pizza Hut Park regularly – although less and less regularly as this side struggles to put one foot in front of the other in pretty much every area.

First, Pizza Hut Park is just too far. I have ultimate respect for the late Lamar Hunt – a truly wonderful human being -- for all his dogged and impassioned efforts at building this sport. But the fact is that there is a learning curve on this critical MLS stadium initiative. Somebody had the really push the limit and built one WAY out (23 miles from the city center in this case) to start locating the balance between "cheap land" and "too freakin’ far." Unfortunately, Hunt built a swell little stadium too far away, too far from the 20- and 30-something urbanites who are making such cool waves at Toronto, Seattle, etc.

But the stadium is built, it’s got a 30-year shelf life and there you are. So FC Dallas should have recognized quickly that it would have to be the consummate "try harder" property. That is, they could win loyalty and fans by being the team that tries harder. Better concessions. Better prices. Better customer service. A better product, not just a proxy product for making money off concerts.

They fell short, and how. They fell short the way Plaxico Burress fell short in gun safety, the way Marilyn Manson fell short on normalcy, the way Britney Spears fell short on general life train wreck avoidance.

Five years ago they re-branded – but they just don’t get it. At the top of it, management issues are endemic. (I’ll be shocked, by the way, if GM Michael Hitchcock gets his contract renewed.)

Hitchcock was a salesman. That was his background at his previous MLS stops. And he sold himself to ownership in Dallas primarily by promising sellouts aplenty. Remember the ol’ 5-10-15 plan? That was a lulu, eh? He would have five sellouts, then 10 the next year and then, by Year 3, the club would sell out every contest – and scalpers would presumably be layering themselves in fresh bling just off the profits from standing 15 times a year along World Cup Way in Frisco.

The problem is that you can’t just tell everybody that you’re "all that." Pretty soon, people figure it out. You actually have to be "all that." Just one "for instance:" One of Hitchcocks’ peeps was the genius behind the Hoops Nation campaign, one of the silliest ideas in the long, sad history of silly ideas.

Did anybody seriously believe there was a national groundswell to get on board with FC Dallas?

Now all of Hitchcock’s power has been stripped away and he’s just riding out his days. (People around the organization all say the same thing: "I never see the guy!") In his place John Wagner is running the show. Wagner is a good egg, and I like the guy personally. But he’s essentially an accountant. And while I’m sure he’s good at it, let me say this: show me a business with an accountant in charge and I’ll show you a business that may be fiscally sound, but one that’s going nowhere.

All the money matters will be spit-shined and polished, but the operation will be stuck in the mud otherwise.

Look, I could go on and on about bad print ads, nonsensical media buying strategies, ridiculously failed DP bids, money wasted on ballyhooed partnerships with foreign clubs, about running out of pizza countless times at Pizza Hut Park, about out-dated marketing strategies, about the long-term scourge of artificially inflated attendance numbers, about the mindless pursuit of the suburban family dollar, etc.

Bottom line, people figure it out. You are what you are, and you had better find a way to work with it.

As for the re-branding five years ago from Dallas Burn to FC Dallas, all they did back then was thoughtlessly erase history. Was the "Burn" name kinda goofy? You bet it was. But fans embraced it. They grew fond of it and felt protective of it, the way your little brother or sister bothers the crap out of you – but you’ll beat the holy hell out of someone who "effs" with them cause’ that’s just the way it is.

Final little story for today: When I was in newspapers, I used to have the this running joke about how the suits saw the slippage and got concerned about their bonuses and about how they attempted to remedy the situation.

The overall tenor was akin to getting all the writers in a room and having some goofball consultant or some management suit with $25 socks say something like: "We need to come up with some marketing and branding strategies that will increase readership! Come on, people, help us out. What are your ideas?"

And some poor writer would pipe up with, "Well, we could try to write stories that more people will read and provide content that people really and truly need. Ya know … really be an engaged part of the community!"

"No, no no! That’s not it! Get serious now! It’s about branding! It’s about marketing! Now, come on, people. We need ideas, damnit!"

If their pea-brained, self-protective, corporate groupthink efforts weren’t so pathetic, sad and fabulously flawed (you’ve seen what’s going on with newspaper, no?), I’d go back to some of those people now and ask, "Well, how’s all that working out for you?"

Read it slowly and commit to memory you MLS do-gooders: It’s. Not. About. Branding.

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Comments

couldn't hurt

so changing the name of the team didn’t make the team better?

duh.

it certainly couldn’t have made them any worse. you can’t blame them for trying to rope in new fans by changing the name. old fans who were partial to the (dumb) name “burn,” are not prohibited from still using the name. everyone calls everton “toffees,” even though that’s not their official name.

to me, it makes sense to try to attract new fans with a shinier (and less dumb-sounding) product. True, “FC Dallas” makes them sound like a more serious club, even though they aren’t. But having a more legitimate name and “face” (brand, stadium, etc.) puts a stamp of professionalism on a team that was hard to take seriously before (…because its name was “the burn”).

you’re right in that the goal will never be realized until the club actually wins matches and proves that they’re serious. but there’s nothing wrong with pretending in the mean time. if anything, it gives the players and fans something to aspire to. (i’m mostly talking just about the name change). it also indicates a willingness to conform to the practices of more successful teams and leagues, in order to send the message that "yes, we’re a serious "F"ootball "C"lub, not a WNBA team or a minor league baseball team."

by michaeljspinelli on Sep 23, 2009 11:17 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

This is reminiscent of the NHL in the 90's

The uber-marketing age when they were convinced that they could sell anything, overexpanded and ended up in bad markets. Now, you see teams like FC Dallas who rebrand and so all these things convinced that they can market anything. At the end of the day, you have to adhere to the most basic of business practices. Identifying your audience, providing a quality product, good customer service, reasonable pricing and making it accessible, location included. Sorry, but you can’t market anything. You must adhere to basic business practices and FC Dallas did not do so. Hopefully other teams don’t make similar mistakes.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Sep 24, 2009 12:35 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

do*** not so

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Sep 24, 2009 12:35 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Additional Thoughts

There is so much about Steve’s article that I agree with, but I also have some counterpoints:

1) The rebranding to FC Dallas was a failure not because re-branding is a generally bad idea, but rather the decision makers went from a silly team name with great uniforms, to a horribly confusing and alienating team name and uniforms that no one wants to wear in public.

2) PHP is far away, but not too far. There are 5 million people within of an hour’s drive – no one can ever convince me that with a proper, competitive, winning and exciting soccer team on the field that there aren’t 15-18K fans that wouldn’t show up week in and out. Hell, I think there are 15-18K within 15 minutes drive of PHP that would go to the games if the team was worth a crap.

3) There is a general sense that the ownership just gave up and assumed that the public would flock to PHP simply because they built us a Soccer Stadium. I think HSG fails to realize that fans are still wondering were all of the additional benefits we assumed that would come with the SSS are. The fact that we’ve never seen exciting Euro exhibitions, national team appearances and are left with friendlies against watered down MFL sides, or latin club teams no one has ever heard of still is a great mystery to me.

I worry that we’re in for long term problems because I am not convinced that Hyndman has the ability to put a product on the field that can win and be entertaining. I worry that the Hunt’s pursuit of Hyndman was so determined and expensive that his “length of rope” is just frighteningly long. In fact, I think Hyndman is more likely to quit out of frustration and pride before Clark Hunt turns on his beloved former college coach.

I also think that there have been so many stumbles by the club over the years that people have been trained to assume the worst. There are some new good people in the front office that are working to solve the issues, but I am not sure that until the on-the-field product improves that there is much else they can do to solve the attendance issue.

Dallas can be a great soccer market. It simply needs to be properly tapped. The original Burn fan, Dustin Christmann, made a fantastic observation in his open letter to FCD – in that he wonders why the ownerless Dallas Burn was better at community relations and team operations than the current day FC Dallas? Way back when we all dreamed of the day that our club had proper ownership that what we’d end up with was this.

by peter Welpton on Sep 24, 2009 10:36 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Frisco is considered minor league and i think until that concept changes or Frisco FC is a USL team and FC Dallas plays at new Jerry World

thats not gonna change. I still think Jerry should buy FC Dallas to help him fill scheduling at his new stadium. it could make financial sense but i think FC Dallas has money in that stadium not just frisco.

good take, i just dont understand why they dont reincarnate the Burn, be FC Dallas with Burn logo in the middle of their crest they have now, still pimp hoops but have red and black hoops as their 2nd kit. stuff like that isnt rocket science and would help even a little bit. but they dont care. they arent in the community giving away swag in the latino sunday church leagues, they dont run any cross marketing of any substance with Pizza Hut on tv, they arent going into the college campuses and packaging deals with schools or plastering dorm rooms. they dont care. i live in arlington and i might as well be dead to them.

A USL team in Fort Worth that really blew the doors off and was a high class well marketed machine would perhaps put a kick in the right spot to get FC Dallas off the ground. Otherwise, MLS has to force the Hunts to sell FC Dallas as its obvious they arent upholding major league standards regarding everyday operations of an MLS club. A new ownership group with forward thinking ideas and a clue who the modern american soccer fan is would be a scary proposition for MLS and a real boon for the league, even in frisco.

good stuff though steve

I can't help it. I’m an asshole.
-brettgardner on Jul 7, 2009 10:55 PM EDT

by Jayslick on Sep 24, 2009 12:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Re-branding is usually a sign of problems

And in this case, is true. You re-brand for a good reason like your companies name is the National Widget Company, but you no longer are in the Widget business. You change the name to reflect who you are and what you do. Most anything else is an example of 1) kidding yourself that you are improving the brand or 2) an ego thing. Names don’t matter as much as we like to think, especially if the name is already out there. At the time this happened, it was a big warning sign for me.

Dallas is my team, so Steve’s thoughts really hit home. The HSG organization is just poor at executing just about anything to do with FC Dallas. When an organization can’t dependably provide food at the concession stands you have to worry about them doing anything as challenging as building a good soccer team.

My favorite illustration is the on-line survey they wanted me to take as a season ticket holder. Good surveys are tough to create, but this one clearly missed the mark. They promised a quick survey, but the questions were open ended and required a lot of thought from most people. Some were just plain goofy, on the order of “If FC Dallas was a animal, what kind of animal would it be?” Not something most of the target audience can realate to.

by Mark_B on Sep 24, 2009 12:48 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The "FC Dallas" brand stands for crap

Basically, this is what Steve is getting to, summed up in one sentence.

Mark_B’s comment about rebranding is 100% accurate. And HSG told themselves (and us) that it was for reason #1. But in the end, it was really for reason #2. Since they took over the team, they have done everything in their power to disassociate the team from its pre-HSG history. To a certain extent, they have been successful. The Burn was a generally competent team run by people who were well-versed in good customer service in two languages, which is a sentiment with which no one would associate the FC Dallas brand.

And the worst part is that the rebranding was completely unnecessary. Sure, “Dallas Burn” was a name that was 100% goofy and eyeroll-provoking. But it sure as hell wasn’t keeping management from growing the attendance in the pre-Southlake days. And people generally associated it with positive things. The biggest negatives that you would hear from people were (a) “It’s soccer and I hate soccer” or (b) “They play at the Cotton Bowl and I don’t like going there,” which were things that (a) couldn’t be helped and (b) were months from being changed. It was a good product with a not-so-good name.

Conversely, having a name that is more “serious” and “soccer-y” isn’t keeping the team’s attendance from going into the crapper. Why? Because the product has been crap for years now, both on the field and off the field. The brand is now associated with crap.

In the end, the rebranding has been a disaster:
1. It was unnecessary.
2. A new brand was chosen with (as Peter points out) a name that ain’t so great and uniforms that are horrible.
3. The new brand has been associated with incompetence from the word “go.”

So the question that Steve posed is perfect: “Well, how’s all that working out for you guys?”

P.S. And I generally regard any suggestions that FCD should be bought by Jerry Jones and play their home games in Arlington — which is almost as far away from downtown Dallas as Frisco is — inside Jerry Jones’ tacky new monument to his own ego as sheer silliness.

by Dustin C on Sep 24, 2009 2:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Rebranding works when the product is better

It works when the organization under a new name plays and operates like a new organization. It seems in Dallas they just got worse. FCD is suffering because mediocre has been acceptable, they seem to have poor marketing and the stadium location does suck. They have dug themselves in a public perception hole that is going to be tough to get out off.

As for the stadium, isnt necessarily about the drive times. A downtown or centralized stadium makes a team appear legitimate. People want to party ‘downtown’ or ‘midtown’ or ‘uptown’ not in Friscotown. MLS games are about atmosphere and atmosphere = a party. People want to get drunk and walk or take a cab to a bar after a game and keep drinking. Thats not possible in Frisco.

by GeoJock on Sep 24, 2009 3:33 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

That's not possible in Frisco?

PHP is the only MLS stadium that I’ve been to where you can go to a bar that’s literally across the street.

by Dustin C on Sep 24, 2009 3:37 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Qwest has a brewpub across the street

And dozens of bars.

Urban stadiums ROCK!

And another brewpub a block away.

Considering that only 500k of the 3.5M in the Seattle metro live inside the city limits, most people travel to Sounders matches too.

by Sounder At Heart on Sep 24, 2009 8:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

always a Steve Davis Fan!

I just couldn’t resist!

While the logo of the Burn; and even the name to some degree (3rd), was a corny invention of original league $ investors (Nike), it was unique…but that was it!

FLASHBACK: Ariel Graziani’s back flick past Hartman vs. LA to tie the game and we go onto one mini -game from the MLS CUP? Jason Kries’ bullet free kicks…I could go on here, actual community players…Zarco and his entire Salvadorian contigency in the stands numbers in the hundreds…least not forget the the other devout fan clubs; Leonel Alvarez and the likes…hell, even Hugo Sanchez!

No one liked the Cotton Bowl either though. Bad part of town; albeit geographically closer to fan demos; metal seats, Ed Campbell cuisine (I really do miss the Old Mill Inn, though!) But indeed a great surface for the players!

PHP is one of the finest facilites in the country no matter where it’s located. Period.

The name/rebranding/HOOPS/colors etc. By no means perfect and again, not what it should about BUT-they did the best I guess with thier focus grioups and such and so became FC Dallas. No doubt the name should have always been, even when the Burn was it’s inaugural name;TEXAS FC! Get it. Texas, the state, the colors, the cool longhorn logo of today (actually one of favorites)! Yeah, yeah, league officials would/maybe not allow them to use the state name if and when expansion Houston would be announced…Screw that, they make up/change the rules all the time.. make it happen, print the 2ndary & tertiary logo guidelines and move on!

Brand means promise. The promise of a product or service. Try it! It’s easy. Say your favorite to yourself and ask yourself what you expact from that brand…get it? That’s what the experts say anyway…

But the promise has been broken. Broken for quite a while and I cannot tell you how deeply saddened it makes me. PHP is in my backyard. I love it. I love the coach. I love the Hunts, the past & current management team and all! But their promise to me has been broken.

I can personally speak from every perspective of the soccer community on this property and sport, and I tell that on-field performance is indeed important, but the broken promise to the soccer constituency is where the answer lies. The rec players will go once or twice. The elite players rarely. The amateurs as much as they can. The soccer moms, maybe. The Hispanics, well, I don’t really know anymore. But at one time Dallas was 2nd in walk up (Latinos) to L.A. Who else is going to attend the events? The logo/colored hoola hoops cannot answer this question alone.

I wish I knew the answer as I would gladly volunteer it to whoever would listen. But one thing for sure; a promise is a promise. Consistency is part of that promise. Understanding and empathy is part of that promise. And yes performance (or coming through with the perception that one is doing all it can to deliver) is also a promise of sorts.

I promise I will not give up supporting whatever brand they are; whatever their record is and wherever they play…however, to Steve’s point: Does anyone know what the Hull City nickname/logo is? Hoffenheim’s? Me neither , but I do know that all I hear is the fulfilled promises to their diehards.

That is what it is.

Curtis Hayden Partain #7

by Curtis Hayden Partain #7 on Sep 24, 2009 4:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Wait- I take it all back!

Nix my comment above. I’m re-thinking my position. Re-branding is GOOD!

Steve, I think you are thinking about this all wrong. Frankly, you need to re-brand yourself. Just think, Steve Davis is an OK name, but really you could do better if you want to pull in readers for your blog and articles. Just think about the possible choices of names you could change to. A couple of examples:
- Gunther: would appeal to the German speaking soccer fans who sing off key and listen to heavy metal.
- Colin: would appeal to Brits (or Brit wanna be’s) who like to hear announcers talk about an “educated left foot.”

I’ll let you know of more as I think of them. Hey, maybe put both names together and appeal to both groups: Colin Gunter!

As I think of other possibilities I’ll let you know. I’m on a roll now…

by Mark_B on Sep 24, 2009 6:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Even though I'm American

I barely pay notice to MLS. Perhaps it’s because MLS won’t come to my town anytime soon (San Diego). Perhaps it’s because when I started following football (a/k/a soccer), I was watching the Premier League and Bundesliga mostly.

But to this football fan who’s an outsider to the MLS, at least the re branding of teams (and I certainly do not claim to know anything about what’s going on in Dallas) gives MLS a little bit of credibility on the world stage. In baseball, you say Red Sox immediately after Boston…it rolls off your tongue. Wigan Athletic Lactics doesn’t exactly flow. FC Dallas makes alot more sense to me than Dallas Burn. What the hell is Burn anyhow?

MLS, even to this day, is too “American” for me. Teams with nicknames like they’re in other American sports, the post-season playoffs, little to no interaction with “lower” leagues such as the USL…it all contributes to a sport and a league which is far too different from the rest of the world. Why can’t MLS and USL reach some sort of agreement to have a system of promotion and relegation like in most of Europe? If the point of the playoffs is to determine a champion, then what does the regular season mean? Add to the fact that they play April – October and have league games during international tournaments….it just blows my mind. I can look at a FIFA and UEFA schedule, and pretty much figure out when the FA Cup, League Cup and Premier League matches are going to be played.

As far as the stadium issue, again, I can’t speak of any teams particular situation, but it would seem to me that if a stadium only has a “shelf life” of 30 years, then either they’re building crap, they aren’t maintaining the stadiums or there’s just greedy owners. Old Trafford has been around since 1911. Anfield since 1884. Granted, both stadiums have undergone millions of dollars worth of renovations over the last century, but they make it work.

by leghumpingjihadkiller on Sep 24, 2009 8:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Give MLS an actual try

All it takes is a recognition that the EPL isn’t the only way the world does soccer.

Post-Season playoffs exist in Mexico, and to some extent in Scotland (their split is basically a playoff), and MANY other nations.
The Regular Season awards the Supporters Sheild, that winner also goes to the CCL.
And I’m betting that you wouldn’t want to go to an MLS game in Dec/Jan/Feb/even March up in Toronto, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Salt Lake, Philly, New York or DC. We have different weather and different travel.

All it will take for MLS to succeed is for the millions of soccer fans in the USA/Canada to recognize that EVERY nation has a unique soccer culture. In America we can embrace that, or continue to reject our own domestic league.

by Sounder At Heart on Sep 24, 2009 8:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs