RBNY Respond to Criticism; Not Surprisingly, No One is Satisfied
By: Martha | March 19th, 2007
Finally getting off their asses and putting together some sort of response to Ives Galarcep’s multi-pronged revelation about the club’s disastrous financial straits last year, the Red Bull suits have rolled out the usual, unsatisfactory nonsense about being a work in progress, and their commitment to the club and the league. Which is all well and good — if they mean it.
The way Red Bull want us to see the presence of their logo on the RBNY kit is as a commitment to excellence; a sign they’re in for the long haul. As columnist Kristian Dyer points out, however, there’s another way to see that logo, namely as such good free advertising that it doesn’t really matter what kind of results the team gets. The fact is that the team is a giant, walking billboard whether they make the playoffs or not. Additionally, there is the fact that most MLS teams are thought to lose $4-5 million/year, with the biggest spenders ending up about $10 million in the hole. So what are Red Bull spending on to end up $14 million the red, and where are the returns? And why, $14 million in the hole (a figure, by the way, they company denies — surprise, surprise), are they “intentionally” dumping sponsors?
At this point, I’d feel a lot better if they’d stop this “trust us, things are getting better!” nonsense and actually show us a)some concrete progress, and b)precise goals for the future, so we can evaluate with them whether anything is being accomplished. After all, we’re giving the team our hard-earned cash and precious free time in exchange for the great privileged of risking sanity by making regular trips to and from (an increasingly empty) Giants Stadium. Is a little respect really too much to ask?
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That is the problem with having corporations run sports teams. They can do a terrible job and still consider it a success because they were able to “brand” their product or other such nonsense.
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