But let’s be honest, the other clubs in town have been terrible stewards of this holiday. The Reds have failed to playoff series winning team since the majority of the bailey has been talking. Despite “Cincinnati Opening Day” being so closely associated with the Reds, they’ve survived solely on tradition. The Bengals tend to open their stadium for the first time to a full-priced preseason game that hardly anyone can muster a concern about. On top of the failures of the franchise since the late 80’s, it’s been a long time since this city has been allowed to feel optimism around the Bengals. When looking over the last 30 years, Major League sports and Cincinnati have been a bummer of a combo.

And here comes the inevitable turn to FC Cincinnati. And I’m not going to sit here claim that Opening Day should belong to FC Cincinnati, that’s not what this is about. But you have to admit, FC Cincinnati have been better stewards of the Opening Day optimism than the Reds or Bengals have been. They’ve been a club willing to dream big dreams. They started off in the third division of US Soccer with team like Wilmington Hammerheads and Rochester Rhinos, teams you would be forgiven forgetting we ever played. And in this basement of a niche sport, this club had the audacity to claim they were going for the throne. That they would be a major league franchise. Hilarious.