A dozen years after he bought the team, Andrew Hauptman is out as owner of the Chicago Fire.



The club announced on Friday that Hauptman sold his remaining 51 percent stake in the team to Joe Mansueto, who bought 49 percent of the club from Hauptman last July.



For a club that started so brightly in 1998 but struggled so mightily for the duration of Hauptman’s time in control, the sale — along with the club’s impending move to Soldier Field — gives the Fire a rare shot at a new beginning. This is a chance to wake up a sleeping giant, an opportunity to turn the U.S.’s third-largest metro area into a meaningful MLS market. It’s a new shot to enter the collective consciousness of a sports-mad city.



Sources around the league are wildly optimistic that Mansueto is the right man to lead Chicago into its brave new world. One high-level source at another club went as far as to say the Fire “couldn’t have...