UPDATE: Columbus Crew won’t change colors in any rebranding, team spokesman says

Sources close to the Crew’s front office have told The Dispatch that the team is thinking seriously about changing its name, colors and logo by the time its new stadium opens in the summer of 2021. Changing to what? The best guess here is they don’t know yet and they are using a Frank Luntz focus group to figure it out.

Asked for a response, a team spokesman sent this email Tuesday afternoon:

“As part of the process of building the future identity and brand for the Club, we have engaged in dialogue about the historic projects underway. From the evolution of the League’s first soccer specific stadium, to the experience center in the Short North, to what the new, downtown stadium will look like, it is seemingly prudent to evaluate how our supporters and new fans would interact with them. This Club has been a vital part of the community for nearly 25 years and so any explorations of the identity of the projects must be done with the spirit of the past and what we believe the Club can achieve in the next 25 years.”

>>See what Crew SC fans are saying about the possibility of rebranding

That’s not a simple “yes” or “no” — but fair enough.

>>Join our Columbus Crew SC Fans Facebook group for the latest news, updates and to join in on the conversation.

They’d better be careful. “FC Confluence Village United SC” won’t fly in Crew country. Any massive rebranding poses a real danger of removing everything that is “Massive” about the franchise.

“Massive” was the rallying cry of Crew fans in 2008, when their team of beloved castoffs and the incomparable Guillermo Barros Schelotto won the MLS Cup. “Massive” was a term tinged with irony and meant to describe the ethos of the supporter culture. They will not be subjected.

When the Hunt family was the absentee owner (1996-2013), there was precious little investment in any area of the operation — especially the payroll. During the championship year, “Massive” came to mean that the team won in spite of ownership, not to mention management.

The Crew overcame. It was part and parcel of its identity.

Then came the era of absentee owner Anthony Precourt (2013-2018), who had a secret escape clause built into his purchase agreement — which is to say he bought the team to move it.

Precourt tried a rebranding in 2015, when he changed the logo and the colors (on a secondary uniform) to match the city’s flag. How did that go? To this day, when the fans in the Nordecke sing, “We all root for a yellow soccer team” they intersperse “red” and “blue” into the tune to mock Precourt.

The periwinkle-blue shorts were ridiculous, the jersey with the gradation of yellow and white wasn’t much better, and the “For Columbus” theme turned out to be a ruse, designed to disguise Precourt’s true intentions. He wanted to look like he cared about Columbus as he laid his plans for Austin. Authentic.

MLS began with 10 teams and a prayer in 1996. The choice of colors and the designs for the original uniforms were handed over to shoe companies: Nike handled the Tampa Bay Mutiny, LA Galaxy, Dallas Burn, San Jose Clash and New York/New Jersey Metrostars; Reebok handled the New England Revolution and Colorado Rapids; and Adidas did D.C. United, the KC Wiz and the Columbus Crew.

Only one of the original logos survives (New England). All but four nicknames have been changed. Many of the colors have been adjusted.

By and large, the Crew has hung on to its history.

The Adidas team pitched the local market this way: “The Crew name was chosen for Columbus because it reflects the hard-working attitude of the community. The name suggests a work-hard, show-me-don’t-tell-me attitude, and it implies ‘teamwork’ — people working together.”

Precourt, who lives in San Francisco, did away with the original logo — the three hardhats — and explained that there was nothing blue collar about Columbus. His replacement logo would be better if they did away with the pretentious “SC” but, all in all, it’s not bad.

He was smart enough to get rid of the red-white-and-blue uniforms as quickly as possible. And he is not often called “smart.”

Even he, who had intentions of tearing the team from its community, shied away from changing its name. Even he, a carpetbagger with no connection to Columbus, came to understand that the team’s Black & Gold colors ran through the blood of the team’s supporters.

The expansion Nashville SC can introduce “Forever Gold” home unis. The expansion LAFC can have black primaries and white secondaries with gold trim. But Banana Yellow is Crew through-and-through.

Do some people think “Steelers” when they see Black & Gold? So what? These were the colors assigned to the Crew when MLS was born. The Crew will always be the league’s first chartered franchise. It owns a primary color which, in American professional soccer, identifies the Columbus’ franchise, primarily.

Throw that away?

The Crew is not Brown & Orange and it is not Scarlet & Gray. That is not what the fans saved. They saved the Black & Gold.

They Saved the Crew.

It is the right of new owners — who laid out scores of millions to buy the team and build a stadium, and are investing in talent — to put their spin on things. But if they’re planning on a massive rebranding, they’re going to alienate a population and a culture of people who expended blood, sweat and tears so that their public trust could be run through Cleveland.

The marketing people might be thinking: “We might lose 5,000 hardcore fans who’ve been around for 25 years, and who helped Save the Crew — but if we can get 10,000 kids wearing the cool, new colors of FC Confluence Village United SC, then we’re way ahead!”

That would be a massive mistake.

“Respect Your Roots” is a very real thing here.

marace@dispatch.com

@MichaelArace1