COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Ben Hoelzel arrived at the corner of Korbel Avenue and Black and Gold Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon, butterflies filled his stomach. It was the first time they had done so before a Columbus Crew game since he was a kid. Hoelzel, now the vice president of Crew Supporters Union, had grown up on the club. He was at the team’s inaugural game in 1996, its first at Crew Stadium three years later, and has been at many of its 20-plus MLS playoff games since.

But Tuesday was different. The first leg of Columbus’ conference semifinal series against NYCFC was different. That’s why the butterflies reappeared.

The scene in a parking lot to the south of Mapfre Stadium, though, was familiar. Music pumped through the stiff 40-degree air. Beer from local breweries flowed. And when Hoelzel and Donny Murray looked around the corner of the lot, they didn’t see strangers; they saw family.

Literally, in Murray’s case. He and his brother, Jason, have run the Murderers’ Row supporters group for several years. Their fandom is a crucial piece of their relationship, just as it is for thousands of others.

The familial feel is one of the many reasons Crew fans have fought the possibility of relocation so fiercely. Three hours before Tuesday’s game, one of the 200 or so tailgaters looked over his shoulder to see a teenager in a Crew jersey juggling a soccer ball. There is now an entire generation of 30-somethings who were once that kid. They can’t fathom raising their own children without being able to give them a similar experience.

But in the end, they are only few hundred. And hours later, only 14,416 people filed into Mapfre, less than three-quarters capacity. The upper decks on either side of the ground were half-empty.

In a way, those vacant slabs of bleachers and unfilled yellow seats, and that number, 14,416, validate owner Anthony Precourt’s flirtation with Austin. MLS Commissioner Don Garber has said that Columbus “is near the bottom of the League in all business metrics,” and called its attendance “concerning.” Precourt has said that “the current course is not sustainable.”

But break down that number, 14,416, into the people that constitute it, and Tuesday night instead offered countless examples that invalidate Precourt’s right to pick up the club and run.

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There are two sides to any story, and although in this situation one side has been incessantly vocal while the other has been largely silent, Precourt’s deserves to be heard. He has invested money, without which the club would not be able to function. The question is whether that gives him the power to do whatever he pleases to increase the club’s profitability.

“It’s a debate that’s not just a debate with soccer, but a debate with business,” says Alex Fischer, the president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership. “Every business that I’m involved in wants to make money. But there’s also the concept of the triple bottom line, and making profit with a purpose.”

In other words, as Fischer poses it: “Are [clubs] community assets that are a part of the fabric of communities? Or are they the playground of the super rich?”

Or, perhaps, can they be both? Precourt wants to make money, and that’s fine. But isn’t it possible to make money without ripping a prized possession out of the hands of thousands of people?

There is nothing more difficult than quantifying the value of that prized possession; the hurt that stealing it would inflict; the extent to which club and community are inextricably linked.

But there is no better way to do so than to feel the connection. And there was no better time to feel it than Tuesday night. In the supporters section alone, toddlers sat in the laps of their fathers; middle-aged men and women embraced stadium stewards as they made their ways to their seats; two preteen brothers held up one of many homemade banners with the rallying cry, “SaveTheCrew.” At the front of one section, a similar banner had been hung. This one had the signatures of hundreds of fans who had rallied nine days earlier at City Hall.

View photos Columbus Crew fans signed a banner at a rally at City Hall on Sunday, Oct. 22. The banner was displayed at the NYCFC game. (Henry Bushnell/Yahoo Sports) More