Morgan Hughes AMA – 11/24

How would you like to see the STC movement grow…and what can we do to help you achieve this goal?

I’d like to see every supporter group and every supporter of every MLS team support #SaveTheCrew, and I’d like to see them do so publicly.

I’d like to see every fan from every market tell their owner or ownership group that if they don’t stop Precourt from moving our team to Texas that they will lose them as a customer.

It’s the only language they speak, and we need to be using it as loudly as possible.

How would you feel about a compromise similar to the Cleveland-Browns-to-Baltimore compromise? Let Precourt shut down the club and move the players and staff to Austin to start a brand new club, then let a Columbus-based investor relaunch the Crew as an expansion franchise with a new, downtown stadium. Both sides get what they want: Precourt gets his move to Austin, Crew gets to stay in Columbus.

I try to stay out of the realm of the hypothetical as much as I possibly can, but…

“Crew gets to stay in Columbus”

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As someone who is fully behind the #SaveTheCrew movement despite supporting a rival club,my question to you is, how do you feel your club’s current situation is different from when the Quakes relocated to Houston?. Moreover, with teams packing up and moving being an all-too-common occurrence in American sports, do you feel that this is a symptom of major league sports prioritizing the whims of the owners over the enjoyment of the fans?

Things have changed so much between when the Earthquakes moved to Houston and today that it’s difficult to even attempt to compare their situation with ours. Obviously, there wasn’t the open competition for expansion teams that we’re seeing today, which is why MLS had no problem throwing a new franchise the way of San Jose.

That would not happen for Columbus. I know that Garber is more than willing to take the $5M expansion application fee from Columbus, but he would not in any way give our market priority over any other market – many of which have been running campaigns to be selected as an expansion city for multiple years now. Plus, we already have a team.

Also, this situation is different from any other team in any other league moving because, well, we’re going to stop them from doing so.

We were the first team in MLS. We built the first soccer-specific stadium. We’ll be the first community that stops their team from being stolen from them.

We’re a city of firsts. It’s what we do.

Have you run into any resistance from other people in the community? As a leader of the #SaveTheRhinos movement we are struggling with dealing with an indifferent community. How were you able to overcome these attitudes and pull everybody together?

Not that I can remember at this moment, no.

One of the things that we made to sure to keep in mind from day one was that how we communicate our message is equally as important the message itself. We always want to make sure that we’re being open, honest, inclusive, and that we keep the best interest of our community at heart.

If you’re successful in doing that, people will rally behind you.

Good luck saving your team, my friend. I know on some level what you’re going through right now, and I wish you nothing but the best. Remember to rest, stay hydrated, and let the facts do the talking.

During the big banner drive in mid-October, you mentioned on Twitter that you’d gotten a response from a Premier League supporters group about flying a #SaveTheCrew banner. Can you say which team they represented?

That was @MLShocker, and they’ve been taking the banner that I sent them all around the various locations in the old country of Europe.

What plans do the STC movement have to mobilize and carry forward the momentum we’ve gained through the off-season and into the 2018 season?

That’s a deep question, man.

We have a metric shitload of stuff in store for 2017, 2018, and beyond. The only way we’ll stop is if the Crew stays in Columbus. If that happens tomorrow, then we have nothing planned for the rest of our lives.

One of the most effective tools we have is our ability to be nimble as an organization, so while we have big-picture projects on our plate, we also want to make sure we are free enough to respond to anything that happens or jump at any opportunity we have to spread our message.

I know that doesn’t answer your question directly, but I hope it gives you an idea of how committed we are to saving this team.

I guess a better answer would be, “tune in to find out”.

Remember that disaster of a TV deal Precourt signed for Crew?

Yes

Thanks for all you and STC have done so far.

With Abbott refusing to sell the most recent piece of the puzzle, admittedly the wind has been sucked from my sails a bit. My question is this, does save the crew have a contingency plan if Precourt prevails?

I think Columbus could be home to a really successful USL team. Couple that with the current investor in Austin potentially getting screwed by our relocation, although local ownership would certainly be ideal, it might be a solid consolation.

If Precourt prevails, the Crew will move to Austin – so I think that’s probably their plan.

If you’re asking about what #SaveTheCrew will do if that happens, the answer is that our only goal is the keep the Crew in Columbus. We don’t have any goal or any internal thought process that exists beyond keeping our team in our city.

Besides signing the letters and donating some to save the crew. If we all got together on one singular project… What would be that project that would be most beneficial to the cause?

That’s a hard question to answer right now. We had a meeting on Wednesday about our upcoming giant-ass projects, so we have some stuff in the pipeline that everyone should be hearing about shortly.

It’s hard right now to focus on anything outside of the playoffs. A lot of us who are behind the scenes at #SaveTheCrew are the same people that put together the tailgates and run the supporter groups and make the #TIFOSWEAT banners, so we’re busy doing all of our regular stuff along with #SaveTheCrew.

All this to say, we haven’t even really started yet. If MLS and PSV think the heat has been turned up on them so far, they haven’t seen anything yet.

My first question, as always, is how would Crew fans know you?

Second, you’re a lad from the city of Columbus, Ohio. How did you get into the Crew?

Third, what does Crew mean to you?

And finally, how can we win the #WarOnPrecourt?

We build a cage around u/AGSattack and fill that cage with raw meat. Once this step is completed, we adopt as many dogs as we can and train them to rescue other dogs. Soon we will use our feral dog army to cure the scourge that is known as AGS Attack once and for all.

So, what’s the origin of #waronalex? Do you really hate that guy? Or is it just a super long running joke?

Alex and I were on the Massive Report Podcast together, and my extreme distaste for him was a long-running joke on the show. We are friends in real life, which speaks to his poor taste in friends.

Is there anything that a Timbers fan in Nebraska can do to help #savethecrew outside of signing up at the website?

Contact MLS and MLS ownership to inform them that they’ll lose you as a customer if they move forward with moving the Columbus Crew.

Get in contact with other fans from across the league and encourage them to do the same thing.

What’s your take on the FC Cincinnati stadium deal? It seems like there are conflicting stories about whether or not its going to be publicly funded. It just seems like MLS is just screwing over soccer fans, excuse me, “customers” in Ohio lately.

I don’t know enough about it to have a relevant opinion, though I continue to hope that FCC makes it into MLS, and that we continue our #HellIsReal rivalry three times a year during the regular season for many, many years to come.

Before this all happened, what were your thoughts about Precourt?

I was one of those guys who defended Anthony Precourt, and I did so very publicly and very frequently.

As it turns out, he was not worth defending in any way. That’s a shame, but I don’t regret the fact that I chose to believe someone when they said something and defended them like I did.

When someone betrays you, it’s not your fault for having believed them when they said something. It’s important for everyone to realize this, and to not beat yourself up for trying to see the good in someone. It’s their fault for being deceitful.

If it’s a choice between choosing to see the good in people or living my life as an overly-pessimistic version of myself, I’ll choose the former.

If you could give a percentage of how certain we save the crew now that you have been working on it awhile, what would it be?

If I didn’t believe that we were going to save the Crew, I wouldn’t be involved with the #SaveTheCrew movement. As of this moment, I’m more confident that the Crew will remain in Columbus than ever before.

This should not be interpreted as a statement than allows the option of scaling back our pressure or relaxing in any way whatsoever. We need to keep fighting, we need to make our voices louder and more united than they’ve ever been, and we need to continue to rally anyone and everyone that we can to support our cause.

This is not over. Tell everyone you know.

Would you ever consider a discussion/debate with the leaders of the grassroots MLS in Austin folks?

If your question is, would I sit down and chat with Dave Greeley, yes I would do that.

I don’t know if anyone has seen the WOSU article that basically shit all over The Columbus Foundation’s ideas. How serious was that proposal and is it a positive sign for the movement?

I think it’s important to view Doug’s proposal as something that was intended change the conversation from one of acrimony and stalemate to idea-creation and solutions.

Think of it as a jumping-off point. Something that was intended to generate discussion in hopes of eventually identifying a way to keep the Crew in Columbus.

What is the reaction, if any, from local, state, and federal government officials?

We’ve received multiple resolutions of support from local government, including the Columbus City Council, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, and various others.

Is this all just a ploy by Precourt to end the #supporterwarz once and for all?

WHAAAAAATTTTT

What are SaveTheCrew’s legal options IF the city meets all of Precourt’s demands? Does that escape clause supersede everything? Is this a question better suited for either the lobster lawyer or world-renown politician, Travis Irvine?

You’d have to ask a lawyer who has actually seen PSV’s ownership contract, which I don’t think anyone has – lawyer or not.

Do you see the fans turning up for games in Columbus if Precourt is the owner?

I think soccer fans in Columbus have been supporting the Crew for 23 years, and I don’t see any reason why that support would do anything but continue to grow if given the chance.

Hi. First time, long time. Why is Mendoza soccer’s best gift to the world? I’ll hang up And listen to your answer.

Andres Mendoza is the greatest soccer player in franchise history, and everyone says so all the time. I’ve been keeping my ear to the streets recently, and I’ve been hearing that he’s the top lad and is also a cold motherfucker.