October 12, 2018: Columbus Saves the Crew

October 12, 2018: The Columbus Crew are "saved." This was not a given.

One of the founding franchises of Major League Soccer in 1996, the team in Ohio's capital city were the 1st to move into a soccer-specific stadium, in 1999, which became known as Historic Crew Stadium. The Crew won the U.S. Open Cup in 2002, won the Supporters' Shield as regular-season champions in 2004, won the Shield and the MLS Cup in 2008, won the Shield again in 2009, and reached the MLS Cup Final again in 2015.

In 2013, hedge fund manager Anthony Precourt bought the team from Clark Hunt, owner of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs. (and son of Lamar Hunt, the founding owner of both teams). Like so many other sports team owners, decided he didn't like the team's current playing venue. (So why buy the team, stupid?) On October 17, 2017, he announced intentions to relocate the franchise to Austin, Texas if a downtown stadium could not be secured in Columbus.

Following this news, fans and supporters of the club began a campaign and movement known as #SaveTheCrew. Later in the month, it was revealed that Precourt had a clause in his purchase of the club that would allow him to relocate the franchise, but only to Austin.

This made no sense. First of all, by playing in a Summer league, the Crew had no competition. The city's baseball team, the Columbus Clippers, was only Class AAA. There was competition early in the season, from the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets, but the Crew are arguably more popular, and the closest NBA teams were in Cleveland and Indianapolis. And at the end of the season, there was no NFL team to hog the schedule, although Ohio State football sure does.

Second of all, Precourt moving the team to Austin made no sense. It was a metropolitan area that had never previously had any major league sports team, not even in a secondary "rebel league" like the AFL, the ABA, the WHA, the WFL or the USFL. He'd still have to get a stadium built, no matter where he wanted to play, unless he wanted to play before 90,000 empty seats at the University of Texas' Memorial Stadium, or fill a high school stadium.

And the location made no sense for Precourt himself: He grew up in Denver, went to high school in Connecticut, went to college at Pepperdine outside Los Angeles, worked at Merrill Lynch in New York, and started his firm in San Francisco. He had no connection to Austin, or even to Texas.

Responding to fans' demands, on March 5, 2018, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein filed a lawsuit against Precourt, citing a previously untested 1996 State law that prevents sports teams that benefited from public facilities or financial assistance from relocating to another city without a six-month notice and attempting to sell the team to a local ownership group. This was known as the Modell Law, and was passed after Art Modell moved the original version of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore.

The new Browns franchise was established in 1999, and was now owned by Jimmy Haslam, who owned the Pilot Flying J chain of truck stops, and the Browns, and also a share of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. His brother, Bill Haslam, was then the Governor of Tennessee, owns minor-league baseball's Knoxville-based Tennessee Smokies, and, as of 2022, is in the process of buying the NHL's Nashville Predators. So the family is involved in all 5 sports at the professional, if not major-league, level.

On October 12, 2018, Jimmy Haslam revealed that he was in the process of buying the Crew from Precourt. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that if this deal went through, Precourt would get an expansion team in Austin. The State's lawsuit against Precourt was dropped, and the Modell Law remains untested. The fans and the State government, working together, had #SavedTheCrew. It is one of the few examples of fan power saving their team.

Haslam officially became owner of the Crew on January 1, 2019. With the fans getting a second chance, the Crew won the MLS Cup in 2020. In 2021, the Crew moved into Lower.com Field. Their former home, now named Historic Crew Stadium, remains in operation as the team's training facility and a concert venue. (UPDATE: The Crew won the MLS Cup again in 2023.)

Precourt began operating Austin FC almost immediately after the sale to Haslam went through, hiring coaches and other staff starting in July 2019, and signing players starting in July 2020. They began play on April 17, 2021, losing 2-0 away to Los Angeles F.C. Served Precourt right. They played their 1st 8 games on the road, until the stadium that Precourt wanted so badly, Q2 Stadium, opened on June 19. Austin and the San Jose Earthquakes played to a dull 0-0 draw. Also served Precourt right.

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October 12, 2018 was a Friday. Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was played at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5. But the Dodgers won the series in 7 games, and then lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox.

The NBA season hadn't started yet. The NHL season had, but no games were scheduled for the day.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, lost to Edison, 31-14 at Matthew J. Drwal Stadium in Edison.