Seattle’s really going to give fans a chance to oust Adrian Hanauer
Sep 26, 2012, 1:49 PM EDT
Getty Images If you make it through Walter Isaacson’s tome on Steve Jobs, one thing lesson that leaps out is the attitude Apple’s former CEO had toward customers. It was a complicated one, both highly attuned and dismissive. Jobs’ entire ethos was driven by creating simple, attractive products consumers would actively want to use, yet he had little regard for other’s opinions of his devices. He never market tested a product before release. Jobs was a authoritarian servant of the consumer, believing consumers didn’t know what they wanted until he showed them.
His philosophy would fit perfectly into sports management. For the most part, fans are not good at deciding what they want. A few hours in the stands at a stadium, in the bar after a game, or interacting with fans in day-to-day life will show a vast array of bad-to-good ideas, most of which combine antiquated historical observation with the type of bias that make them good fans. It’s incomplete information pushed through an emotionally charged lens – a horrible process for making executive decisions.
The Seattle Sounders, however, made a commitment to democracy in sports when they brought Major League Soccer to Puget Sound. They committed to giving their season ticket holders a voice. Starting Oct. 7, season ticket holders will get their first chance to exercise that voice, voting on whether general manager Adrian Hanauer retains his job:
Results of the vote will be announced in December.
The idea that Hanauer could lose his job is unfathomable, and there’s almost no appetite to replace him. While Seattle’s fan base has the same ripples of discontent that appear among every team’s support, there’s no movement, no critical mass accumulating to oust Hanauer. Hanauer would have to get a thumbs down from at least 50 percent of voters, provided at least 10,000 people bother to vote.
Unfortunately for the Sounders, the people who are most likely to take note of this election – to go online or veer to a ballot box on the way to their seats at CenturyLink – are the people who are motivated to have their voice heard. Those are typically people who want to shake things up. Those who are content with the Sounders progress or don’t care either way are unlikely to prioritize voting. The process has been structured as a recall election, which will always draw a disproportionate number of people who want the recall.
As with all things Pacific Northwest soccer, you can’t help but look to the south to draw some parallels. Portland’s failed season has led to vocal discontent from fans directed at general manager and interim head coach Gavin Wilkinson. “GWOUT” signs have appeared at CenturyLink, with a corresponding hashtag gaining limited traction on Twitter. Though the angst has abated from its summer peak, Wilkinson remains a divisive figure within the Timbers Army, with detractors rarely taking into account the roles Wilkinson has played with the Timbers’ PDL team, Portland’s purchase of the WPSL Portland Rain, or his influence in bringing Oregon’s Olympic Development Program under the Timbers’ prevue. The attitude amongst the GWOUT crew casts Wilkinson as the bad guy while John Spencer’s good, an oversimplified conclusion based on very limited information.
Portland has no democratic mechanism in their organization. Fans won’t get to vote on Wilkinson’s future. If they did, it would be a very heated election. Though the GWOUT movement is small, they have the cohesion and motivation to create a heated debate, even if that motivation’s based on a limited view of Wilkinson’s contributions.
There’s been no AHOUT meme in Seattle, but the tenets remain the same. The same fan passion that’s driven mild discontent in Portland’s fanbase is being empowered to decide Adrian Hanauer’s future. But Seattle’s never missed the playoffs. They’ve identified and brought in players like Fredy Montero, Osvaldo Alonso, Mauro Rosales and Jhon Kennedy Hurtado. They picked the right man to bring in as coach. They’ve won three U.S. Open Cups and are a contender for this year’s MLS Cup.
That a process has been put in place where Hanauer may lose his job despite those accomplishments seems unfair. Then again, that’s probably not what this process is about. We’re using the wrong standard of fairness. Just because other general managers in the league don’t face the same specter doesn’t make this process unfair. Fairness, in this case, has a different reference.
Sounders FC have created a paradigm where fairness is defined by fan approval. It implicitly says there’s only one standard of success that matters: How fans feel about the team. If SSFC makes four-straight playoffs, has a roster that’s the envy of the league, and in almost all regards have assembled a first class organization, what does it matter if the fans aren’t happy?
Which brings is back around to Jobs’ maxim: Are consumers the people we want deciding how to produce a product? Even if we’re a part of that group. Do we want the people to our left, to our right deciding who gets to build the next iPhone? Or who gets to decide the future of Seattle’s key players?
Do fans know what they want before they see it?
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- footballer4ever - Sep 26, 2012 at 2:28 PM
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It’s a neat and different concept SSFC was able implement compared to how other US sports teams that operate. Based on what i have read on other sports talk section, there’s a throwball team named the dolphins which some of their fans wished they had a voice to ovethrow their GM if they could. Thumbs up to SSFC !
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- Sometimes Interesting - Sep 28, 2012 at 1:09 PM
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As a Sounders fan who’s also a Dolphins fan I can vouch for this. Jeff Ireland is the worst GM in the NFL. Dolphin fans would have voted him out by now.
I’d love to see the GM vote in the NFL.
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- CaliforniaRedskins - Sep 26, 2012 at 4:41 PM
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I have to admit that this is one of the coolest of the many great things that the managerial team up in Seattle have done. I don’t think that Hanauer has anything to worry about, but the simple idea of it is a great encapsulation of the fan oriented commitment by the front office of Seattle. Seattle definitely does a great job of realizing that without the fans in the stadium and on tv, nothing else matters.
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- dws110 - Sep 26, 2012 at 4:42 PM
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Hey, lookie there, I get four votes. #AdrianIN
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- ksix1 - Sep 26, 2012 at 7:23 PM
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This post definitely paints the whole “fans having a voice” thing in a strange light. Basically you seem to be saying fans aren’t capable of knowing what they want and need smart people to tell them what is best for them. I’ll share a couple of counterpoints that I think you’re overlooking…
First, this vote is only open to Alliance members (and it’s not the first thing they’ve voted on either). That means only season ticket holders or someone who’s paid the $125/year membership fee can vote. Since professional sports can easily be boiled down to just another form of entertainment and diversion, doesn’t it make sense to let your biggest spenders have a voice in how the entertainment is being offered (and will be offered in the future)? Large companies do this all the time. Microsoft invites it’s biggest corporate customers to provide direct feedback on products they buy in bulk. Airlines and Hotels provide mechanisms for frequent fliers/stayers who attain various levels of “status” to have their voices heard in a more direct manner than via TripAdvisor.com. It makes sense for Sounders FC to engage directly with the best customers and give them a voice in the future of the product they consume. Absent this voice, all they can do is vote with their wallets.
Which brings me to my second point… while professional sports are just entertainment, they’re unique in that they provide an identity to a city or region. In that sense, they kind of have a monopoly on the local fans. There’s no other MLS team in Seattle for Sounders FC season ticket holders to patronage instead if they’re upset with how the club is being run. Therefore, providing your best customers/fans an outlet like this allows them to take part in their city or region’s identity and direction. In November, we all get to vote on the next president of the US. Imagine if this “voters don’t know what they want” attitude was applied to the US government. Our founding fathers were on to something when they gave citizens a voice. It makes sense for organizations that monopolize the identity of a city or region in a given field (professional soccer in this case) do the same.
Lastly, there’s something to be said for how Europe does sports. We all know there’s a non-trivial percentage of soccer fans in the US that would love to have pro/rel leagues just like in Europe. I don’t count myself among those fans, but it’s interesting that we don’t have the same outcry for something else many clubs in Europe give their fans… voting rights. FC Barcelona elects their GMs (even more power than the recall vote Seattle has). I don’t follow European soccer much, but I know they’re not the only club that does this. Until now, this was unheard of in US professional sports. Maybe we could use a little more rhetoric from eurosnobs on this front. I know there’re several NFL teams whose fans would love to shake things up. Right now, the only choice they have is to vote with their wallets and their TV tuners.
So here’s to democracy in sports. May it be embraced by US sports fans in years to come.
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- dws110 - Sep 26, 2012 at 7:36 PM
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Amazing post. Thank you.
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- Richard Farley - Sep 26, 2012 at 7:41 PM
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Amazing post. Thank you.
Agree. Obviously, I don’t see eye-to-eye with much (any) of it, but it’s definitely worth saying in light of the article. I only wish that other comments were as good as that one.
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- footballer4ever - Sep 30, 2012 at 8:23 PM
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@ Sometimes Interesting- I doubt any NFL team would take the approach the SSFC did. The main reason is because it’s a dictatorial league which has grown too big to genuinely care for their own fans. Either way, are you a SSFC from florida or are you a dolphins fan from Seattle?
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- footballer4ever - Sep 30, 2012 at 8:39 PM
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@ Richard Farley – “I only wish that other comments were as good as that one.”
Geez, Richard. To say something like that pretty much you, as a PST author, are implying other fans comments are not worth it “even if that was not your intention”. I will make sure not to even read your posts if that’s how you alienate the fans who bother to read them.
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- Richard Farley - Sep 30, 2012 at 8:48 PM
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You’re right to call me out for my lack of qualifiers on that statement. Most comments are great and positive. This one was great, even if it wasn’t positive (nobody wants every comment to be adoring).
In reality, I was responding to this while thinking of a previous day’s commenter, somebody who was misreading a piece and went on far too long about the conclusions drawn from the misunderstanding.
I suppose I am leery of comments that go on too long (like mine here) and I let that get the better of my response. Thanks for bringing it up.
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- footballer4ever - Sep 30, 2012 at 9:10 PM
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@ Richard Farley- No hard feelings, Richard.
I am a footie fan and i get my daily dose of football 411 via NBC’s “PST” which by the way, is there any chance it could be properly re-named to WFT as in World Football Talk?
I know, wishful thinking to ask an American minded company who call it “soccer” to refer it as Football as it’s known to most footie fans to start with.
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- Richard Farley - Sep 30, 2012 at 9:33 PM
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As a writer by trade, I love having both words. I try to mix other versions (fußball, futebol, futbol) in as much as possible. Soccer is my now, I’d say an eskimo.
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- footballer4ever - Sep 30, 2012 at 10:02 PM
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I don’t mind calling it “soccer” when it comes to MLS clubs or USMNT since football is already used for the throwball version. It is what it is and i accept it that much.
However, my pet- peeve which makes me cringe is when i hear “soccer” writers refer other countries national football teams or football clubs as soccer teams/clubs. There is a huge cacophonous sound to it. The NFL football game is an American game only which for some reason it’s respectfully referred by others internationally as “American football” since the world football was non-existent. By the same token, US writers should call it for how it’s regarded and respected abroad as football when you speak about other people’s national passion which is football even if it’s written phonetically as futbol, futebol, fussball etc etc.
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