We’re one game from the end of the 2026 season. We’re just a few days past the announcement of the 2027 Sprint Season schedule. We’re on the clock for KSE to find a new sponsor for DSGP Stadium – that name is going ‘poof’ at season’s end. And there’s players to sign, and an open DP slot, and players to renew, and a draft, and homegrowns to raise up, and the actual new season, and and and …
We, as fans, have wants. Needs, even. I mean, sure, we want literally everything I’m about to list and explain – but we know that this is both unlikely and possibly greedy. The parable of Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (and the tale of all of the kids, really) is instructive.
I want the world
I want the whole world
I want to lock it all up in my pocket
It's my bar of chocolate
Give it to me – Now!
Manchester City have basically spent the last 10 years being Veruca Salt, and the Premier League is about flush them down the garbage chute and into the furnace. Although that’s a terribly unkind way to describe the Championship, or League One, or wherever Sheik Mansour and Erling Haaland wind up.
The Rapids and their fans are not greedy. We don’t expect to win the treble or dominate the league or whatever.1 But we do have wants and needs, and if you’re a fan of a team for too long with nothing to show for it, you almost inevitably move on to something else. I lived in Los Angeles for about 24 of my 49 years on planet earth, and at no point did I ever meet an LA Clippers fan in the wild. There are obvious reasons for that. Nobody stays a Clippers fan for long.
So anyhow. What do we want?
A working video board!
And when do we want it?
Like three seasons ago! But we’ll take it whenever you get around to it, Mr. Kroenke!
Somehow I decided it would be a good idea to make the whole like ‘S-tier’ chart thing above. Enjoy. And now I will annotate said chart below with thoughts and descriptions.
Goals for the Rapids in 2026 and 2027
S-Tier
Win MLS Cup in 2026
These tiers are a mix of hopes, dreams, reality, and nightmares. Obviously, every season, winning MLS Cup is the dream. I mean, I’d love for Colorado to win Supporters Shield, but obviously for this season, that ship has sailed.
Get a brand name DP at the club that will draw a crowd
At the time in midsummer 2016 when Colorado signed Tim Howard, I was a skeptic. I didn’t like the obvious PR campaign aspect of it. But now, ten years later, I miss those halcyon days. It was really fun to hear the crowd at full throated roar; to have reporters crammed into the press box and the stadium club for events and interviews; to be THE hot team in Denver. Ok, honestly, that was only till Broncos season started. But STILL. The Rapids have an open DP slot and stacks of remaining cash from the sale of Rafael Navarro to St Louis. They should go get someone that could gin up some excitement. Does anyone know if Ross Barkley likes to ski? Mo Salah? Sadio Mané?
Win US Open Cup in 2026 or 2027
Everyone that listens to the podcast knows that Matt Pollard and I love love love the US Open Cup. It’s for purists. Sickos. It’s the NCAA tourney of soccer, and we love us our East-Tennessee-Teachers-College-over-Duke upsets. And the Rapids have never won it. So to be honest, I want that trophy in the <Insert Stadium Name When We Get a Sponsor> trophy case so badly.
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A-Tier
Win MLS Cup in the 2027 Sprint Season
In 2020, the LA Dodger won the World Series. They did it in an empty stadium in Texas, over a team I don’t remember. It was their first World Series win in 32 years - I was an 11-year old boy in 1988 when I saw Orel Hershiser and Kirk Gibson and Steve Sax win it all. The WS win during Covid in 2020 was incredibly anti-climactic in comparison.
Because the 2020 win was in Covid circumstances, it hardly felt real, and it will forever carry an asterisk. It was the result of just a 60-game regular season due to the Pandemic.
In other words, yeah, it’s cool to win a trophy, and it’d be cool to win the 2027 MLS Cup. But not as cool as winning one without an asterisk, in a regular season, with a full 34 game season. The 2027 Sprint season is 14 games, followed by a 16-team, single-elimination. Which is an awesome format. But also, will be forever remembered as ‘not a REAL MLS season, or a REAL MLS Cup.’
Still, honestly, because of those altered circumstances, this might be the Rapids’ best hopes for MLS Cup for the foreseeable future.
Get a really great sponsor for <Insert Name Stadium>;
Make upgrades to <Insert Name Stadium>
We all want a really great name sponsor for the current DSGP Stadium, for a variety of reasons. For one, there is an assumption that a new stadium sponsor will attract new attention to the team, and new fans and new energy is good for the club. For another, the sale of the name will certainly bring a higher annual price than the last sponsor just on sheer appreciation and economics – meaning the Rapids might be able to afford a better caliber of player with a new sponsor.
And third, it feels reasonable that a stadium sponsor deal will come hand in hand with stadium improvements. Nobody wants to be the sponsor for a stadium with leaky pipes, third rate food stands, or a busted video board. KSE will have to invest a little in order to land that big sponsor. And that’s good for fans too.
The odds-on favorite to take the name is probably UCHealth. They’re currently the kit sponsors. They’re also pretty rich. UCHealth (University of Colorado Health) is the largest healthcare system and hospital network in Colorado, leading the state with a net patient revenue of roughly $6.4 billion, according to a quick internet search. Healthcare companies buying into MLS is a trend. New England Revolution had United Healthcare on the front of their kits from 2022 to 2025; LA Galaxy renamed their stadium Dignity Health Sports Park in 2019. In fact, there are six MLS teams with healthcare-related sponsors; stadium or kit. Real sickos can probably name them all. Yeah, ok, pun intended.2
There are lots of other big companies in Colorado in terms of employees numbers and market cap, and in fact a bunch of them are pretty unknown to me. Any one of those might want the ‘fancy named stadium glow-up.’ Fingers crossed whomever it is wants to cover the south end, put in an amazing pit BBQ restaurant, and build a fantastic new video board.
Fix the jumbotron
Even if Colorado gets a crappy sponsor and no stadium upgrades, I’d still say that it’d a season highlight just to not have a terrible video board.
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B-Tier
Win a playoff game in 2026
You may not be aware of this, but the Colorado Rapids have not won a playoff game since November 6, 2016, when they beat the LA Galaxy in a penalty shootout to advance to the Western Conference Finals. That is a really long time ago.
I no longer care that historically speaking, the two teams that have qualified in the wild card play-in slots have never advanced to MLS Cup, or even the conference finals. The best finish for a wild card team was in 2024, when Atlanta was the Eastern Conference #9 seed. They beat #8 Montreal, then upset top-seeded Inter Miami in the best-of-three series to advance to Conference Semis, where Orlando beat them 1-0.
I don’t need the Rapids to win the whole think. I just want to see the Rapids Win. One. Playoff. Game.
Their 2021 season ended with them atop the Western Conference, which granted them a first round bye. Then, on Thanksgiving Day, the team was upset at home by Portland as Larrys Mabiala finished a bouncing betty into the top of the net in the 90th minute.
A first round bye is kind of a curse. You get a long layoff and then the pressure is on. I’d prefer the Rapids get a Wild Card spot and a chance to build up some momentum. Or at least, earn us the first playoff win in a decade.
Actually Develop Victory Crossing
Should this be higher on the tier list? Maybe. It’d be fantastic to have a place to pre-game and post-game; a way to have a march to the match; that’s a little more robust and permanently established than C38’s parking lot tailgate. I ain’t knocking the tailgate - it is fantastic. But it’d be great to have lots of options, and shade, and places to sit. Not to mention some residential housing close to the stadium.
And also it’d be good for Commerce City. The CC (is that a decent nickname? Are there other contenders?) has long been an odd ball of a community - the Suncor Oil refinery in the west, 276 splitting right through the middle, DSGP and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in the east, and a growing middle class residential neighborhood in the middle. Your current commercial district shopping options are a Dollar Tree and a Walmart; or, more realistically, driving to the Northfield complex. Which … isn’t in Commerce City.
‘Develop Victory Crossing’ isn’t higher on the tier list because whatever benefit fans receive would be far surpassed by Josh and Stan Kroenke’s profits on the venture. And that has always made me wonder why they didn’t build it, since it seems like a slam dunk. Commerce City’s population in 2000 was 20,991, and in 2010 it had mushroomed to 45,913.3 Commerce City a growing community in a booming region. Maybe it’s only B-tier because I’m not holding my breath after all these years.
Replace/Upgrade Rob Holding
Rapids CB Rob Holding is a reliable defender for Colorado, and a capable ball distributor. His contract expires at the end of 2026 with no club option. He turned 30 at the start of the season.
I think he’s a piece you could absolutely hold onto and build around – but you could also go out and get either a better replacement that’s younger, or a complementary piece that could stand alongside him and really make the central defense formidable. I think an Auston Trusty/Moïse Bombito-level CB with Holding coming off the bench and or starting 10-15 games at age 31 would be ideal.
Get another Homegrown into the Starting XI
Colorado had a sick run of Homegrowns from 2017 to 2021 in which the academy produced Kortne Ford, Cole Bassett, Sam Vines, Sebastian Anderson, Darren Yapi, and Ollie Larraz. That’s a lot of starting minutes, and sale value, for the proverbial cost of orange slices.
Since then, pickins’ have been slimmer. It’s been Jackson Travis, Adam Beaudry, and Zack Campagnolo – all of whom still have potential, but aren’t quite at the ‘sell on to Belgium’ or ‘start at striker’ level of play.
My academy crystal ball has a few exciting prospects floating in the mysts. Jonathan De La Fuente (‘09)4 got a callup to the Mexican U17 in January this year. Nathan Tchoumba (‘10) got senior team time during the Open Cup, and fellow 2010 Alex Hernandez Bautista got a USYNT U16 camp call-up. There have also been youth callups in the past few months for Adam Amireh (Canada) and Xavier Usoria (Mexico).
That’s all smoke, but not fire. Yet. It’s high time we see a Colorado kid and his parents at a fancy club-level signing party. I’m a sucker for a good news article about a kid going to prom on Friday and then starting against the Philadelphia Union on Saturday.
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We’re gonna take a break here and give you part 2 of my ‘Rapids goal - tiermaker’ in a week. Thanks for reading!
And they won’t spend a billion dollars of Saudi money using shell corporations to do it. <Allegedly.>
<Restrains himself from a long ‘for-profit, managed care is immoral and massively inefficient, and we need single payer health care now’ rant.>
And in 2020 it was at 62,418.
These numbers are birth years for the uninitiated.