The St. Louis MLS expansion club will announce its name, colors and crest in a virtual reveal on Aug. 13, and MLS4TheLou CEO Carolyn Kindle Betz said the ownership group has been "working hard behind the scenes" ahead of the event, according to a Q&A with Ben Frederickson of the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. The pair discussed the "postponement of the inaugural season, the pending team name announcement and more." Below are excerpts from the Q&A, some of which have been edited for clarity and brevity:
Q: What have you been able to move forward with despite the pandemic?
Kindle Betz: The intent, as of January 1, was to announce the team name and the crest and colors in the first quarter of the year. While there were certainly shutdowns and some delays in getting through that, we never stopped working on it. We were always very diligent, still having weekly marketing meetings about how are we going to launch this.
Q: The league announced the decision to postpone the starting season of three of its four expansion teams, but what was the conversation like from the St. Louis side of things during that decision-making process?
Kindle Betz: We understand. Not that we expected it when we got into this. Never. But it also gives us another year to really hone in and make sure we do things better than expected, because we have time.
Q: Should fans be concerned about the financial security of the group?
Kindle Betz: You have an ownership group that has smart, fiscally responsible members in it that have done the ebb and flows and ups and downs of businesses for decades. I can honestly say that has never once been a topic of conversation (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 7/21).
