Sunday was the one-year anniversary of when Joe Mansueto bought the Fire from Andrew Hauptman, and Mansueto said he is "really excited about the direction of the club and where we’re headed and the progress we’ve made over the past year," according to Brian Sandalow of the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. Though early returns on the Fire's long-term partnership with WGN are "strong, the pandemic has made some benchmarks like attendance and revenue hard to judge, leaving Mansueto to determine the business' progress in somewhat different ways." It has even made "continuing evaluations of the new logo -- which Mansueto said will be around next year due to uniform lead times -- somewhat tougher because fans haven't been able to experience it during a match at Soldier Field." In what he called an "anomalous year due to the lack of attendance, Mansueto said the Fire’s financial results aren’t what the franchise originally expected." However, he said it is "all manageable and we’ll get through it.'" He added that the team is "preparing for various different scenarios as they plan ahead, spanning from no fans to even full capacity next year" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 9/13).
