2015 Colorado Rapids Preview – Storylines

Instead, we're going to take a look at three of the far more interesting, if smaller, storylines that should be given answers throughout the season.

Hairston has never played fullback before, and the Rapids seem to think he's a potential man for the future at the spot. Whether or not they're correct remains to be seen, but this is a team drastically in need of some fullback depth, so it's going to be crucial for that experiment to work if they really do see him as a fullback of the future.

Shirt Sponsorship Rebound

The Ciao fiasco is going to go down as one of the great blunders in Rapids team history. At one point last season, the Rapids were the only team in the history of the league to have never had a sponsor on the front of their shirts, and fans had been clamoring for them to find something, anything to put on the front of the shirt for ages. Eventually, Tim Hinchey and the Rapids managed to come through with Ciao Telecom, a communications company based in Dallas. Ciao promised big things to the Rapids and the deal looked like it was going to be big bucks for the Rapids.

Unfortunately, the start-up Ciao lied about their capabilities to provide on their end of the deal, and ended up an enormous amount behind in their payments by the time the season had ended. In the end, only $75k of the money they were owed ended up with the team, quite a far cry from the $8 million or so that was planned by the time the deal was over five years down the road. More information on what happened to the Ciao deal can be found here. What's past is past, when it comes to that. The question is what lies in the future for the Rapids, who now have that rather large albatross on their shoulder.

Ciao seemed to be a good get at the time, but the Rapids are probably now going to have to go for a larger company, the type that eluded them during their long, arduous search prior to finding Ciao. Rapids fans will probably be even more critical of the lack of a shirt sponsor now than they were prior to the blunder with Ciao, and it's up to the Rapids to see if they can't find a suitable replacement to get on the shirts ASAP, even if it means it's going to be for a bit less money than they were hoping for.

MacMath vs. Irwin

We all know how well Pablo's goalkeeper experiment ended. It almost perfectly followed the arc of the 14-game winless streak that ended the season, with Nasco in particular having a few complete shockers between the sticks. (That Galaxy game where Nasco got the 34-second red card may be the quickest that I ever decided to stop watching a Rapids game in my life.) Berner and Irwin didn't fare all that much better in that mess of a few months that they had to slog through.

Irwin will have the immediate advantage with the first start of the year likely going to him (we're assuming that Philly won't allow MacMath to be played against them) but as it stands, it's anybody's game at GK for the Rapids right now.

Check out the other parts of our Rapids Season Preview: