Ciao To Blank Uniforms!

This morning C38 sent out an email promoting a historic announcement at the tailgate this Saturday with special guests Pablo Mastroeni and Shane O'Neill.  A few hours later though the Rapids announced their first-ever jersey sponsorship with Ciao Telecom, a telecommunications company that has mobile, PBX, and soon streaming-television.  The deal is through the 2018 season at reportedly roughly $2 million per year.  The Rapids will be sporting the new jerseys starting on Saturday night against the Rapids.  There has been no picture of the new jerseys, but here's what the logo looks like on the jerseys of Italian Serie B club Reggina Calcio which they also sponsor:

The talk is that the Rapids were planning to make the announcement on Saturday but the Denver Post got wind of it and was going to run a story, so they had to move up the timeline.  The general belief is that they are still holding the unveiling of the new jersey for the tailgate (which would explain O'Neill being there to "model" it) as another show of support for C38.

This was a long time coming with a lot of false starts, including according to rumors at one point even the Ciao deal falling apart, but Hinchey and the FO finally got a deal done.  The $2 million/year will go a long way into putting the club into the black for the first time.  Hinchey has said that the money will also be used to improve the stadium (bring back the mini-donuts!) as well as the club.  We saw last year that a jersey sponsor wasn't necessary to sign a designated player, but more money to do something like that is always a good thing.

Great job by the Rapids getting a deal done to improve the club.  It appears to be a solid company (not a MLM like FSL or Dallas) and a classy logo that won't make the jersey look like an eyesore.  Ciao seems to be all in on the sponsorship, posting this on their home page today:

It links to this page where the Rapids and Ciao Telecom are both promoted.  All initial signs on this one are very positive.

I hate to end this entry on a bit of a sour note, but there was one other piece of news in the last couple of days.  Yesterday the Houston Dynamo announced that Tony Cascio had undergone surgery for a blown ACL and will miss the rest of the season.  Houston;s doctors preformed the repair and he will stay in Houston to rehab with the team.  Since he was on season-long loan from the Rapids to the Dynamo he will still count against the Dynamo's salary cap and not the Rapids cap this season.