Sports franchise relocation is a hallmark of the American sports landscape. Teams relocate at their owners’ whims, leaving fans with little more to do than voice their angst. When the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer announced in 2017 that ownership was set to move the team to Austin, a group of the Crew’s most ardent supporters initially seemed resigned to the franchise’s predetermined fate. However, over the course of months, those fans embarked on a grass roots campaign that generated attention worldwide and, ultimately, convinced a new ownership group to purchase the team and keep it in Columbus. This paper analyzes the efforts of these supporters through the lens of constitutive rhetoric, an ideologically-based concept that can galvanize disparate communities, shift their collective perspective, and set them on a course for action. In using this approach, the Save The Crew movement used myth to deploy a unique rhetorical power that successfully opposed the powerful capitalist logic of team relocation.

体育特许经营权的迁移是美国体育界的标志。车队会按照主人的异想而搬迁，这给球迷们带来的余地只不过是表达了他们的焦虑。当美国职棒大联盟的哥伦布船员于2017年宣布将所有权移交给奥斯丁时，这支船员最热心的支持者最初似乎已对球队的预定命运辞职了。然而，在接下来的几个月中，这些粉丝发起了一场草根运动，引起了全世界的关注，并最终说服了一个新的所有权集团购买该团队并将其保留在哥伦布。本文通过构成修辞学的角度分析了这些支持者的努力，这是一种基于意识形态的概念，可以激发不同的社区，改变他们的集体视野，并使他们处于行动道路上。