Perhaps, it is in the best interest of the team hold back on its marketing efforts because what is being showcased on the field as a MLS side is not worth advertising to the public. The team that Mo Johnston and Alexi Lalas pieced together has been a disappointing, unimaginative bunch with no cohesion or fight and the proper personnel is not in place to implement Johnston's game plan. Save for the ever-solid Tony Meola and the mercurial graces of Youri Djorkaeff, Red Bull has been listless and appears to be teetering on the brink of irrelevance. Maybe, just maybe, it is a good thing that more people are not watching the disgrace on the field, or they might be turned off entirely.

Red Bull can not expect to reach out to a market that has chosen to ignore its MLS team for nearly eleven years and expect to win fans back overnight. To be brutally honest, the interest in Red Bull is perhaps even lower then at any point when the MetroStars were in existence. Red Bull needs to step up and decide if they are a team or a product and if they are content with mediocrity-or worse. Expecting fans to be won over by one or two marketing efforts or by a handful of banners dangling from buildings and malls is surely not the secret to success. Actions speak louder then words, and the lack of actions promoting Red Bull recently is sure to bring more anemic crowds and paltry attendance numbers.

If Red Bull is happy with the status quo, then the franchise will continue to languish as a mid-table side in front of an ever dwindling fan base, however, this is not the dream that the new ownership expressed when taking over the club. In the words of the infamous Jim Leahy, it is now Red Bull's time to "belly up to the bar" and place their order and pay their tab. Coating the rotting edifice with a new layer of paint, such as they have been doing so far, will not correct the problems that ails the team. The team's first forays in marketing and re-branding the team have been nice, but the subsequent weeks have seen the team slip back into the AEG days. Red Bull has talked the talked, it now needs to walk its talk.