Do the Portland Timbers fail to get the respect they deserve?
Timbers owner Merritt Paulson, on the "Max and Herc" podcast this week, laid out his case for his club.
"You guys tell me, it bothers me that over the last six years the Timbers have been to the Conference finals three times," Paulson said during an interview on the podcast. "Three of the last six years, and yet you don't hear Portland get talked about consistently in the same way you do Seattle, as an elite team. And we had a lot of analysts suggesting that after winning the West [in the regular season] last year, we wouldn't make the playoffs this year."
Disrespected or not, Paulson admitted the perceived lack of positive attention fueled him and the team.
"I feed on that stuff anyway. I like being an underdog; I like locker room bulletin board material," he said.
During the segment, Paulson, the most active MLS team owner on Twitter, known for his passion and willingness to engage with others on the social media platform, said he was planning to leave it for good.
"I went into the season saying this was going to be my last season on Twitter. I took a hiatus this summer, I've been getting the most mileage I can out of it, but I think I'm going to hold to it. And not just another vacation, I may deactivate, but I'm having fun with it 'til the end."
In spite of that, Paulson also admitted the positives of having an active team leader who is accessible on social media.
"I think it's a good thing to be accessible. When I went on Twitter, I basically said I'm never going to do any corporate speak, I'm not going to have anybody write my tweets, and I'm going to be me," he said. "And my personality is to be more interactive than not.
"And I think when you're interactive with Twitter, and you actually respond to people and media, it's so easy for things to be taken out of context. It's so easy to be used against you. It's so easy for you to suddenly become a caricature of your Twitter persona, that frankly there's more downside than upside. I don't regret joining Twitter, I think it's been a good thing. And I put myself in the line of fire, I've been me and maybe ticked people off in the process. It's something I definitely don't regret, but I also feel like, at least for Portland, my visibility on Twitter isn't necessarily a requirement at this point."
You can listen to that and far more on MLS, the Timbers, rock music and much more on the "Max and Herc" podcast.
