Sporting KC
Sporting KC Hire Mike Burns as New Sporting Director
Sporting Kansas City announced today that the club had filled their Sporting Director position, hiring former New England Revolution General Manager, Mike Burns for the position. Burns spent fifteen years with the Revolution, in various roles before being named the GM in 2011 until he was fired in May of 2019. Burns’ last role was as a consultant with MLS mainly involved with the growth of MLS NEXT and MLS NEXT Pro.
Burns steps into a rough, but open situation in Kansas City as Sporting sit in thirteenth of fourteen teams in MLS’s Western Conference ahead of only the San Jose Earthquakes. He does have the chance to help completely remake the roster, especially in the offseason as Sporting KC has eighteen players that are either out of contract or on options at the end of the 2024 season.
In his time with New England they made three straight MLS Cups in his first three seasons with the club in 2005, 2006, 2007. The Revolution won the North American SuperLiga in 2008 as well. After being named GM in 2011 the club got back to some success, reaching the Eastern Conference Semifinals in 2013 before losing to Sporting KC, then advanced to MLS Cup in 2014, and then the US Open Cup final in 2016. His time as GM though was not the best in the club’s history. While they made those two runs in 2013 and 2014, those were two of only three times in his nine year run in the position that the club made the playoffs. During his tenure as GM, the Revolution went 96-119-70. His last three plus seasons (2016 through May of 2019) were rougher as the Revs went 37-50-28 before Burns and head coach Brad Friedel were fired as New England brought in Bruce Arena.
His time with New England was seen as hit or miss, he was successful in the draft during the time when it was still the best, most consistent way to fill the roster, drafting the likes of Kelyn Rowe, Andrew Farrell, Brandon Bye, and Tajon Buchanan. He also had success acquiring other American talent, signing the likes of Matt Turner as an undrafted free agent and Lee Nguyen after he was waived by the Vancouver Whitecaps.
He’s had his fair share of signings that have failed as well, especially on the Designated Player side of things, with the likes of Milton Caraglio, Jerry Bengston, Xavier Kouassi, and Claude Dielna all underwhelming. During his time with the league he also developed a reputation among his peers as one of the worst GMs in the league to negotiate with. And upon his firing from New England in 2019, it was said he was a “needlessly tough negotiator, poor roster builder, and questionable talent acquisition practices.”
Before joining the Revolution front office, Burns had been a player with the club for much of his playing career, joining the Revs for the league’s inaugural season in 1996. He was also a member of the 1994 and 1998 US World Cup teams. He actually closed his professional career in Kansas City, playing his final two seasons with the Wizards. Where he played with the club’s current head coach, Peter Vermes.
The question for Burns will be what lessons has he learned from five years outside an MLS front office to bring back into the position. And can he step into a league that has evolved even just in the five years that he’s been out of the front office. His final years at New England as MLS transitioned from “MLS 2.0” to “MLS 3.0” were extremely rough on Burns and New England as they fell behind other teams who were more ambitious and spent more on player acquisition. Maybe his time working with the leagues youth and developmental league will help Kansas City push their academy forward, an area that has struggled at times in recent years. At the same time hopefully he’s been able to keep some of his talent acquisition contacts (as well as make new ones given his hits and misses from his time with New England).
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Hahaha, this is terrible.
What a joke of an organization this is. I was hoping this was the beginning of some changes and a new approach. Instead, its the same old same old.
This organization sucks. That’s 2 absolutely botched staff changes (or attempts at changes, aka GW) this season. Nothing is changing, it’s another buddy buddy signing, and we’re still stuck with no changes whatsoever, with a dismal future to look forward to.
They deserve every penny of revenue to disappear.
It’s crazy to think of how revolutionary SKC was for MLS and soccer in the US in general. We were one of THE clubs. Now, we’re left behind. Way, way behind
Now here is a man who will know how to get things done in today’s MLS! Finally some fresh thinking from the same forward-looking folks that brought you Biden/Trump 2024 and “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.”
Is anyone surprised at this after the GW dumpster fire? No credible candidate wants anything to do with this club given its garbage organizational structure and incompetence across the board.
What PLAYERS would want to come here, either? Seriously? Unless there was no other option. This is going to be such a long, painful process to rebuild. IF that ever happens.
I honestly thought that there was a glimmer of hope of them getting on track with personnel. I was wrong. Very, very wrong
With his apparent lack of negotiation tactics, I have to imagine that’ll make it even harder for us to get the kind of players we need.
My mom always said, “Keep your pie hole shut unless you have something nice to say!” With that in mind, at least this dude isn’t a misogynistic piece of crap. Yes, the bar is low.
Perhaps the club could be bothered to do something that inspired niceties…?
Old School and out of touch with the modern MLS – check
Played with Peter Vermes – check
Prickly personality – check
Wow, checks all the boxes.
No, Mr. Vermes, they’re saying Booo-urns.
It speaks volumes that the “best” candidate they could find has been out of work for 5 years. There’s a reason why Burns was available, and there’s a reason(s) why no one else wants to come to Sporting KC besides MLS old guard has-beens.
Forget Sporting Blue. We’ve adopted the K-Mart model of Blue Light Specials for admins and players.
Just watched a few of his past interviews, and he “answers” questions exactly like Vermes: like everyone else is below him
I don’t want to hear Vermes ever talk about how he isn’t involved in the hiring processes. He absolutely is, and he’s piking these guys.
There’s hundreds of coaches and soccer staff around the world, there’s no excuse to ever hire anyone like this or GW
This does not fill me with confidence in the future of SKC.
Agreeing with the general sentiment here. A very uninspiring choice on first glance. Looking like our decision not to renew as STM was a good one. Hopefully the press will at least ask some good questions at the announcement. Here are a few that I’d want to hear more about.
1) Peter has stated (810: The Program last week) that the club needs to develop their analytics division. What experience do you have with modern soccer analytics, and how do you plan to modernize our analytics approach to the scouting and development side of the club?
2) As you evaluate the academy and B-side, what three things will you be looking for that you saw recently successful MLS teams doing during your time as a league consultant?
3)You last held a team position 5 years ago. Why are you the right person to help a club that has been on a generally downward trajectory for the last 5 years? What do you bring to this position that will bend that arc upward?
I great questions that I’d love to hear him be asked, but sadly I could see him answering like below. He seems to love to pick certain words and phrases from questions and respond only to those:
1) “I’m not going to comment on something based on what someone else said. I plan to use whatever tools we have at our disposal”
2) “I’m not here to talk about what other teams are doing. I don’t plan to copy what other teams are doing”
3) “I’m not going to talk about the past, with my previous position or in regards to the club with my newest role. We’re looking at the future, not the past, so why would I comment on that when it doesn’t matter?” (gotta have a little Vermes-esque douchiness somewhere in there)
So not renewing season tickets was the right call….
I’ll wait until I can get an actual return for my investment. With this chucklefuck helping, it should take quite some time.
Good job vermes/ownership.
Looks like this could devolve to a whole new level of ugly before it finally implodes. Just what you need at this point in time: A guy known around the league as a horrible roster builder who is also difficult to negotiate with. What could possibly go wrong?