By Rapids Rabbi

The totality of the soccering experience is not merely the 90 minutes on the pitch. It begins the minute you buy a ticket, or a kit, or a scarf, and extends to the morning of game day, the moment you park your car, the moment you wander into the tailgate, and especially the moment you arrive inside the stadium. 
It is a totality of experience: either a ‘consumer experience’ or a ‘human experience’, depending on who’s perspective you are looking through. The marketing and sales department likely see it as a consumer experience. And that’s fine: that’s their job. A rabbi, of course, perceives the entire thing as a human experience. I might also call it a spiritual experience, but I’m not sure standing in line for 20 minutes at Dippin’ Dots would qualify as such.

Soccer can be played in a dirt field strewn with rocks, with two pairs of sandals as goalposts. It can be played on a plastic turf with aluminum roll-out bleachers. I have seen it on three inches of snow with lines of precipitation shoveled away to provide a green, living border marking the edges of the pitch, while fans in blankets were snuggled into the backs of Subarus and Honda CRVs that had been driven to the edge of the field. It is played in antique concrete bowls, like Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, and palaces like the Camp Nou in Barcelona. 

In MLS, the soccer experience can be Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, but it can also be Banc of California Stadium. They are both soccer. They are not the same soccer experience.
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I say all this because this past Saturday night I visited LAFC’s brand-spanking-new facility in Exposition Park. I’m going to compare it, element by element, to the full ‘DSGP’ experience, on a five star scale. Because hey, the LA Galaxy have five stars (wink).

​Approach to Stadium

I’ve only ridden one other subway to a football match, and it was the Seattle one, in which all the subway stations are lit up in rave green on the way and there’s bars and buskers and all manner of fun on the walk from the station to the game. In LA, you climb off of a bus from the underside of a 10-lane highway, pass a couple nondescript apartment complexes for USC students, walk down a busy, ugly street, past the two vacant lots and the auto repair place, to a fried chicken joint, and then cross the street. You have now entered the east side of Exposition Park, a big patch of green with trees just north of the spaceship-like Banc of California Stadium. I can’t say the entryway to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park is that much better - and there isn’t a subway that takes you all the way to the ballpark - but at least you have some soccer fields on the way in to give you a hint of where you are.

Banc of California: ⭐️

DSGP:    ⭐️⭐️

​Tailgate Experience

The B of C tailgate has potential, but it’s also kind of a mess. In a long rectangle marked with a slick set of six-foot high golden ‘LAFC’ letters in the middle, there’s a mix of tailgating families and friends under their individual tents and a bunch of corporate stands hawking Toyotas and Heineken selfies with a pair of models in go-go boots and such. You can buy beer, but only if you get it from the aforementioned Dutch company with the green bottles, and then acceed to standing in a sad inflatable pen of sorts with the other ‘people not invited to their buddies tailgate.’ These little groupings of a dozen people here and a dozen people there aren’t bound together - if LA is ‘a thousand neighborhoods in search of a city’, then this was ‘three-dozen picnics in search of a tailgate.’. Sure, there’s guaranteed to be old friends that belong in the 3252, the supporters section, that wander over to greet each other, but there wasn’t any place for an interloper from Colorado like me to meet the members of Black Army 1850 or one of the other four supporters groups. In general, you kind of need a sherpa to guide you into the strange world of supporter culture, and the only person I knew was twitter acquaintance Alicia Rodriguez AKA @soccermusings, and she wasn’t there that day. It’s a good scene, but I think it’s missing something. 

By comparison, C38’s tailgate with its music and beer and food and player interviews (for $7!), plus all the Rapids-sponsored family-friendly activities just south of the stadium, are actually really good. The grass at the 3252 tailgate was nice though. Note to Wayne Brant - swapping out the concrete that C38 uses for grass would be really nice. C38’s tailgate also needs some infrastructure investment, like permanent concrete barbecue grills, tables, and a year-round outdoor sound setup. Also taco trucks, a dream which I will never, ever let go of.

Banc of California:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Architecture

​The curved metal awnings of ‘the Banc’ are gorgeous. They have a symmetry that isn’t rendered bland or boring because of some bends in the exterior line that make them look like they dip and swerve. There’s also two opening points at which the awnings and stands ‘break’, and one of those gives a perfect view of Downtown Los Angeles, framed by palm trees in the foreground. It is breathtaking. Those two openings separate the north stand, which is entirely reserved, top to bottom, for the supporters groups. They give that section a sense of intentional architectural gravitas. And that’s even before they start chanting. The stadium isn’t huge, seating 22,000, but it is quite grand, as if you took Mercedes Benz in Atlanta or the Emirates Stadium in London and just shrunk it.

DSGP is a beautiful stadium: the East and West stands are arranged in a traditional , square, matter-of-fact manner, kind of like Colorado itself (and Coloradans). The ‘flash’ of the Dick is the cantilevered shade structures arranged to look like mountain peaks that make it distinct throughout the world, as well as the lovely view in the northwest corner of the stadium of the Rockies. The blemish at DSGP is the north end, which the longer I’ve lived here, the more I think was poorly thought out. We have to be the only stadium in the gosh darn world where players exit the locker rooms and go down two flights of concrete stairs, passing through a couple corporate party tents of disinterested TransAmerica account agents waiting for the barbequed chicken to get refilled, before coming onto the pitch. I know the north end was designed with having a stage for Phish shows in mind. But it’s a total architectural cock-up, and if the Dick ever gets a facelift, mark my words, the whole north end is getting demolitioned, as it should.

Banc of California:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️

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​My readers know that I keep kosher, which generally limits what I can eat at sporting events to pizza and french fries, both of which are so bad at Dick’s that I have learned to eat before the game. Note that also vegetarian fare in the press box or at the C38 tailgate is either rare or non-existent. I imagine the addition of GB's with their menu of authentic English savory pies might be good, and perhaps the new taco stand on the north end is good, but I haven’t heard from anyone about either.

Here’s a sampling of things you can get at Banc of California Stadium:
- hand-carved Porchetta Sandwiches and Rotisserie Half-Chickens
- beer braised short rib and cheddar pressed sandwich
- Pita chips loaded with chicken shawarma, feta and tzatziki and cucumber salsa. 
- Hebrew National foot-long, loaded up with slow-braised beef, shredded cheddar and classic hot dog toppings. (note: they took a kosher hot dog and poured cheese on it, which breaks my heart a little TBH)
- Duck Fat Fries 
- Barbacoa, Chicken, Pork and Veggie Tacos
- Brisket Nachos

I ate a roasted veggie sandwich with tomato, basil and mozzarella on focaccia bread. It was really, really good, and there is nothing at DSGP on par with it for a vegetarian.

Banc of California: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Parking/Transport

Parking at LAFC is $35 at the stadium; VIP parking is more. Parking at the Dick is free. A smart person should take the metro, which is cheap and gets you a 15-minute walk from the stadium.

DSGP might consider that for an overall slogan: “It’s not the best stadium in MLS, but at least parking is free.” That amenity obviates the need to ride public transit to the Dick.

Banc of California: ⭐️⭐️
 
DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pre game pomp

LAFC rolls a set of giant letters onto the field. Then they introduce a celebrity: Saturday night it was Little League pitcher Moné Davis. Then, with great ceremony and attempted gravitas, said celebrity helps release a hawk and it flies around the stadium. Then they play a piece of classical music and flash a sign on the screen that says ‘scarves up’, and people stand up. Although since they're a new team and thousands of people are attending their first-ever soccer match, most folks in the East end don't have a clue whats going on. Then ten-foot high flames shoot out of the letters. Then everybody sits down and the ‘MLS Theme Music’ plays as the players walkout of the tunnel and lineup. It’s a bunch of nonsense, and it also doesn’t flow together at all.

Colorado’s pre-game pomp consists of the MLS Theme with scarves up, fireworks, and then singing ‘Mountain Roads’ together. The punk band that was commissioned to do that song I find kind of irritating (and I like punk music), but out ceremony is brief and it hangs together neatly.

Banc of California: ⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Supporters Section

Sigh. This could be an article all it’s own about ‘building supporters culture’ and ‘MLS 1.0 versus MLS 3.0’. Suffice it to say, this one’s not a fair fight. The Colorado Rapids have finished near the bottom of the table four of the past five years, and our supporters group has taken a beating because of it. C38 also is faced with other challenges that are hard to overcome. For one, the teams distance from Denver hurts millennial interest, a prime element within supporters groups. For another, Commerce City bans the use of flares and smoke, and the best SGs are all about the pyro. And things have significantly improved in the past two years, as the Rapids and Centennial 38 agreed to consolidate their supporters in section 117 instead of in 117 and 101, and also took out the seats and installed ‘safe-stand’ railings in the section, as well as riggings for tifo on the south end. Generally, you can find one-hundred to five-hundred fans in the 117, and they can make a respectable bit of noise. C38 and the supporters section is a work in progress which is steadily improving. All the new teams in MLS… are new. They have tremendous millennial buy-in and huge excitement that is completely independent for performance on the field, and probably will be for at least five years. LAFC’s five supporters groups have built-in competitive advantages over old-school MLS like the Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew, and Colorado Rapids that need to be taken into account. 

That said, it’s no comparison. 3252, named for the number of seats in the section, was rocking and rolling and screaming their heads off an hour before kickoff. By kickoff, nearly every seat was full, although almost every fan in the section elected to stand, of course. That mass of humanity produces an ungodly, thunderous racket. The 34º rake of the stands in the steepest in MLS - think of the angle of a hairy double black at Telluride, and put the crowd right on top of their opponents. The 3252 sing a bunch of songs you’d hear anywhere in MLS, but also a bunch I don’t associate with any other team. They have THREE capo stands. After a publicized opening match in which the word ‘puto’ was yelled repeatedly, they had their Latino players explain to the crowd of their second ever match not to do it again, and they haven’t done it since - bonus points for that. When they do their signature (drumbeat) dung dugga dung dugga dugga dung dung ‘LA!’… dugga dung dugga dugga dung dung ‘FC!’ chant, you think you’re in Azteca or the Bernabeu. It is mindblowing and it is impressive.

Note: C38 makes amazing tifo, and LAFC have one small tifo out for a ‘Women of LAFC’ supporters recognition event, but I didn’t consider tifo in this review.

Banc of California:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️1/2

​Press Box/Press Conference Room

The press box at B of C is down a service hallway that is shared with the food prep staff serving folks in the luxury suites, and requires signs every 50 feet down the twisting passage in order to guide you to the correct spot. You half expect a half-blood kobold in chain mail to leap out at you, requiring you to roll a twenty-sided die to defend yourself. 
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But I kind of liked that to some degree. It makes the press box feel like a goblet at the end of the quest, and interacting with the stadium reminds you that you're here to work.

When you finally find the press box, upon entry there is a lounge area resplendent with white couches on your way in with a few tvs tuned to other sports. You also pass a full video production suite that has desks and tvs and knobs and dials for the TV crew - no truck-in-the-parking-lot at LAFC. Once you get there, the space is beautiful: you sit in a gleaming white cube in the south west corner of the stadium. There are two rows of about 40 seats with desks in front of them, and they open to a great view. After the game, media head down to the field level and enter a velvet-roped area with big beefy bouncers, where an exclusive bar and grill for season ticket holders has the LA elite dressed up in their finest Fred Segal and Manolo Blaniks are drinking $16 cocktails. You go into a normal press conference room, but one with a 30 foot long glass wall that bar patrons can look in on. When Bob Bradley and Adama Diomande came in to be interviewed, 100 people crowded around the window to look in. It's kinda cool.

At DSGP, there are three places for media to sit: one is right on the center stripe and directly underneath the Spanish language radio broadcasting booth of the 87.7 ‘La Invasora!’ The view is great, but not if you’re prone to vertigo or if it’s cold. There’s more seating down towards the north end, but the view isn’t as good. And there’s a lounge/workspace indoors too that’s nice. It’s functional and well appointed, but not fancy. Again, just like the Rapids themselves. Rapids press conferences are held in a glorified broom closet, although it has a nice mural. Your audio recordings are often punctuated by the sound of a service elevator going up and down.

Banc of California:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️

​Luxury Amenities

LAFC boasts three different sets of luxury boxes: 12 Founders club suites, 11 Sunset Suites on the Sunset Deck, and 10 Field Level suites. As I was walking back to the Press box, a family of four up in the Founders Club were selecting cakes from off of a dessert cart. ‘The Banc’ has five separate ‘club spaces’ - exclusive bar and grill setups. If you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to drop on a luxury suite, the hoi polloi in the supporters section have their own bar area and good food options too. Ticket prices are $20 in 3252 and $34 for good seats on the East side. For all the fans at the stadium there are a pair of enormous video screens, one at the north end, one to the south. The south video board is fully 70 yards long and 30 yards tall. The apres-match party is on the Sunset deck; I left the stadium at 11:30pm and the music was still bumpin’ and the drinks were still flowing.

DSGP’s suites are quite nice also, and 1876 is a bit small and crowded, but the food and drink options are very good. The Rapids season ticket holder special experiences: being pitchside for goalkeeper warm ups, getting upgraded to fieldside seats, and getting to visit the Press Conference, are all fun and engaging.
I suppose a big piece of this is philosophical: if you to ‘be seen’ and eat well and be showy, or if you have a crap-ton of money, LAFC’s high end options are spectacular. If don’t need all that, and you can wait till after the game for a hand crafted mojito and late-night tacos at Pinche or Torchys, then DSGP is great.

Banc of California:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DSGP:   ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall You kind of get the gist: if soccer is all about the soccer, and you are more of a purist without the need for  bells and whistles, DSGP is really a very good environment, and the tailgate surrounded on all sides by soccer fields makes it a more down to earth and authentic "soccer experience". However, if you want a full-blown, pull-out-all-the-stops “experience” that’ll hit your taste buds, you auditory receptors, and your architectural/aesthetic sensibilities, you should really experience Banc of California Stadium. It's a bit more "consumerist", but it's also really really fun.
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At least go and get those Brisket Nachos on my behalf. Man those smelled good.

By Rapids Rabbi
Once you’ve reached the ninth game of a losing streak - eighth loss in MLS but ninth if you’re counting the US Open Cup loss, too - there’s no point to discussing tactics or team selection. This level of misery demands an approach that is more philosophical.
And as much as I’d like to explore various philosophies of the human condition and why man suffers in this life, I doubt any of you come to read me because you seek my take on existentialism or theodicy. These are not the droids that you, or anybody, are looking for. I’m not here to muse on the meaning of life. 
I will, however, muse on the meaning of fandom, and soccer fandom. The question I will ask is: as a fan of a frequently struggling team, when is enough enough?
Many soccer fans use the acronymical hashtag ‘XTID’ - ‘My Team til I die’ - and mean it. They believe you pick a team, and you stay with that team forever; no take-backs, no exchanges. That assumes that fandom transcends winning and losing; that it’s a tribe and a set of colors based on a geographic area that you probably live in, and that results are not the central determinant in your fandom.
This is an interesting premise. Imagine if you attended a soccer game to see your friends, chant some chants, enjoy the sunshine, and be entertained for 90 minutes. And when I say ‘be entertained’, I mean that in an expansive definition: that you like watching beautiful soccer, even if it’s the other team that’s doing it.
There is something to be said for this approach. I got a heart-stopping thrill when Samuel Armenteros had that flick-and-round-the-cow on Danny Wilson. I was dumbstruck when Obafemi Martins spun 270 degrees to posterize Drew Moor and Bobby Burling for a goal at a game in 2015. You know DSGP will be full of El Tri fans on October 6th to go see Carlos Vela and Los Angeles FC. In the good years, you pull for Colorado, and in the bad years, you just enjoy soccer. This approach probably carries through fans of teams like the Chicago Cubs, who went 108 years without a championship, or the Cleveland Browns, who are as deep a pit of misery as exists in the sporting world.
Others would say that fandom is constantly temporary and transferable. If players can switch teams, and coaches can switch teams, and teams can even switch cities*, then why the hell can’t I? Lots of folks bandwagon an exciting sports team when they are dominant or winning. The Chicago Bulls and Real Madrid are not just popular with local fans.
With the Rapids being terrible four of the past five seasons, some fans have regularly lit up message boards and social media to proclaim that they had given up their season tickets or quit supporting the team entirely.
It’s not an irrational thought. If fandom is akin to being in a relationship, then being a Rapids fan for the past five years is akin to being in an awful relationship: we love the team, and it returns our affection with unending heartbreak and misery. And if you think of fandom as being in an toxic relationship, there comes a time at which you write a Dear John letter, take the dog, and get the hell outta Dodge.
Another point at which a fan might elect to renounce their team is if they came to the conclusion that the team’s management is systemically incompetent: that mediocrity or mismanagement are hard-wired into the very fabric of the team’s culture. Nothing will ever change because the team, from ownership to front office and on down are built on a foundation of sand. That is the conclusion of many fans, including Burgundy Wave commenter TiesUBetcha, who had an epic ( and really thoughtful) comment in which he put forth the theory that the Rapids are a terrible and hopelessly run organization, at least from an organizational management perspective.
I don’t know if that’s true or not. I know the results haven’t been there for Colorado, year after year. And I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a fan to say ‘I’ve had enough: I want off now.’ Fandom is earned. Nobody has a right to your ticket dollars. And the Rapids haven’t really proven themselves worth of support lately.
I’m not quitting this team yet. Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe I’m stubborn. Maybe I want to reap the proverbial rewards in 5 or 10 or 50 years when they win a trophy and I can say ‘I was a fan when things were bleak.’ 
That all said, as a survival technique, I think it would be prudent for fans to find a coping mechanism through the rest of this season, especially as we get late on in the season and will likely be outside of the playoffs once again. Follow the Rapids U23 team in PDL play. Support Denver University Men’s Soccer. Go check out the Colorado Premier League Championship game at 1pm this Sunday. Watch this little event coming up called the World Cup. Renew your love of soccer as needed.
I wouldn’t blame you, though, if you decided to quit the Rapids. Everybody’s tolerance for pain is different, and there are even some people that think that soccer shouldn’t be painful at all. I know, I totally don’t get it either.
Anthony Hudson addresses the fansI expressed the frustration of the fans to Head Coach Anthony Hudson and asked him what he would say to you, the fan that is sick to death of losing and ready to quit the Rapids entirely. Here’s Coach Hudson’s response:
“Nothing excuses the run that we’re on. None of us are happy with it. … One thing’s for sure. I don’t know too many teams that have been a run like this and still have a group of players that are fully committed and fighting. That doesn’t always happen.
Firstly, deeply, we apologize. One-hundred percent. This is hurting, this is painful. But we’re big enough and we’re strong enough to face this challenge. 
The club has done an unbelievable job on the back of last year in freeing up space on the squad and making change. You’re never going to get all of those right when you’re making so many changes, and still we know there’s more change needed. 
All I would say to the fans is please stick with it. Please keep backing us. Your support has been amazing. The home games we’ve had, the fans, the support has been incredible and at the moment we not giving them anything, but there’s still cheering us, they’re still showing up. The players are giving their everything. We know the changes we need to make. It’s going to take a couple of transfer windows. It’s going to take more time on the training pitch.  We will get there. We will deliver a team that the fans are proud of. I’m not wavering. At all.
I totally understand if fans hear everything I’ve said and say ‘You need to start winning games. It’s down to results.’ I understand that, and that’s the business we’re in.”
Parsing his answer more carefully, the essence of the response is fourfold.
1) We are sorry. Please stick with us.
2) The players are showing resilience and commitment.
3) The process of building a winning team takes time. Be patient.
4) I know that the only thing that ultimately matters is results.
Just to spend a little bit more time on answer #3, it’s clear that the team is trying to honestly face some of the issues that Bobby Warshaw brought up after the MLS salary data was released: the Rapids are spending a lot of money for very little return. Specifically, Shkelzen Gashi, Stefan Aigner, and Joe Mason together cost the team $3.2 million. Gashi occupies one of the team’s DP slots, while Mason and Aigner cost the team at least $523,000 in TAM, plus a cap hit of up to $1.01 million on a total payroll of $4 million.** Those three players have collectively played 762 minutes with 3 goals, 0 assists. For comparison, Ismael Tajouri-Shradi of NYCFC has 644 minutes, 7 goals, 1 assist. He is earning $350,004 this year.
So Colorado has spent some money poorly. They don’t quite have the players to accomplish the task at hand. But of course, even the players on hand should be capable of better than they’ve produced, and the coach knows that.
It is very hard to say to a fan base that had to start over in the middle of 2017 after Pablo Mastroeni was fired in August of 2017 to ‘be patient’ once more. That means that Rapids supporters will have been in limbo waiting for this team to get it together from August 2017 to perhaps March of 2019. That’s… a long time. Also, Hudson’s answer implies the team got it wrong at the transfer window, but they can fix it… if they get another transfer window or two. Some will say that this team has had several transfer windows with Padraig Smith at the helm. Patience may be wearing thin.
Aignergate: The Final ChapterStefan Aigner is gone. So is the money that was spent on him for the 2018 season, unfortunately. The term ‘termination by mutual agreement’ is a nice phrase, but according to MLS salary rules, a player’s salary and/or buyout clause counts against the cap. Aigner takes a bunch of Uncle Stan's money with him on his flight to Frankfurt, and don't get it freed up for a replacement player until 2019.***
For a while, we got only Anthony Hudson’s very patient and  cautious explanations of what happened: he wasn’t quite fit, he needed additional work, he knows what he needs to do, etcetera.
Training on Tuesday was the first opportunity to ask about the situation in the past tense, not only to Coach Hudson, but to Tim Howard and Tommy Smith. Here's what they had to say. 
Tim Howard 
‘Ultimately, when you’re trying to build a culture around a club, you want people who want to be here. You want people who are pushing in the same direction as the rest of the team. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case, which is fine. That happens. Football’s not an easy game. It’s better that Stefan moves on and that we move on. Hopefully in the right direction.’
Tommy Smith
‘Obviously, a player of his ability, if he had bought into the way we were going to do things and was impacting our performances on the pitch that would have helped us, but he didn’t want to do that unfortunately, and he and the club have come to that agreement and I wish him all the best for the future.’
Anthony Hudson
‘I don’t think I’ve done as much for a single player as I’ve done in that situation. I even offered to change the system, change the shape, change his position. It’s a shame, it’s a shame because that level of player in terms of money and that sort of thing is really important to us and we haven’t had him. The reality is we’ve done the right thing. I can go to bed at night knowing that we did the right thing, not by me, but by the club, by the rest of the players. Because what we’re building, and we are building it, and we will get there. We want to do it the right way. And one of those things is building the right culture where people want to play for the club, play for each other and fight for the club.’
...
We still don’t fully understand what the row was over, beyond the statements from Coach Hudson that it was about fitness and his role in the team. But the comments from Tuesday show a new facet to this puzzle: Howard, Smith, and Hudson were all quite clear in separate interviews that Aigner did not want to be here, did not buy into the plan, did not have the same level of commitment to the club or the coach or the plan as the other players. Maybe he wanted to be the star, and getting benched rankled him. Maybe he was homesick. Maybe he wasn’t happy with the team’s performance. Maybe he didn’t like his new role. Maybe he didn’t like the coach. It seems like Aigner was unable to put the club’s needs above his own needs, and it ultimately led to his departure.
Soccer isn’t just about the fastest players or the best players or the smartest players: there are also emotions and attitudes and chemistry issues. These guys have their egos bruised. They get homesick. Distractions or problems in their personal lives affect their play. Guys don’t click in the locker room and ultimately it affects everything. Aigner didn’t work out. It was an expensive mistake. It is over. Let’s hope the club can find the right player, and the right attitude, for the system going forward.
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*Teams shouldn’t switch cities. There are very few circumstances (like when Major League Baseball didn’t have any teams west of the Mississippi and baseball was too stupid to understand that ‘expansion’ was a thing they could do) when a team switching cities is acceptable. The Columbus Crew potentially moving to Austin is not one of those situations. Just thinking about it makes me super angry.
** If the team had a need to get under the cap, they could spend more TAM to pay that $1.01 million down further. I could do the math of how much our rostered players spots 1-20 contribute to the cap and so forth in an effort to figure out if the Rapids have much TAM left to spend this year, but undisclosed numbers like transfer fees and such make it really hard. Suffice it to say that the Rapids have likely spend almost all of their allocated GAM and TAM this year, according to Matt Pollard and Marco Cummings. 
*** A small silver lining: Aigner was signed through 2020, which was an unreasonably long time for a 32-year-old player. So at least we didn't limp along with him on the roster eating into the team's TAM until then.