‘Why would you care?’ – Portland Cherry Bombs’ name sounds like a joke, but it’s central to the USL club's bold strategy

Miller’s first soccer team, the Portland Bangers, was built around a knowingly crude joke. Everything about it leaned into “sports-bro” energy. The idea of a “banger” nodded to smashing a ball into the net, but also carried a deliberately juvenile edge. Even the mascot was designed to be provocative. Miller took that culture and, rather than mocking it, tried to repurpose it as a community asset.

“We all say, banger. It all makes sense. It does too many things. It's like, ‘well, that's easy,’ But they're not all like that,” Miller said. “This one was hard.” 

And now this one is about girl power. The Cherry Bombs, as they are called, are "fueled by music, and driven by culture.” Their symbolism is part punk, part 90s glam party. It’s pink and girly in a rebellious way. It would make sense for Miller, whose professional career, to date, has mostly been in the music and creative spaces. He is, by his own admission, late to the beautiful game. 

Yet that duo of clubs outlines Miller’s ethos perfectly. American professional soccer, in his eyes, is corporate, stale, and predictable. Franchises employ managers, staff, and players and try to win matches in order to please a fan base that already exists. If they get it right, they manage to make a bit of money along the way. 

He also argued that Portland needs a bit of a laugh. Miller knows the area well and has seen the once hipster capital of America fall on hard times. What once used to be cool has what he dubs a ‘bad rap.’ His three teams (including one of his two minor league baseball teams), then, are about reclaiming the weird and embracing the fact that the rest of America looks down on Portland in a way that it didn’t used to - at least, that’s what he thinks. 

“Portland has gotten a very bad national press coverage, and we wanted a platform for this that was ‘F*ck you, that's bullsh*t.’ And we need a platform to bring people together and to fight against lies and injustice,” Miller said.

Miller thinks backwards. Portland, where his two sides are based, are home to an immensely successful NWSL franchise, the Thorns, and one of the most well-supported MLS Clubs, the Timbers. Both teams are well-represented by their community and rooted in a city that loves soccer. But Miller, rather than going to the league, wanted to speak directly to the fans.

How, exactly, he could do that, though, was a little hard to determine. 

That’s mostly because he has no real background in soccer - something he will be the first to admit. His experience, in fact, is in music, clothing, and campaign management. Miller has worked with brands such as Coca-Cola, Dr. Martens, Netflix, and Hard Rock Hotels. He helped piece together a new clothing brand, Official League, when he got frustrated that his merchandise was taking too long to develop. 

“I want cool sh*t in 60 days. I want great designs. I want to be able to get something that's affordable, that works on a smaller level. I don't have to order 500 units, and I want to do all the cool styles that I always wanted,” Miller said. 

It now ships around the world and has collaborated with Green Day, The Killers, The Portland Trail Blazers, and a handful of NWSL clubs. They also manufactured the kits for the Bangers this year. 

Having control of his own company means that the creative brains behind the project are entirely his and his team’s. There are no big corporations telling Miller, for example, that his debut soccer club probably shouldn’t just be an in-your-face takedown of bro culture. 

Stephen Colbert roasted one of his mascots on late-night television. And that was kind of the point. He takes soccer seriously, but it should also be fun. 

“It gives you the opportunity to be like, I can come in and make this one of the coolest brands in the world and wind up doing a lot of cool and good sh*t with it as a platform for our city and our market,” Miller said. 

And so we arrive the Portland Cherry Bombs. For one, they just made sense. The Bangers were fine proof of concept. 

“The community in Portland was just so positive and so receptive to a new team in the mix that we were like, ‘Oh yeah, the women's team is going to be good,’” GM Courtney Schmidt said. 

The Pickles, Miller’s Minor League Baseball team, made no secret about the pseudo-masculinity of their mascot. The Bangers did very much the same. 

“We're kind of known for the pickle and the sausage and definitely more male-heavy, I guess, names and themes,” Schmidt said with a laugh. 

The Cherry Bombs, in return, had to be all about girl power. It was, in fact, the central ethos of building the brand. No matter what, this had to be a team for the ladies. 

Schmidt said the project leaned into deliberately crude humor, arguing that if men are free to joke openly, women should feel equally empowered to do the same - a way, he said, of challenging long-standing double standards.

“I was definitely a proponent of challenging that double standard,” Schmidt said.

Everything was packaged with female-rock-rebellion in mind. The name refers indirectly to a 1976 classic tune by the Runaways - trailblazers in women playing what was pretty unabashedly punk music at a time when only men were doing it on a larger scale. If the crest looks kind of like a slightly cracked LP, that’s the point. This is a team fueled by women’s music, and built around it. The launch party was appropriately brash. Effectively a 70s punk disco featuring bright colors and girls on roller skates in a downtown bar, Portland announced itself not as a soccer team, but as a musical movement. 

“This is what Portland is all about… that DIY, f*ck you energy,” Miller said.

Of course, there is some football to be played here. And Miller does want to win, across all of his franchises. The Bangers made waves on the internet when their brand launched, but were also pretty handy on the pitch. A USL League Two side, they did a fine job of recruiting local talent for the summer season. They finished fourth in their division and picked up some key wins against Ballard FC and Snohomish United.

“We care. I'm also realistic. Your first year in any league, you shouldn't dominate. That's just not realistic. You should get in your first year and compete at a high level and be able to see what you need to do to be better the next year,” Miller said. 

The Cherry Bombs want to do much of the same, albeit in a slightly different market. The USL W-League functions differently from its male equivalent. While USL League Two is effectively a springboard through multiple divisions of soccer, the W League serves as a pathway into the now-professional USL Super League. This is the place where the best in college get that extra summer of development to prove that they can someday cut it in the pros - whether that be domestically or internationally.

“Obviously, we want to win. We want to be selling out the stadium. But more than anything, I want the collegiate level players and those who are kind of trying to make it to, you know, NWSL, wherever they want to go overseas to play, a good starting point for them to just have a natural team in their community,” Schmidt said. 

She has six months to flesh out a squad. But she insists that she’s not here to make up the numbers, either. It helps, too, that she has an extensive background in college soccer and feels ready to put the pieces into place to create a winning side.

The Bangers sold out every game in their first season. Being at Hilken Community Stadium was a mad experience. There was music, dancing, constant entertainment, and a garish sausage wandering among the fans throughout the contest. The food was good, and the beer was cheap (in partnership with a local brewery, of course). It was, by all accounts, a good summer evening out. The hope is that the Cherry Bombs offer much of the same when they kick off their inaugural season in May. 

Miller, meanwhile, hasn’t stopped. The week before he talked to GOAL, the owner spent time in Germany, taking in Bundesliga games. The roar of those crowds was an inspiration. 

“This is the sh*t, man. This is what we have to be doing. We have to be really copying and resonating with how they build community and how they organize community, because I think that's the key,” Miller said. 

He has already looked into securing franchise rights for other teams, and won’t rule out moving on from his current sides when someone else is better equipped to take the reins. And until then, he will sit in his office and huddle around tables, building brands and displaying more and more posters on his wall.