The following is from the Rose City Riveters Steering Committee and is being emailed to the Thorns Front Office. 

To The Thorns Front Office and Ownership:

When the Thorns were purchased in 2024, the Riveters were looking forward to being able to start a new chapter for the club. We were able to meet with the new Thorns owners early, set up meetings with the new Front Office staff and started to build our relationship. We shared that we were cautiously optimistic about what we were hearing, and that we were excited to see the visions come to reality. We had optimism that this organization could help heal the damage that had been done to our community. Optimism that, even though there were a lot of people involved who didn’t fully understand the community that they had bought into, leadership understood that they were involved in something precious.

This year, our optimism has waned. We’re worried that  this club that we hold dear, that we loved long before you came to Portland, is headed in the wrong direction. 

At the start of the season, the Riveters Steering Committee wrote to the Front Office and articulated concerns around the front of kit sponsor, Ring. We spoke to you of our community, of the things we value, and how this felt unaligned with those values. In private and in public, we have urged you to reconsider. We have been ignored, our email went unanswered. Earlier this week, a new partnership with Treasure AI was announced, a business that is perhaps even more damaging to our community than Ring could be. The announcement of this partnership used images of the Rose City Riveters, our matchday passion for the Thorns, our excitement, and our joy. The marketing that linked our passion to AI has crossed a major boundary for us.

To conflate exploitive AI marketing tools with volunteer-driven community effort that exists despite the pressures of those very media practices is more than irresponsible. It is worse than a violation of our trust. It can be club killing. This approach risks alienating the supporters who stuck with this club in the worst of times, prioritizing fleeting trends over the community that built the Thorns' identity. It feels as though the legacy of overcoming the failures of the previous club leadership is now being undermined by a focus on corporate partnerships that do not reflect the values of our community.

Being featured in an ad that promotes the use of AI without our consent is a profound violation of our community. We have built our identity through genuine human connection, passion, and over 13 years of dedicated volunteer effort - things that an algorithm can never replicate or understand. By using our likeness to promote this partnership, our values have been disrespected and it has been shown that leadership fundamentally misunderstood what makes this club and community precious. 

Our stance is clear: we do not support AI. Beyond the immediate insult to our members, we recognize the wider, systemic harm AI inflicts on our world. From accelerating the climate crisis through resource-intensive infrastructure to undermining the integrity of human creativity and facilitating real-world harm, AI stands in direct opposition to the future we have been working to build. We refuse to be complicit in promoting a technology that threatens our planet, exploits vulnerable communities, and replaces human employment opportunities with imitations. This is not community building, this is a devaluation of the very people, human beings, who have sustained this club through thick and thin. 

At the start of the year, we said we would not be silent. We live our values.

We will continue to be in the North End every match, because the players are at the heart of what we do, and supporting them is vital. Our messaging will also reflect our values. AI has no place in our community, our city, or this club.

Featured but not considered,

Rose City Riveters Steering Committee