Tripp Mickle at the Sports Business Journal is reporting that Classic Sports and CSTV creator Brian Bedol has been retained by MLS to assist in planning the league's broadcast and digital medial strategy. Followers of the league's tv relationships know that MLS' longterm deal with FSC is expiring at the end of the season and its deal with ESPN is at the halfway point.

I'm a couple of days late with the weekly tour of the football blogosphere. Life intervenes sometimes. Bugs me because I watched the Milan Derby and came away with a couple of conclusions: One, when Julio Cesar is on, he's the best in the world (and that's coming from a huge Casillas fan); and Two, Mourinho is just the best.

Manchester United have announced a deal with Hong Kong telecommunication giant PCCW, as the club look to further expand their operations in Asia.

Last week IMS obtained court documents which were filed against US Soccer in 2006 by Champions World. While the case is old, a July ruling by a judge in the 7th Circuit Court of Illinois denied a motion by US Soccer for judgment on the pleadings.

Judge Harry D. Leinenweber's concluded that US Soccer had no right to govern professional soccer except in the Olympic and amateur sports.

The Football Association faces a battle to protect its £183m annual income from television and sponsorship after Uefa put in motion plans to centralise the sale of marketing and broadcast rights for European Championship and World Cup qualifiers.

STARTERS
Whoa. Sports Business Journal reports that MLS is asking Fox Soccer Channel to pay $20 Million per season for broadcast rights.
-The current deal is worth $3 Million per season.
dN
Alajuelense has won the Costa Rica championship. Big victory high five and congrats to them!

By Alexander Netherton

I support Manchester United and I am more likely than you to commit suicide. Big Four football has given me depression. Sympathy please!

In 1995, the Samaritans announced that the demographic most likely to kill themselves was the young man aged 16-24.

I must say, I quite like the cut of this Fake Sigi Schmid guy's jib. I've just recently discovered him and I wish I knew who he was. (He's much better than Not Doug Logan, who is apparently also Not Pretending to Not Be Doug Logan Anymore1.)

This is a good analysis of MLS' single entity structure, with a very good conclusion: that no, it's not something you do for a while to get up and running, it's a structure you stick with long-term.

Digiturk, the satellite service hosting LigTV, has renewed their contract to broadcast the Turkcell Super League for the next four seasons, from the 2010 to 2014. Digiturk will play $321 million each season for the broadcast rights. Compare that with the current deal that Digiturk has, which is $140 million dollars per year, starting from 2005.

The second half of the European season's begin to unfold. We have 10 matches this weekend on FSC and ESPN2, as well as a mid-week Arsenal match-up. With the news this week that FSC will be taking over the Setanta Sports broadcast rights and forming a second all soccer channel, Fox Soccer Plus, things are looking up for soccer fans in the US.

• Fox Soccer Channel has obtained the broadcast rights to Sentanta USA beginning March 1st ~ http://bit.ly/cUWH5L #

• Fox Soccer Channel has obtained the broadcast rights to Sentanta USA beginning March 1st ~ http://bit.ly/cUWH5L #

So now we turn, inevitably, to Major League Soccer. Remember when I paraphrased Chuang Tzu and wrote that the number of financial articles you can find on a league is directly proportional to its financial stability? Well basically anyone who follows MLS regularly will know something about allocation money, or the Designated Player rule, or the up-to-the-minute minutiae of collective bargaining talks.

Fox Sports have extended their exclusive rights to the Serie A through 2012. Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer Plus and Fox Sports en Español today announced the joint renewal of exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to Italy's Serie A for the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 seasons. This is a great announcement for Italian footbal because the Italian Serie A has fallen behind the Premiership and La Liga.

ESPN's torrential onslaught of World Cup coverage seems to have been vindicated as 24.3 million Americans tuned in to either ABC or Univision to watch the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands.

According to overnight estimates from the Nielson corporation, 15.5 million viewers tuned into the English broadcast on ABC with an 8.

For the first time in the modern era, though, attendances are coming under real pressure during this global downturn and with that has come the first challenge to organising bodies to reconsider their approach to pricing.

Sharp will be the seventh global partner for UEFA EURO 2012 and, as part of UEFA's EUROTOP programme, will sponsor other top national team competitions until the end of 2013.

The Absa Premiership is climbing world football's money league. In the three years since a R1.6-billion broadcast rights bonanza was secured from pay channel SuperSport, top PSL players' earnings have rocketed - to the extent that staying at home can now be as lucrative as accepting a European offer.

Top La Liga clubs including Real Madrid and Barcelona may be close to a deal under which TV income would be shared more equitably, according to the president of the professional football league (LFP).

The contrast was stark, like a particularly uncompetitive episode of the BBC's Bargain Hunt (you can tell I don't have a proper day job), magnified a million times. Bolton Wanderers' parent company Burnden Leisure Plc lost £35.4m, partly because they picked up manager Owen Coyle. Burnley Football Club made record profits of £14.

Revenue in the Middle East from football pay TV broadcast rights is expected to rise 30 percent to $550m over the next twelve years as a result of Qatar's successful bid to stage the World Cup in 2022