Some quick thoughts before we get to the Major League Soccer attendance. First, I've started to see promotions for MLS during the NBC broadcasts of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As previously noted, the hockey games draw huge eyeballs and regular promotions should drive some traffic to NBSCN telecasts of soccer.

The hunt for Arlo White's replacement ends with Kasey Keller announced as the analyst and Ross Fletcher (formerly of BBC Sport) hired as the new voice of Seattle Sounders FC. Oddly enough Fletcher lived just minutes away from White in the East Midlands. The transition back to a two-man booth will be smoothed by the presence of a man that Fletcher simply calls a "hero.

Our Major League Soccer experts Jason Davis, Tony Edwards, and Justin Shaffer answer five questions for the new MLS season. The MLS schedule starts Saturday with games available regionally, moving to nationally available broadcasts Sunday and a Monday night game on ESPN2. What's your top story in 2012?

Tuesday was the date for the annual meeting between Major League Soccer's defending champions and the President of the United States. The meeting always generates publicity for the league, but the 2012 version was even more high profile than usual. This visit included such big names as David Beckham and Landon Donovan.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Sunday will mark a significant milestone in the progession of soccer in America.

When Fox airs the Arsenal-Manchester United match at 11 a.m., it will be the first live Premier League broadcast in the United States on network television.

The first live telecast of an English Premier League game on a United States over-the-air network was seen by 1.3 million viewers last weekend, more than double the high for previous broadcasts on cable television.
Fox says Thursday that Manchester United's 2-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday received a 0.

With Fox committed to the Premier League and no longer involved nationally in the business of Major League Soccer, how does an MLS team get involved in what Fox is doing with their live Premier League broadcasts? After all, it's not as if the show itself is likely to address MLS news. Simple, they buy advertising.

(The entry is formulated based on the transcript of the media release issued by Starhub, the official broadcaster of the S.League 2012)
StarHub, the Official Broadcaster of the S.League, is extending its ‘live' match coverage to everyone (including non-StarHub subscribers) via frequency 76.

Less than two weeks until First Kick and the pace of preseason is starting to pick up. The various tournaments started up over the weekend with MLSSoccer.com offering high quality streaming of matches. Various team Twitter accounts used the matches as an opportunity to reach out to fans by providing updates and play-by-play of the games.

Martino will not call the game in a conventional sense. Instead, he will occupy a role "Between the Benches" during matches with White remaining in the broadcast booth. From this vantage point, Martino is expected to provide unique field level insight in addition to game analysis. NBC currently employs a similar technique during their hockey coverage, using an "Inside the Glass" analyst.

We are on the road tonight, so here is a vault piece from the start of last season. This was part of our series that looked at the art of televising soccer.

The Major League Soccer 2011 season got started on Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast match carried by ESPN. Fans of all sports are frequently critical of the television presentation of sports events and soccer fans are no different.

In the wake of Dave's intellectual discussion from yesterday, here are a few mundane business notes. In an item from last week, the SBJ reported that Comcast Spectator and its Front Row Marketing subsidiary are promoting the French Trophee des Champions to Red Bull Arena to open the Ligue 1 2012/2013 season.

This weekend, the Houston Dynamo will open the 12th soccer specific facility in the league, BBVA Compass Stadium. In honor of the event, today's post will focus on the Dynamo. Before we get to the stadium, the team has just announced a new partner. The team's new official energy partner is Direct Energy.