1) Shalrie Joseph for MVP? It seems like all the forces are converging and settling on him after his player of the week performance. Today alone, there were three articles touting his candidacy from Ives Galarcep (Soccer By Ives), Ridge Mahoney (Soccer America), and Kyle McCarthy (Goal.com).
He has a lot of things going for him. Click to continue reading...

In my last post on MLS' future, I postulated that the television rights deals of the future will determine the level of play we will see on the field. I also stated that it is my belief that MLS must offer a better quality product on the field in order to achieve higher fees. Kind of a chicken or egg dilemna.

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Something called World Business --which you could assume is like Forbes for foreigners--does their take on the always popular "Is soccer succeeding in America?"-piece. They never get tired of that one do they? Click to continue reading...

Everybody knows that the fierce rivals from Milano have been sharing the same stadium in the past few decades, which is one of the reason for the low revenues of both clubs. In the last few days Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani and Inter president Massimo Moratti have gone public about their plans for the San Siro/Giuseppe Meazza Stadium.

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TV Rules

The number one item that should be on the agenda for MLS officials should be has to be the preservation of the TV rights contracts.

Why do I believe that TV holds the future of MLS in its grasp? Because it's already saved the league once. And as of now, it could be argued that the contracts might not even be extended at the current price, or not extended at all(unlikely).

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Arsenal have been named the third most valuable sports club in the world by American business magazine, Forbes. They list us as being worth £837 million, while Manchester United and Real Madrid lead the valuation table respectively. Real Madrid are also the second most valuable football club at an astonishing $1. Click to continue reading...

Manchester United have been named the most valuable sports club in the world by highly respected American business magazine, Forbes.

They list us as being worth $1.87 billion (£1.14b) after having increased in worth by 4%.

This puts us above NFL team, Dallas Cowboys, who are worth $1.

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I swear MLS Commissioner Don Garber's mug is everywhere these days. Talking with this guy and then with another about the league. Today we get another Forbes interview with The Don.

Hat tip to SF over at The Offside Rules for the video.

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The Don has been hanging around the likes of Forbes, Fox Business News, Sports Business Journal and Wall Street Journal a lot lately. Dude is gonna get the league eyed up by more rich guys than a thin, gin-soaked blonde with fake t*ts and a penchant for gold-digging at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Click to continue reading...

Today's Ottawa Citizen is reporting that Senators owner Eugene Melnyk's bid to bring a Major League Soccer franchise to Ottawa took another hit with news that the Montreal Impact appear destined to become the league's 19th team -- probably in 2011 or 2012.

MLS commissioner Don Garber made things clear during an interview with Forbes last week.

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Our own beloved Donny the G had a sit down with Forbes and as usual he's talking expansion:
The biggest hard news item in the interview is that the league intends to grow to 20 teams in the short term and then stop expanding "for the forseeable future".
Of course, being Don, it may be that he's doing the old "the train is leaving the station" routine for the benefit of expansion candidates who might prefer to wait until the economic climate is more, shall we say, favorable, before writing out one of those big old checks the league seems to live for lately. Click to continue reading...

According to Don Garber's recent interview with Forbes, Montreal could be joining our league as soon as 2011. Click here for MLS Rumor's report and video of it.
This league needs more soccer markets, and the Montreal Impact supporters have proved time and time again that their city is indeed a soccer market. Click to continue reading...

MLS Commissioner Don Garber in person did an interview on FORBES.COM and announced that Montreal should have the 19th spot into the MLS by 2011. You guy's can check out, click on the clip of the interview, he talked about it after the All-Star break.

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Yeah another interview with MLS Commissioner Don Garber, this time with Forbes.

The big reason why I posted this one, it talks Montreal up a bit.

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He's on ESPN. He's on the award-winning Kyle y Javi show. He's on the Forbes Video Network for Guys That Are So Rich You Have to Call Them Wealthy™. Who does this guy's booking? Ari Gold? Click to continue reading...

With J Hutcherson -- See, it's the money that has to be the problem. Forbes let us know last night that Manchester United is worth more than any club in pro soccer, yet this morning multiple outlets were going through the math to figure out just how much debt it takes to be that great. Brief version, a lot. Click to continue reading...

With J Hutcherson -- See, it's the money that has to be the problem. Forbes let us know last night that Manchester United is worth more than any club in pro soccer, yet this morning multiple outlets were going through the math to figure out just how much debt it takes to be that great. Brief version, a lot. Click to continue reading...

Forbes announced its annual list of the richest clubs in World soccer, and surprising no one Manchester United is at the top. The complete list is available here. In all, nine of the top 25 are from the English Premier League, six from Germany, four from Italy, two from Spain, two from Scotland, and two from France. Click to continue reading...

Forbes released its list of the world's 10 most valuable sports "franchises" (in quotes because I've never liked that word) last week. It's mostly American teams - six from NFL, plus the Yankees - but there are three European soccer teams in there too: Man Utd, Real Madrid and.. Arsenal? Yep. Despite the fact that they [. Click to continue reading...

William Gallas: One man's ode to Dumb & Dumber. Football's sugar daddies. Real men wear pink boots. Marc Janko's assault on history. Not everything is butterflies & cupcakes for Sven. Uruguay shows the rest of the world what a football riot should look like. Maradona takes on Scotland & Google. Click to continue reading...

Last week, Forbes announced it's list of the 10 Richest Men in Football. None of them are footballers. Though playing the game is spectacularly well rewarded, players earn peanuts next to these guys. Top of the list is a Russian gentleman, but not the one you're thinking of. He's number two. Number one is Oleg Deripaska [. Click to continue reading...

In this era of massive valuation shifts in industries and economies across the globe, I thought it might be prudent to capture - at least for posterity - the Forbes 2008 list of most valuable football clubs. The original article is here, courtesy of Forbes magazine.
Rank | Team | Country | Value in $US Millions
1 Manchester United -England 1,800
2 Real Madrid -Spain 1,285
3 Arsenal -England 1,200
4 Liverpool -England 1,050
5 Bayern Munich -Germany 917
6 AC Milan -Italy 798
7 Barcelona -Spain 784
8 Chelsea -England 764
9 Juventus -Italy 510
10 Schalke 04 -Germany 470
11 AS Roma -Italy 434
12 Tottenham Hotspur -England 414
13 Olympique Lyonnais -France 408
14 Inter Milan -Italy 403
15 Borussia Dortmund -Germany 323
16 Newcastle United -England 300
17 Hamburg SV -Germany 293
18 Werder Bremen -Germany 262
19 Valencia -Spain 254
20 Celtic -Scotland 227
21 Everton -England 197
22 West Ham United -England 195
23 Manchester City -England 191
24 Aston Villa -England 190
25 Olympique Marseille -France 187 Click to continue reading...

SoccerFiesta.net - England soccerstar David Beckham again turn up to the top of list highest earning soccer players by Forbes, while current Manchester United soccerstar Cristiano Ronaldo on second place. Here is the Top 3 highest soccer players in 2007.

1.

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Forbes.com recently released a report that looked at the economic side of MLS and also put a value on each of the Major League Soccer franchises. At a macro level, things are looking up for MLS. Seven of the league's 14 teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, five of which have been built since 2002. Click to continue reading...

According to a recent study conducted by Forbes magazine, many of the MLS clubs are doing well financially and basically the article describes a very promising future for the financial status of MLS. This study describes how the league is not yet profitable, but that signs exist which indicate that MLS will continue to grow. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has a breakdown of MLS' money streams, which we already knew looked a lot healthier today than they did six years ago.

Included: A list of each team (excluding San Jose, which just returned to the field this year), with estimates of team value, revenue and operating income.

Los Angeles, Toronto and Dallas are profitable, according to the estimates.

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How much do you think the Wizards are worth? $10 million? $20 million? The answer is $22 million, at least according to a new Forbes magazine article about MLS' most valuable franchises. The numbers, which are taken from last year, have the Wizards as the least valuable franchise, $1 million behind the Crew. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has done a valuation of 13 of the 14 current MLS clubs. Read all about it here.
Here is an excerpt:

Seven of the league's 14 teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, five of which have been built since 2002. Expansion franchises in Seattle and Philadelphia recently agreed to pay $30 million each to join the league, three times what Toronto FC paid to join MLS three years ago.

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Must read article of the year at Forbes.com. It's great to see them finally doing this with MLS, as they've been doing it for other sports for years. Based on last year's data, 3 teams made a profit (LA, TOR, DAL). Overall, not counting San Jose, the league lost $20 million with $166 million in revenue. Click to continue reading...

I'm not sure about these lists of virtually everything these days that passes for journalism, but for what it's worth Forbes has now issued its inaugural list of the most valuable teams in MLS with the Galaxy sitting atop the rankings.

The financial magazine estimates the Galaxy are worth a cool $100 million (have they seen them play lately?

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In their inaugaral valuation of Major League Soccer, the Red Bulls rounded up the top five most valuable teams in the league.

Here is how they stand, per Forbes:

Value: $36 million

Revenue: $10 million

Operating Income: -$4.5 million

The Red Bulls hope their days as a small fish in the big New York sports pond will be over once they begin play at Red Bulls Arena in Harrison, N.

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You know how you know MLS is doing really well now? Because when you read about it in the Wall Street Journal or Forbes or when you see it discussed on Fox Business it always seems to be about sponsorship deals or something else positive. It used to be that everything you mentioned in the financial press mentioned the contraction of Miami and Tampa. Click to continue reading...

Forbes has put out a list of the best paid benchwarmers in all the major sports. Included in the list are MLS players. The fact that Forbes is including MLS in it's list is definitely a good sign for the league. Jeff Cunningham, Ante Razov, William Conde, and Franco Niell are all on the list. Along with those 4, is Wizards midfielder, Sasha Victorine. Click to continue reading...

David Beckham banked No. 5 on Forbes "Celebrity 100" list on Wednesday, trailing only Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie and Beyonce Knowles as one of the most powerful celebrities to date. This year's annual list is based on Beckham's past year's rise in stock.
Forbes evaluates the celebrities in four categories:
1) base salaries including endorsements
2) web presence and searches
3) press coverage
4) television/radio presence. Click to continue reading...