Tottenham Hotspur is planning a three-city US tour this summer, says a report in Sports Business Journal. Baltimore and Los Angeles are two of the cities poised to host the games, while the third city has not yet been determined. ...
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FOX's live broadcast of Arsenal against Manchester United delivered a 0.9 overnight rating, according to Sports Business Journal. This compares to a 1.5 overnight rating from the record-breaking Chelsea against Liverpool match from November 20,...
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Because of MLS' relative newness to the sports scene, MLS fans have more "ownership" in the league's success. Unlike fans of the NFL, MLB and other mainstream sports, fans of Major League Soccer have real concern about their league and its place on the sports landscape. Fans work hard to bring friends to games, introduce family to the sport and cheer for MLS teams in international competitions.

STARTERS
Tigres is the winner of the Mexican Apertura Championship. Huge win! Congrats to them.
dN
Sporting Kansas City has agreed to release Omar Bravo so he can return to Mexico and play for Cruz Azul in the upcoming Clausura.
-I have no idea what this really means.

Sports Business Journal conducted its annual sports facilities survey and Red Bull Arena was voted the clear Number 1 among soccer specific stadiums. The Harrison, New Jersey garnered just over 23% of the vote, beating out LiveStrong Sporting Park and the Home Depot Center. PPL Park finished fourth with almost 10% of the vote.

Coaching changes aren't usually fodder for this website, but since the Revs have reached into their broadcast booth when grabbing a coach for the 2012 version of the team, we can file this under media coverage of the team. Heaps retired after the 2009 season and spent two years paired with Brad Feldman while providing color commentary.

Big news on the sponsorship front from longtime partner Panasonic. The electronics company announced that they have extended their deal with Major League Soccer through 2014 to serve as the league's "Official Consumer Electronics Partner". In addition, the company announced that they have reached an agreement with US soccer to serve as a similar sponsor/partner for the Men's and Women's National Teams.

Women's Professional Soccer has announced appointment of Jennifer Pogorelec O'Sullivan as the League's new Chief Executive Officer. O'Sullivan formerly served as the Vice President of Labor and Legal Affairs for the Arena Football League. She is a law school graduate and sports industry veteran.

Via Footiebusiness, the Sports Business Journal reported today that Major League Soccer is looking to sell a 25% stake in Soccer United Marketing for around $150 million. That would value SUM at around $600 million, a valuation that seems at least somewhat in line with the stated annual revenues of about $100 million.

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ALL UEFA Champions League games are shown live on Direct TV.
TEAM USA - EL EQUIPO DE TODOS
A second October friendly is now official - Tue Oct 11 v Ecuador at Red Bull Arena in Harrison NJ.
dN
US Soccer gives us a recap of part of Jurgen Klinsmanns recent European scouting trip.

Fred Dreier was nice enough to quote me in the Sports Business Journal a couple weeks ago in regards to the latest viewer stats for MLSsoccer.com, which guarantees a link back. First, the MLS spin:

For the month of July, which is traditionally the busiest month for MLSsoccer.com, the website recorded just over 3 million unique visitors, its highest total ever and a 30 percent jump from July 2010.

This blog covers the soccer media, so we would be remiss if we didn't note the premature and sad passing of FC Dallas broadcaster Bobby Rhine. Only 35 years old, Rhine spent more than 10 years with the Dallas organization, as a player, front office memeber and broadcaster. From the team website: "It is an extremely sad day in the history of FC Dallas," said Doug Quinn, President and CEO of FC Dallas.

Hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend and the traditional end of Summer.

Quiet weekend in Major League Soccer with only RSL and Philly meeting in Utah. A solid crowd of 18,700 attended the 2-1 RSL victory. Most American fans turned their televisions to the Home Depot Center on Friday night, where the USMNT hosted Costa Rica for an international friendly.

Lots of smaller business stories worth noting from the last couple of days. We'll start with an announcement from MLS and Neulion to increase the league's mobil device reach. According to the press release, the league and Neulion announced the launch of MLS MatchDay Live on Panasonic Viera Connect TVs and Roku devices across North America.

MLS fans curious to see how the league's new deal with the Peacock would increase the visibility of the league got a glimpse of NBC's promotional power during the recent Sunday Night Football broadcast. The 20 second spot ran during the Cowboys/Chargers game and teased fans with the upcoming 2012 NBC MLS broadcasts.

Time for some quick hits on business stories circulating the world of American soccer scene. We'll start with USWNT goalie Hope Solo, who has reportedly inked a mult-year deal with Gatorade to join their stable of spokesman/atheletes. According to the Sports Business Journal, the deal is estimated to fall in the low six-figure (per year) range.

Future MLS expansion side, Montreal Impact have announced a five year partnership with Quebecor Media. The relationship covers sponsorship, media, technology and more. As part of that relationship, TVA Sports will be the team's flagship broadcaster and will have rights to most of the team's broadcast matches.

Last week we discussed Gold Cup television ratings, but before the tournament complete fades into the rear view mirror, here are a couple quick business tibits courtesy of the Sports Business Journal. SBJ is reporting that Gold Cup attendance drew a final attendance just shy of 613,000. This significantly eclipses 490k plus that attended the 2007 version of the tournament.

Here are some quick hitters from around the world of business and American soccer. We'll start with this piece from Simon Kuper in the Financial Times. Following a theme we have touched on over the last week (both through our interview with Mr.Kuper and our excellent guest post from Dave Laidig), the new Kuper article looks at the growing impact of statistics in club soccer.

Photo by FIFA Habbo

It was an incredibly busy week in American soccer. Between the US national team, MLS midweek matches, and all sorts of FIFA controversies, there was a wealth of story lines for fans of the beautiful game. Below are some of the ones we were following this week that we did not have time to post on the site:

• In midweek MLS action, New York and Colorado played to a 2-2 draw, Dallas got three points on the road with a 1-0 win over Seattle, and the Galaxy grabbed an early goal to edge Houston 1-0.

On the road tonight, so we thought we would revisit an interview from early February with Revs COO Brian Bilello. After a tough start, Revs attendance has started to climb and Gillette stadium will soon be host to two big soccer events: Spain/USA and Revs/ManU. Since this interview was conducted, the Revs landed United Healthcare as a jersey sponsor and made productive use of Groupon, two of the items discussed below.

MLS commissioner Don Garber appeared at the Sports Business Journal/Sports Business Daily Sports Facilities and Franchises Ticketing Symposium in New Jersey to talk all things MLS. You can read more of his answers to questions about the league here, but below are a couple of his responses to questions about MLS:

On where the league is looking to expand:

"We are focused on New York.

Yesterday we talked about the upcoming Fox broadcast of the Manchester United/Barcelona Champions League final. Last year, Fox felt so strongly about the ratings potential for the game that the network elected to show the match in lieu of its typical Saturday afternoon baseball. The Yankees/Mets game was bumped back a couple of hours and the Final was shown in its entirety.

Time for a Monday wrap of the weekend that was in American soccer. We'll start with the Fox's efforts to promote its Saturday afternoon broadcast of the upcoming Champions League Final. The game will feature as part of a "split" doubleheader on Fox that includes the match at 2:00 and a 7:00 baseball telecast.

Earlier this week, we posted our Q&A with Timbers VP of Marketing Cory Dolich. Today, we were fortunate to have Revs COO Brian Bilello answer some questions about the Revs marketing strategies and efforts. The Revs have really amped up their online presence in the last couple of years and have started to aggressively use Twitter as a marketing tool.

On Monday MLS teased a "major soccer announcement" to fans and media and scheduled the event for 10:00 a.m. The description of a major event had soccer fans and journalists buzzing. Ultimately the big news was that Red Bull Arena would be the host venue for the 2011 AT&T MLS All Star Game. After the extravangaza last year against Manchester United in front of more than 70k.

One of the big business stories of the day was the announcement that FC Dallas' season ticket sales are projected to be up 300% year over year. The team is coming off of a year when the team reached the MLS Cup final, yet averaged less than 11k per game at Pizza Hut Park. The team has never had a full season jersey sponsor, yet there are reports that there are multiple companies competing for a place on the team's jersey.

We are on the road today, but we thought it worth making a quick mention of ongoing developments in Houston to construct a stadium for the Dynamo. The Houston Business Journal is reporting that the team will break ground on the project on January 29. The Dynamo are expected to contribute $60 million to the project.

The Sports Business Journal has reported on the findings of the 2010 "Turnkey Intelligence sponsor awareness survey" which gauged loyalty and awareness of sports fans to the products and companies that pour money into their sports. MLS sponsors such as Visa, AT&T and Pepsi enjoy significant recognition among fans of Major League Soccer who showed high cognizance that these companies are official league sponsors.