Ever Winter, Major League Soccer releases its schedule for the upcoming season. In addition to
setting out the slate of games, the initial release sets out the national television schedule,
establishes breaks for FIFA dates and gives fans an opportunity to plan their Summer of soccer.
We thought it would be worthwhile to talk to Brad Pursel, Major League Soccer's Vice President of
Club Services about the process of putting together the league schedule.
In 2011, the MLS schedule was released in February. MLS fans eager for league news got a
surprising gift on Thursday when the league released the entire 2012 schedule more than one month
earlier than last year. For business junkies, the most interesting part of the release is
probably the announcement of nationally telecast games.
Major League Soccer and the Chicago Fire released their full schedule today. Here are some
highlights. Full schedule after the break.
Chicago is slated to appear in a total of 13 nationally televised broadcasts. The Sunday, July 8
game vs. LA Galaxy will be on ESPN. The October 6 game vs.
First it looked like the Spanish clubs weren't going to play, but now they are. And then it looked
like the Italian clubs were going to play, but not maybe they'll go on strike. It's really
difficult to tell what's going on from one day to another, but we're going ahead as if everybody is
playing this weekend because that's the way I like it.
MLS finally announced its 2011 schedule along with its ESPN/ESPN2 national television games.
The schedule is likely to change somewhat,, but here are some quick business thoughts.
We'll start with the league's biggest broadcast partner, ESPN, which will televise only 21 games
over the course of the regular season.
As we do every Monday, here is a roundup of some business issues from Friday and the weekend
that we didn't hit in our previous posts. We'll start in WPS, where,iIn conjunction with primary
partner PUMA, WPS debuted the Women's Soccer Training Collection last week. A number of PUMA/WPS
athletes were part of the launch of the new soccer themed clothing line.
Everybody is back in action now. Well, not everybody, but almost everybody that is normally
televised in America. You know, except the Americans. And the Argentines, I suppose. Still, most
everybody is back now. The television schedule is pretty full up again, anyway.
Despite the fact that almost everybody is back, there are no matches this weekend between WCR
Top 25 Clubs.
Everybody is back in action now. Well, not everybody, but almost everybody that is normally
televised in America. You know, except the Americans. And the Argentines, I suppose. Still, most
everybody is back now. The television schedule is pretty full up again, anyway.
Despite the fact that almost everybody is back, there are no matches this weekend between WCR
Top 25 Clubs.
