The wealth of City’s owners is well known to soccer fans, but the wildcard in this relationship is the New York savvy and television power of the New York Yankees.  Among Regional Sports Networks, the Yankee owned Yes network is a  powerhouse.  With large national penetration and lock down carriage agreements in the all important New York Metro area (this includes New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut), the Yes Network offers MLS a huge opportunity to become a tv presence.  Even though most of the national agreements do not allow for the broadcast of live games (and that could change for soccer), it seems likely that any relationship will include non match programming.  While a relationship with Yes has not been confirmed, it seems almost a certainty given the Yankees involvement.  Moreover, with all of the league’s national television deals set to expire in 2014, the presence of a new New York franchise that will likely spend on players will be a big negotiation carrot for the league.

Moreover, the Yankees have the ear of the New York sports media, and despite resistance to the sport among many in the fourth estate, the Yankees can leverage their brand to gain media attention.  The Yankees know how to get attention on the back pages of the Gotham tabloids and the announcement drew a fair amount of local coverage.  Right now the team has the support of the Big Apple’s outgoing Mayor, a powerful political force in the last year of his term.

Overall, this was as big of a splash as the league could have made with its New York 2 franchise.  Both names have enormous cache both inside and outside the sports world and there are enormous available dollars to select premium players.  This is an exciting moment for MLS and an important steppingstone.  If this relationship fails, it will be a significant blow to the league, but the possibility of success could serve to raise the league to new heights.

On to attendance, where the week started with a solid 18k plus for struggling Toronto as the Reds fell to Columbus at home.  San Jose managed a sellout for their Saturday night game with just over 10,500 at Buck Shaw.  The sellout run continued with more than 18k at PPL Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Chester.  Vancouver fell just shy of 20k for their Saturday night match and the good run of solid numbers continued with another sellout in Houston as the formerly unbeatable at home Dynamo lost for the second straight time in the friendly confines of BBV Compass.

Seattle drew its usual big number with almost 39k at Century Link as the Sounders continue to play winning soccer in the month of May.   On Sunday, the Red Bull reported a sellout for their mid afternoon tilt with the Galaxy.  The 25k plus crowd looked solid at RBA and the match was nationally televised by ESPN2 following their Sunday coverage of the last day of the EPL season.  On Sunday, United managed a crowd of more than 13k for its strea breaking game.

IN NWSL action, Jeld-Wen Field hosted a crowd of more than 12k as the Thorns played host to the Washington Freedom.  A crowd of 4300 watched Kansas City shut out Boston.

One hypothesis, muttered under the breath of soccer fans, yet voiced loudly by mainstream sports commentators, “soccer haters” and others, is that soccer on tv is boring.  Fans captured by the breathless excitement of the NHL, captivated by the violence and speed of football or engaged by the cerebral captivation of baseball find little appealing about soccer on tv.  Anecdotal evidence supports the contention that soccer on television is boring.  In hockey (the team sport closest to soccer in many ways, including in the amount of goals per game), a team is never more than a few seconds from a scoring chance or shot on goal.  In basketball, successful plays abound and to most Americans, little compares to the Autumn spectacle that is the NFL.

Soccer is low scoring.  To the casual fan, soccer is moments of brilliance surrounded by long periods of tedium. For every match that is a beautiful spectacle, there are five that ponderous affairs with little attacking play, long balls booted back and forth punctuated by back passes, square passes and passes to the keeper.  Soccer’s running clock begets mind numbing delay tactics and the play acting is offensive to even the most passionate fans.

So is soccer boring? As a lifelong fan, I say no, but I will leave the last word to my son.  He is a huge sports fan, has been to lots of soccer games, an NHL match, baseball games and more.  We used to watch soccer together regularly and he could name players on lots of MLS teams.  Now, five minutes of soccer is too much, while two hours of hockey, 6 innings of baseball or four quarters of football are fine.  The other day, we were watching a Crew match after an afternoon of him playing soccer and baseball.  We turned a Crew match on NBCSN when after a couple of minutes he turned to me: “Dad, soccer is boring.”

Today ESPN announced its plans to go higher by providing fans a daily, hourly highlight and soccer discussion show comparable to Baseball Tonight and other similar sports focused shows.  Starting on August 11, “ESPNFC will launch a daily studio show on ESPN2 beginning Aug. 11 that will feature soccer highlights from major soccer leagues in Europe as well as Major League Soccer and the U.S. and Mexico men’s national teams.”  During the week the show will be 30 minutes long and will feature many of the ESPN personalities with whom fans are familiar.

Per the official press release, “Soccer’s popularity is at an all-time high in the United States as fans are now more familiar with the world’s top players, marquee clubs and national teams. ESPNFC on TV continues our leadership role in coverage of the sport across all media,” said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN senior vice president for programming. “ESPNFC will inform, entertain and provide hard-hitting insight on the global sport of soccer,” added Guglielmino. “It will become ESPN’s signature program for soccer, bringing tremendous value to the company, our affiliates and the ad sales community looking to reach core and casual soccer fans in the United States.”

This is a great moment for soccer in the United States.  The afternoon show will put soccer front and center on a daily basis.  The later afternoon has been kind to a number of popular ESPN shows and the new studio show has the opportunity to positively promote the game for a very broad audience.

MLS aggressively promoted a free week of its MLS Live service during the last round of games.  The league has been working hard to put its online package in front of fans, with a weekly free game of the week feature, active promotion via Twitter an increasingly attractive options.  The package is reasonably price, provides high quality video and provides access to out of market games not available on the league’s national television providers.   MLS recognizes that the league fan base is extremely high-tech and that many of its supporters favor the online option to the traditional out of market package.

One final note. MLSSoccer.com is reporting that FC Dallas is close to naming a stadium naming rights sponsor for the rest of this season and thereafter.  Fans in the Dallas area have heard these reports before, but it seems that a deal is finally close.  There has been no naming rights sponsor since Pizza Hut walked away from its deal two seasons ago.

Not surprisingly, the numbers were better on Saturday night, but still not oustanding.  Chicago crossed over the 12k mark, yet attendance remains poor in Bridgeview this season.  Later on Saturday, the crowd for the Montreal Impact was similarly disappointing, with less than 15k in attendance at Stade Saputo.  As usual, the crowd in Seattle raised the attendance figures with more than 38k at Century Link for the Sounders’ second consecutive win.   The Northwest continued its strong attendance push with 21k at BC Place. With the Canucks season finished, the Whitecaps are now the only game in town.

The big attendance surprise came courtesy of the Revs, who managed 16+ for their Saturday night tie with the Red Bulls.  Whatever the reason, this is the second consecutive solid weekend crowd at Gillette.  The Crew managed less than 12k for their weekend tilt at Crew Stadium.  FC Dallas managed more than 14k for their second match of the week at home.  The Pacific NW raised the average on Sunday, with more than 20k at Jeld-Wen for the home team’s 3-0 drubbing of Chivas USA.

In NWSL action, the Western New York Flash, played before 2700 at Sahlen Stadium.  In New Jersey, Sky Blue drew less than 1500 for their home match, while more than 4k were in Maryland for a DC/Boston match.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Galaxy are cross promoting, with the Dodgers hosting a Galaxy night at Dodger Stadium and a Dodger night at the Home Depot Center.  LA Galaxy Night at Dodger Stadium is tomorrow. “The Dodgers are offering LA Galaxy fans a ticket package starting at $27 that includes a ticket in the All-You-Can-Eat-Pavilion and access to a pre-game autograph session from 5:40 p.m. to 6:20 p.m. in the right field pavilion with LA Galaxy players scheduled to attend: Colin Clark, Greg Cochrane, Todd Dunivant, Sean Franklin, Rafael Garcia, Bryan Gaul, Chandler Hoffman, Hector Jimenez, Kofi Opare, Brian Rowe, Charlie Rugg, Oscar Sorto, Kenny Walker and Gyasi Zardes as well as Associate Head Coach Dave Sarachan.Fans that purchase tickets by visiting www.dodgers.com/galaxy will be able to get autographs from these players and pose for photos with the 2011 and 2012 MLS Cup Trophies. LA Galaxy players will participate in pregame jersey exchange and the ceremonial first pitch. Galaxy fans can enjoy Dodger favorite concession items including unlimited Dodger dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts and Coca-Cola products all included in the price of their ticket.”  These types of cross promotions are immensely valuable, as they put the Galaxy name before a new sports audience.

Footiebusiness.com: What type of marketing efforts does the team make to attract soccer fans in the Dallas who follow the sport (in Europe, Latin America, etc…) but not the team? 

Kelly Weller:  This has been our target audience for the past three years. We are actively pursuing  the soccer-connected fans in Dallas, who have not yet converted to MLS/FCD . It’s something we’ve been very strategic about, approaching them where they live, play, work and consume their soccer. In media, that has meant targeting soccer fans during televised soccer matches, through digital and social media, soccer websites, fan blogger sites, etc… Where we can’t go specifically to soccer, we at least target large sports audiences through things such as ESPN Radio and DallasNews.com/SportsDay coverage. The second aspect has been a large grass roots effort through pubs, adult soccer leagues, indoor/outdoor venues; adult soccer tournaments, college campuses and apartment complexes.

KW: We know from research that soccer fans are a unique audience with less overlap of attending other professional sports than most of the other major leagues in this country.  There are enough soccer fans in Dallas for us to be successful regardless of the competitive sports landscape.

KW: It was a great group effort.  AdvoCare was an existing partner with FC Dallas so they were already familiar with the club and already saw the value in our relationship.  The jersey deal was all about timing. It had to be right for their business and ours.  We launched the jersey deal at our game versus the Galaxy last year in front of a sold out crowd on National TV and haven’t stopped since.  We participate in their success school, and they participate in several initiatives of ours.  Their distributor base has grown to 300,000 since the beginning of our partnership.   Being that this is our first full season and that the jerseys are now on sale to the public, we’ll be doing quite a bit more. 

 KW: Yes, it’s one of the top priorities for our enterprise to find a new partner for our stadium and complex.  With more than 1.8 million visitors each year and more than 350 days of usage on the complex, the naming rights are a tremendous value for any partner.

On to attendance, where the week started with a Wednesday night match featuring New England and Portland.  The match was yet another sellout for the Timbers who continue to pack Jeld-Wen Field with fans and atmosphere.  On Saturday, Star Wars night drew more than 18k at PPL Park in Philadelphia for a match that was entertaining and full of goals.   Columbus drew a national television audience on NBCSN, a marquee opponent in the New York Red Bulls, but only 12k fans came to Crew Stadium on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in May.

San Jose came up just short of a sellout with just over 10k in attendance.  While the crowd was just short of capacity, the team doesn’t have many seats to sell and any crowd short of a full house a disappointment.  The   low numbers continued with less than 13k at DSG for the Rapids’ victory over visiting Toronto.  Even RSL continues to struggle at the gate with less than 18k at Rio Tinto on Saturday night.  On Sunday, just short of 19k were at Sporting Park to see the home team beat Chivas USA 4-0.

In the NWSL, more than 2,500 fans came to Starfire to watch the Seattle Reign fall to Kansas City.  Portland won for the third straight time, with more than 5,000 fans in Maryland to see the Alex Morgan led Thorns continue their hot start.  In Sommerville, MA, the Breakers defeated Chicago before more than 3,000 fans who got to see the league’s first hat trick during the 4-1 win.  Finally, Sahlen Stadium in Western New York saw just under 3k for the Flash’s victory of Sky Blue.

We’ll start with ESPN FC, which provides a great look at the efforts of America’s professional soccer referees to unionize.  Jeff Carlisle’s piece provides an outstanding in depth look at a topic that generates little attention. The centerpieces of the article are the interviews with officers of the Professional Referee Organization and Professional Soccer Referees Association.  Perhaps the most interesting business quote discusses the finances   But as in most unions, it’s not about what the members of at the top end of the scale are getting, but those closer to the bottom. Both Taylor and Walton confirmed that while the center referees are the ones with contracts, the assistant referees and fourth officials are paid on a game-by-game basis. Walton stated that this approach is how it’s done in every other league in the world. But Taylor admitted that getting the assistant referees at least on part-time contracts is something the PSRA will work towards.”

The Portland Timbers’ outstanding effort in conjunction with the Make-A-Wish foundation drew coverage from across the media spectrum, including SportsCenter, mainstream newspapers and more.  Sites as varied as CNNSi, Oregon Live, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Huffington Post provided coverage of the event.  This is a great story and one that has properly been celebrated across main stream and sports media.

Finally, even the Hollywood Reporter felt compelled to report on the outstanding ratings generated by the Champion’s League’s semi-finals.