While most of Texas was focused on national signing day for college football, another sport made big news in Austin, the largest U.S. city without a top-level professional sports team. The city of Austin and Precourt Sports Ventures announced a landmark $225 million Austin FC stadium deal on Wednesday morning.
In a case of voters once again getting it all wrong, Lionel Messi finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or voting earlier this week. But Messi won another award this week that might actually be more valuable than a record sixth trophy for being the world’s best player.
On Thursday, The YouTube Ad of the Year Awards (yeah, that’s a thing), honored Messi’s Gatorade commercial “Heart of a Lio” as the best ad of the year.
This is the best. This is just the best. After a year dictated by the scummy musings of Anthony Precourt and the Columbus Crew moving to Austin, we finally saw the fruits of the #SaveTheCrew movement and the long-term vision of soon-to-be owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam (the owners of the Cleveland Browns) today. The Crew buyers are pledging an investment of $645 million in the club, a gobsmacking total which includes the cost of a $230 million stadium in Columbus’ downtown Arena District.
While MLS has grown leaps and bounds over the past two decades, that doesn't correlate to each of the respective clubs. In 1998 the Chicago Fire were an expansion side that won the MLS Cup and the U.S. Open Cup. The club captured another three Open Cups and the 2003 Supporters' Shield. A solid first decade of action in the Windy City was headlined by the construction of a new 20,000-seat, soccer-specific stadium.
Just in time for the Major League Soccer playoffs to take a two-week break, Forbes released its list of most valuable MLS teams on Wednesday, and there’s a new team at the top.
The LA Galaxy and Seattle Sounders were No. 1 and No. 2 in Forbes’ ranking of most valuable MLS teams in 2017. This season, one of the new kids on the block bumped them from their perch.
While Real Madrid is in sporting CRISIS (the club’s top of its Champions League group, essentially through to the Copa del Rey Round of 16 and only three points behind second-place Sevilla in LaLiga, boohoo), the side from the Spanish capital can at least celebrate a financial achievement which comes close to matching the one Barcelona achieved in 2016: According to MARCA, Real and Adidas have reached a 10-year, $1.26 billion jersey sponsorship agreement, meaning the
In early 2018 ESPN announced its new streaming service, ESPN+, which would supplement ESPN networks and begin taking over much of the ESPN3 content. Many people dismissed the idea of buying access to content not deemed worthy of the main cable channels. However, from day one, ESPN+ seemed like a great option for U.S. soccer fans. Since then, it's only increased its value.
Real Madrid won its third straight Champions League in 2018. For once, Los Blancos also topped the charts in Champions League revenue.
UEFA released the 2017-18 Champions League revenue (and Europa League, if anyone cares) on Thursday. For the first time during Real Madrid’s impressive back-to-back-to-back UCL championships, the club also won the most prize money.
UEFA doled out $1.605 billion in Champions League revenue, an increase over the $1.5 billion it gave out in 2016-17. Real Madrid took home $100.8 million of it.
As reported by The Guardian’s David Conn, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has submitted a proposal for a revamped Club World Cup that would, like the Champions League, feature multiple Premier League and top European sides annually. According to the article, there will be two proposals considered by the FIFA Council during a meeting on Wednesday in Rwanda, and UEFA is none too enthralled by the second one:
It appears the SaveTheCrew campaign has been successful.
We ALL did this. Together.#SaveTheCrew #SavedTheCrew pic.twitter.com/JB0VoIkboT
— Save The Crew (@Save_The_Crew) October 12, 2018