World Soccer XXX: We Have Men Too!

[ticapnews]

Confirmed by Messi himself.

It’s happening.

Ticket prices are already going through the roof.

Gonna be fun to watch ESPN try to downplay this. Doubly so if Messi and Beckham are courtside at the NBA Finals.

ESPN FC talked about it for 45 minutes yesterday. I don't think they're downplaying it. Why would they care? They don't have the broadcast rights to Ligue 1 and they don't give a crap about the Saudi League. Going back to Barca would provide an insignificant boost to the La Liga ratings. This also keeps him out of EUFA, which is entirely a Paramount property.

If you want season tickets you have to pay $2400 just to be put on the waiting list. The fee is nonrefundable and you aren't guaranteed tickets.

ETA: If you want to argue an anti-MLS bias, Ale Moreno used to play in MLS and Stevie Nicol was an MLS manager, so...

[cF[Authentic]]

Dortmund has an official resale through their site and tacks on an additional 15% to the original cost. For the final game vs Mainz, they were able to get all tickets on secondary sites removed within a week of the game.

[Russell Jaslow]

I’ve started to just wait until I get to the event to get tickets from the box office. Obviously this doesn’t work for some things, but the last couple times I’ve tried using Ticketmaster the fees were insane. 50% of the original price, meanwhile going to the box office was just a three dollar processing fee per ticket and then the tickets ended up being mobile and accessible Ticketmaster link anyway, so they wanted 12 bucks just to buy off their website.

The Buffalo Sabres box office charges nothing in fees when bought in person. And they give that same Ticketmaster type link.

I'm pretty sure the same with Yankee Stadium, as I'm trying to remember when I did that last year.

[Jimjamesak]

ESPN FC talked about it for 45 minutes yesterday. I don't think they're downplaying it. Why would they care? They don't have the broadcast rights to Ligue 1 and they don't give a crap about the Saudi League. Going back to Barca would provide an insignificant boost to the La Liga ratings. This also keeps him out of EUFA, which is entirely a Paramount property.

If you want season tickets you have to pay $2400 just to be put on the waiting list. The fee is nonrefundable and you aren't guaranteed tickets.

ETA: If you want to argue an anti-MLS bias, Ale Moreno used to play in MLS and Stevie Nicol was an MLS manager, so...

It wasn’t so much a comment that “ESPN hates MLS”, it was more of a comment on “ESPN will bury anything that isn’t the NFL, NBA, NCAA Football and sometimes MLB.” True to that belief, any Messi coverage was near nonexistent on SportsCenter last night. Heck, SC was burying Stanley Cup playoff postgame coverage in favor of NBA playoff games they weren’t even broadcasting.

[ticapnews]

It wasn’t so much a comment that “ESPN hates MLS”, it was more of a comment on “ESPN will bury anything that isn’t the NFL, NBA, NCAA Football and sometimes MLB.” True to that belief, any Messi coverage was near nonexistent on SportsCenter last night. Heck, SC was burying Stanley Cup playoff postgame coverage in favor of NBA playoff games they weren’t even broadcasting.

Ah. I can't speak to that as I don't have cable so can't watch ESPN regular. I get ESPN+ for college hockey, and because I already have Disney+ and Hulu so it makes sense to get the bundle. I can't stand the talk shows that dominate ESPN.

[Jimjamesak]

Ah. I can't speak to that as I don't have cable so can't watch ESPN regular. I get ESPN+ for college hockey, and because I already have Disney+ and Hulu so it makes sense to get the bundle. I can't stand the talk shows that dominate ESPN.

I generally don't tune into SportsCenter but I was watching the Softball World Series in the background and left it for SportsCenter afterwards to see if there was any talk.

[ticapnews]

Per ESPN, Messi and Neymar are both on the VIP list for the NBA Finals game in Miami tonight. Even Heat fans are saying this is a bigger signing for the city than when LeBron took his talents to South Beach.

Already seeing speculation that the MLS will supplant the NHL as a sports league. I'm old enough to remember when that was going to happen after the 1994 World Cup, and when David Beckham came to MLS and....

[RaceBoarder]

Per ESPN, Messi and Neymar are both on the VIP list for the NBA Finals game in Miami tonight. Even Heat fans are saying this is a bigger signing for the city than when LeBron took his talents to South Beach.

Already seeing speculation that the MLS will supplant the NHL as a sports league. I'm old enough to remember when that was going to happen after the 1994 World Cup, and when David Beckham came to MLS and....

It's not gonna happen...

The big 4 are "Americanized" for lack of a better term...

Soccer does it's own thing in many ways and doesn't conform to what we expect as fans (Fall-Spring season, little, if any advanced scheduling of games (National Team), knowingly a 3rd tier league in the world)

And soccer fans get ****ed when Americans don't accept these as "How things Work".

[Jimjamesak]

I think MLS is going to stay behind the NHL for a while though I think the Messi signing will narrow the gap. The two things that will keep MLS behind are a) the NHL's massive playoff ratings and b) the massive amount of money the NHL makes in Canada.

The other big challenge for MLS is the fact that it has little foothold in the Northeast. There's a lot of success out West and somewhat in the South but if you look at the teams in the Northeast there's a bit of struggle. NYCFC does ok and I think they'll be on another level when their new stadium opens but they're still playing at Yankee Stadium and that sucks. The Red Bulls are doing *ing terrible and it's not helping that Red Bull has basically given up on them outside of the youth academy. Philly is ok but their stadium location sucks and makes them into outsiders to a lot of people in Philly. New England has always been competitive but being out in Foxboro means they're nearly irrelevant attention wise. Couple all of this with Chicago absolutely struggling (though their new ownership is trying to turn things around) and a lack of presence in Detroit and it's no surprise that the league was struggling with TV ratings and media attention.

I do think this Messi signing and the new stadium opening in NYC will help MLS close the gap though.

[SonofSouthie]

The Leeds United 49ers.

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/l...eover-27065231

[SonofSouthie]

City and Inter in a good one, 0-0 at the half. Manchester lost De Bruyne to injury. It wouldn't surprise me if Milan(+550)beat them.

[ticapnews]

Sweet goal for Rodri. 1-0 City in the 68th minute. That view from behind shows how miniscule his opening was.

[ticapnews]

Manchester Treble.

[Jimjamesak]

Manchester Treble.

Which just goes to show, that with a bit of gumption, hard work, and a few billion dollars of investment from your Middle East sugar daddy your club can also win a treble.

[ticapnews]

Which just goes to show, that with a bit of gumption, hard work, and a few billion dollars of investment from your Middle East sugar daddy your club can also win a treble.

The rest of UEFA could be competitive if they stopped eating avocado toast and watching Netflix.