By Paul Kennedy Monday’s Manchester derby between Manchester City over Manchester United for the English Premier Leaguelead on ESPN set an EPL record for the largest viewing audience ever on U.S. cable television. The game was seen by an average of 1.033 million viewers, based on a 0.8 rating, according to Nielsen. The five […]
Soccer Business Insider
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Barcelona-Chelsea and Kaka break Twitter marks
By Paul Kennedy Barcelona and Real Madrid were knocked out ofthe UEFA Champions League this week, but both clubs had roles in breaking two records in the Twittersphere. Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League game between Barcelona and Chelsea broke thetweets-per-second record for a sporting event, peaking at 13,684 messages per second. The old record: 12,233 tweets […]
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Soccer's billionaire club; peek under the Red Bulls' hood
By Paul Kennedy If you believe that Europe’s big clubs are in for some hard times, you should think again. The average value of the top 20 clubson Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s most valuable soccer clubs increased 20 percent last year. (Click here to listen to Forbes’editors talk about their soccer list.) […]
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Has Mexico's Superclasico lost its allure?
By Paul Kennedy Telemundo’s coverage of the Superclasico — Guadalajara vs. Club America — on Easter Sunday is themost-watched Mexican league game in 2012, but it delivered only 1,876,000 total viewers. Interest in the Chivas-America derby peaked in 2007 when it drew 4,290,000 viewers for Univision’sprime-time coverage of their Torneo Clausura match. For the first […]
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Al-Jazeera shakes up television market
By Paul Kennedy Qatar shook up the soccer world when it beat out the United States and two other nations that previously hosted the World Cupand won the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera, best known as the CNN of the Middle East, has entered the soccer televisionand gobbled up rights to […]
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Soccer channel launches on YouTube
By Paul Kennedy MLS doesn’t yet have its own television network, but it has its own soccer channel on YouTube: KickTV. Soccer United Marketing, Major League Soccer’s commercial arm, Bedrocket Media Ventures and Google are partners inKickTV, which features an unprecedented collection of new and original soccer shows aimed at U.S. viewers. The on-air team […]
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A beer of their own and the power of Twitter
By Paul Kennedy ECS HAS NO EQUAL. How popular are MLS’s Sounders in the Seattle area? Seattle’s Redhook Brewery has designed a new craft beer, the No Equal Amber Lager, named after the original motto of the Sounders’ largest fan group, the Emerald City Supporters, “No Equal.” Sounders fans, many of them beer aficionados, can […]
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Real Madrid lends name to $1 billion resort project
By Paul Kennedy How does the Real Madrid Resort Island sound? That will be the name of the $1 billion theme park to be built on aman-made island in the United Arab Emirates. The resort, located on the northern emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah, will feature a five-star hotel, beachside bungalows, amusement park, oceanside10,000-seat stadium and […]
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Galaxy inks $44 million-plus sponsorship deal
By Paul Kennedy The Los Angeles Galaxy has renewed its sponsorship deal with Herbalife,extending the agreement for 10 years. The agreement is valued at more than $44 million, making it the single largest and longest sponsorship agreement for an MLS club in league history. “Herbalife bet on the Galaxy six years ago and now MLS […]
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NBC's MLS challenge
Welcome to Soccer Business Insider, the weekly Soccer America e-newsletter with all the latest news and analysis on the soccer business front, from television tosocial media, MLS and the national teams to the grassroots. By Paul Kennedy Major League Soccer still has its work cut out toattract television viewers. Jon Miller, who is in charge […]