Digby

There are a lot of nice, small-brand kits in the USL Championship, e.g. Hummel and Hartford, Charly and San Diego, whomever makes those wacky Las Vegas kits. But I can't speak to how well they work as suppliers in getting merch sold compared with a big, leaguewide Adidas contract. Of course lots of MLS teams seem to run out of fan replica jerseys halfway through the season and never restock, too, and the overall MLS merch game is pretty weak IMHO outside of the top clubs anyway.

People love to bag on Kellyn Acosta but he was the best midfielder on the night and was making those chances happen. Too bad Pulisic and Pefok both came in on form but couldn't do anything with that. That lovely Reyna run was a less clear chance, but what an effort by him to make it happen. Also worried about some of those defensive lapses; the US were lucky that this Mexico squad is so pedestrian.

Am I the only one who thinks MLS plays it loose with keepers wearing clashing kits? Mint green with light blue, black with the very dark purple, orange with pink? Kinda pushing it IMO! Consequence of this most boring era of keeper kits. (I believe Adidas has this one in gray, yellow and red as well, curious to see if all colorways end up in MLS too.)

My usual connect for Celtics tickets has jacked prices up 4x in the past 4 weeks or so. Talk about inflation!

i don’t disagree but also get big “wear the new secondary kit at home for half the games” vibes from Austin. I’m sure they don’t much mind.

Cold slap of reality that MLS TV numbers are still horrendous and they won't be getting the TV rights payday they hoped for next year. Welp! https://theathletic.com/3194631/2022/03/18/mls-media-rights-deal-not-likely-to-be-a-game-changer-sources-say/

Why do we need a special kit just for the Challenge Cup thing if both of their kits are stock teamwear? Are they even selling?

O's could stand to give the ballpark a new wordmark, though. The italicized at kills me every time.

You didn't ask me, but I'm a third-base/left-field guy through and through. If you don't mind the charm of grandstand, a.k.a. the narrow, wooden seats that may have a pole away and 15 people to climb over to exit your row, sections 28-30 are perfect. Loge 157-160 are the same view but in the lower, plastic, non-pole seats (also more money and no roof). Or if you like the wide-angle view of Boston and don't mind heights, the left-field pavilion and the Coca-Cola Deck (I think it's called?) are that side's seats but on the 2nd level and they're great, with the added benefit of being fewer in rows so the concourse is always nice and uncrowded. The right-field side doesn't have that "jog" back in toward the field, the way left-field and modern ballparks all do, so many of those sections just look directly at the setting sun and the scoreboard. Only exception there is the tables in the Sam Adams Roof Deck bar, which are pretty cool but expensive and hard to get. The bleachers are too far away for my taste but I'd go if I got a $10 ticket and stood at that new bar in the back maybe. Green Monster seats are cool but usually not worth the premium, plus those get a brutal cold wind early and late in the season.

Those "all MLS quarterfinal...?" thoughts totally jinxed it. Serves the dorks who root for MLS as an entity right. Epic choke by the Revolution, blowing a 3-0 first leg lead. Should've expected this from a Bruce Arena/Omar Gonzalez/Jozy Altidore triumverate on foreign soil with high expectations. I'll never doubt Bruce Arena's resume but his Achilles heel, for many years now, has been a supremely overconfident refusal to adapt to circumstances. (Like for instance losing your first-choice centerbacks and goalkeeper for an away match in Mexico???)

The DH rule is one thing, but the schedule change to just play all the teams is too much. Kills novelty, kills rivalries, and who wants even more bicoastal games with bad start times? Gross! Feels like they just want to push the Yankees/Cubs/Red Sox into more road markets wherever possible. Can't imagine it could even work as a purely balanced schedule with this many teams, but maybe: 12 games against your division 6 games against your league (non-division) 3 games against other league (12 * 4) + (6 * 10) + (3 * 15) = 153, so that plus a few scattered 4-game series in there to round out the schedule. And alternating home/away on the interleague series. Keeping a division bias in the schedule but dialing it back a touch is a good idea for me, just not with ALL the interleague play.

I think it's that and also not having to worry about losing your top players for summer international tournaments. But we're back to the same story as this question with MLS, which is selling tickets in a lot of populous markets from December to March.

USL's new women's league is going to go to a fall-to-spring schedule. https://www.uslsoccer.com/news_article/show/1215235 Feel like the USL men's leagues might be next? As long as you don't mind being a primarily southern concern, that's fine, I guess.

The Philly complex model is a bit of a mixed bag, it's still on a subway line at least but also has parking for all the suburbanites and tailgaters, and there's never a question of land when it's time to build a new stadium. I'm surprised they haven't built out more of an outdoor mall thing there, just that utterly bizarre "Xfinity Live" complex. But in a city like Philadelphia it does feel weird to be so apart from the city itself.

That, and also those seats were so far away that it's probably better value to have fewer butts there but easier access to $13 Bud Lights or whatever. I'd never want to sit up there but I could be convinced to stand up there with a beer maybe if I got a standing-room ticket. And yeah, the music venue construction I'm sure made this free. I will give FSG credit that basically all of the Fenway renovations have looked like they were there all along (although they've overdone it on video screens). Pretty much, yes. It helps at least in Boston that the park is centrally located and such an institution, which is why they'll always get away with it in a way that, say, the Revolution will not. If that just means the diehards are steadily replaced with casuals, I'm not sure ownership cares too much. Again, at least for the Red Sox, they'll try to win every now and then that they can keep up the kayfabe. I'm not sure that will work in all the other markets, though.

Well, I just saw that Fenway Park is adding another bar and drink rail section atop the bleachers for this season, so I'll go back to baseball's future being the most unique and expensive after-work bar in town.

That's sincerely hilarious. As it easy as it is to despise City Football Group for franchise-colonization of the world's leagues as sportswashing, it's even better that their "partners" in the Yankees seem to be trying their best to sabotage the entire operation. It's almost slapstick. CFG's just gotta buy them out when they finally have a stadium, right?

I just remembered Fox wanted to make Gus their soccer voice for the last World Cup but it prompted global protests.

Would’ve been a nice night for red shorts for RSL. Though, unlike the CCL game midweek with Pumas in town, this much snow wasn’t forecasted for today. Still sucks, gotta be hard when your own teammates are camouflaged.

Didn't we fight a war to avoid that nonsense (and brand multiple MLS clubs after the imagery of said war)?

Yeah, I know people who aren't into sports and pay like $20 a month for Philo and call it good. I will say that using Hulu with the live TV package plus Internet is still cheaper than the classic cable bundle, mostly because the price is the price. Not getting 15% in taxes and fees added onto the advertised price. But we'll see how long that lasts and how many more services I have to get. ESPN+ is included with Hulu and Peacock is the included with Xfinity internet, so I guess I'm getting lucky with getting these as extras.

I went to the game -- stood in the supporters section so as to let surrounding body heat keep me warm. (Tickets were going for $10 on the broker sites.) Fun to see a game in the snow, more fun to see the Revolution totally dominate over Liga MX opposition.

Beyond the obvious complaints about needing seven different streaming services -- this seems somewhat at odds with the business model of team-owned RSNs, doesn't it? I guess not everyone has their own RSN so maybe it's a wash for them.

Last year, the artists formerly known as Montreal Impact just had the BMO circle logo extra large on the front of their home shirts, right? This year, same shirt but the usual logo treatment as seen on all the other Montreal/Toronto shirts.

I didn't realize the Thorns ditched green and the monochrome crest is their primary look. I do like the idea of having some green in there as an alt look, like reverse Timbers.