Major League Soccer

The Champions League final also proved to me how hard it will be for the MLS to become anything more than a fringe league in the United States. Unfortunately for MLS, it holds the rare distinction of being an American sports league that competes heavily with foreign leagues for television viewers. During the past year, I've personally watched many more English Premier League and Champions League games than MLS games. Trust me, if ESPN thought people in the United States wouldn't watch the Champions League, they would not be spending millions of dollars to televise the games (at least i think they're spending a lot of money, they might not be because of the traditional advertising difficulties that soccer presents).

The MLS has a two-fold problem: (1) Trying to attract more Americans to the game of soccer; and (2) Trying to attract American fans of European soccer to MLS.
Solutions to Problems:
- The televising of the World Cup, Euro 2008, and the Champions League on ESPN gets more soccer on tv
- Getting more European players to play in MLS during their prime (i.e. younger David Beckhams)
- Successful US national teams (deep run in 2010 World Cup and Beijing Olympics; good performances in international friendlies)

Champions League Final

What a great ending to the second-most important match in world soccer. The heavy rain and the fact that the match stretched into the early morning (Russia time) made it even more dramatic. Until yesterday, I've never had the chance to see a penalty shootout that went past the first ten kicks. John Terry's miss essentially and United's subsequent victory saved Ronaldo from losing his "best player in the world" status. Ronaldo will surely be named FIFA World Player of the Year later this year. However, he really needs to consider getting rid of his pre-kick "hitch."

Utah vs. San Antonio - The NBA's worst nightmare

I'm pretty sure that David Stern and the other big wigs at NBA headquarters were not pleased with today's playoff results. Both the Lakers and the Hornets had a chance to put their series out of reach but failed to do so. If the Lakers and Hornets had won today, the NBA was on the verge of getting their second-most ideal Western Conference Finals matchup (Lakers vs. Suns was probably their first choice) . It would be great for the NBA to get one of its glamor teams (Lakers) against the young, upstart team from the city that's still trying to rebuild after a devastating storm.

Unfortunately, we could be stuck with a team with the most boring superstar in NBA history, the Spurs, and a team from a city with less than 200,000 people and little, if any fanbase outside the state of Utah. If this matchup occurs, good luck finding any sponsors willing to spend the big bucks to advertise during the series.

Is Kyle Busch the "real" Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Dale Earnhardt Sr. earned his nickname "The Intimidator" because of his willingness run over other drivers that wouldn't get out of his way. Kyle Busch has used this same tactic the past few weeks. In Mexico City, radio transmissions indicated that Busch wanted Scott Pruett to "get the f..." out of his way. During a truck race in Martinsville, Busch wrecked a guy that was in front of him with less than five laps to go. Maybe I haven't watched enough races, but I've never seen Dale Earnhardt Jr. use the aggressive driving techniques that his dad and Kyle Busch have used.


I appreciate Kyle's determination to win every race, but sometimes he takes this too far. He's also somewhat of a hypocrite because he loses it every time some other driver hits him from behind.