MLS wins "League of the Year" from Sports Business Awards

[Marty's Better]

MLS seems to be riding a wave of momentum unprecedented in the league's history.

At last night's Sports Business Awards, MLS took home best sports league and AEG CEO Tim Leiweke took home sports executive of the year. Also, in a section that dedicates itself to the winners/losers of the week, Seattle Sounders FC and Microsoft are the winners.


See below from today's Sports Business Daily:

The Envelope Please: Inaugural Sports Business Awards Given Out

Eleven awards were presented last night in a ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in N.Y. for the inaugural Sports Business Awards presented by SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. Winners included AEG President & CEO Tim Leiweke for Sports Executive of the Year, MLS for Pro League, the Red Sox for Pro Team, Octagon for Sports Agency and Fox Sports for Sports Media. See below for the full list of winners.

The winners' reactions ranged from pride to humble gratitude, with an "our-work-is-not-done" theme prevalent throughout the night. Leiweke said, “This is really kind of embarrassing for us. We try not to get focused on awards. It’s a great tribute to AEG, but we firmly believe our best days are still ahead of us.” MLS Commissioner Don Garber: “This is a great statement about dedicated ownership, passionate fans, sponsors that believe in a sport and broadcasters that are willing to take a risk.”

This Week's Newsmakers: MLS Sounders, Microsoft Make Some Noise

THE DAILY each Friday offers our take on the performances over the past week of people and entities in sports business. Here are this week’s newsmakers.
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Content/Image/05-30-2008/Sounders-Jersey.jpg
Sounders Land Microsoft As Jersey Sponsor

WIN: MLS SOUNDERS FC -- In a city with franchises that boast stars like ICHIRO, MATT HASSELBECK and KEVIN DURANT (at least for now), it is the club with only one player under contract that successfully attracts the sponsorship dollars of Microsoft. The software uber-giant agrees to a five-year deal worth a reported $20M to advertise its Xbox 360 on the Sounders' jerseys, instantly giving the club the second-most lucrative shirt sponsorship in MLS. Also, 16,000 fans have already put down deposits on season tickets at Qwest Field. And the team does not even take the pitch for another 10 months.

[USvsIRELAND]

http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20080530&content_id=162104&vkey=pr_mls&fext=.jsp

New York, N.Y. -- Major League Soccer (MLS) was honored as the 2008 Professional Sports League of the Year by the SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. The award was presented live at a special ceremony held Thursday, May 29th at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City.
Major League Soccer was recognized as part of the inaugural Sports Business Awards program, presented by Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, the two leading publications on the business of sports. The Sports Business Awards recognize excellence and outstanding achievement in the sports industry for 2007.

MLS was chosen from five nominees for Professional Sports League of the Year including, in alphabetical order, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, National Basketball Association, National Football League and the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

[SxSxWxC]

That's pretty effing cool. :D

[scheck]

As awesome as it is, you have to think though, The giants like NFL must essentially run themselves. How hard is it to grow something that's already got the biggest national profile?

[holiday]

donnie-soccer is never gonna let you forget this one... :p

[CACuzcatlan]

As awesome as it is, you have to think though, The giants like NFL must essentially run themselves. How hard is it to grow something that's already got the biggest national profile?

Pretty damn hard, but there is a lot of room for growth in the international market. Unfortunately for them, its like going up against a brick wall. NFL Europe failed.

Baseball and NBA are actually doing a good job IMO of reaching international audiences. Particularly China in the NBA's case and east Asia / Latin America with MLB.

[Stan Collins]

Pretty damn hard, but there is a lot of room for growth in the international market. Unfortunately for them, its like going up against a brick wall. NFL Europe failed.

Baseball and NBA are actually doing a good job IMO of reaching international audiences. Particularly China in the NBA's case and east Asia / Latin America with MLB. And the difference is, MLB/NBA did not own the leagues that have developed abroad in the crucial development phase. You have to promote your sport abroad "selflessly" (in the sense that any future profit will be very far in the future, and very speculative) to make that happen. It takes a long time, just as it's taking a long time for soccer to take root here in the US.

[USvsIRELAND]

Can a mod change the title? including the LOTY award.

That's a big deal imo.

[StarvingGator]

That is pretty cool. Although the NBA, MLB and NFL all have had pretty horrible years from a public standpoint. NBA with Tim Donaghy, MLB with the never ending witch hunt of steroids and the unbelievable disaster Clemens life turned out to be, and the NFL with Spygate. Not to mention Pacman and his ilk. Can't say I know how WTA tennis fared :)

[Red Card]

It's the fantastic "Discovery Rule" that makes MLS such a standout league. What other league has such an innovative rule? It's no wonder MLS won this prestigious award.

[monster]

It's the fantastic "Discovery Rule" that makes MLS such a standout league. What other league has such an innovative rule? It's no wonder MLS won this prestigious award.
Congrats, you win the "I DEMAND MY FREE BEER COME IN A FROSTED MUG" award.

:rolleyes:

[noel R]

This award is proof that the people running this league are doing a pretty good job. I own both muntiny and fusion jerseys and remember the days of no good news for an entire season. Now it seems a week doesn't go by without some positive news. It's a good time to be a soccer fan in America but there's still plenty of work to be done.

[MtMike]

If only we had promotion/relegation, we'd win the league of the Century award!!!!

(I'm sorry, couldn't help it :D)

-------------------

In all seriousness when your recognized by the business community like this, you're doing something right.

[AndyMead]

Congrats, you win the "I DEMAND MY FREE BEER COME IN A FROSTED MUG" award.

:rolleyes:

But what about the ponies? Seriously, where are our ponies!!!111

[Stan Collins]

One thought I'd mention here. It was noted in the blog thread on this topic that Lieweke beat out Garber for Exec of the year, and that has a lot to do with how Becks has worked out so far.

But, Street & Smith's, the publisher who put this together, has been on the MLS bandwagon longer than that, basically since SSSs have started popping up.

And it's a token of survival as much as anything. No sports-related enterprise in my lifetime has survived more cyncism than MLS. And I've learned something about critical reviews--call it the Led Zeppelin principle.

You don't defeat your critics by out-arguing them, you defeat the critics by outliving them.

[StarvingGator]

One thought I'd mention here. It was noted in the blog thread on this topic that Lieweke beat out Garber for Exec of the year, and that has a lot to do with how Becks has worked out so far.

But, Street & Smith's, the publisher who put this together, has been on the MLS bandwagon longer than that, basically since SSSs have started popping up.

And it's a token of survival as much as anything. No sports-related enterprise in my lifetime has survived more cyncism than MLS. And I've learned something about critical reviews--call it the Led Zeppelin principle.

You don't defeat your critics by out-arguing them, you defeat the critics by outliving them.


MLS criticism really is a unique situation, isn't it? It's in the crosshairs of both Jim Rome ESPN cretins, and worldwide snickering for whatever reason. That last bit I don't get. What have we done to deserve constant derision from everybody in every other country on the planet (practically)? The worst offenders are the international press, who are disgusting in their inability to maintain a shred of objectivity. The fans are a step behind, and if you've ever gone to a team's forum (not on BS -- the real ones) and looked at what they say when an MLS player is linked to them...it's unbeliveable.

Moron A: "All I know about him is he's American and [insert racial/cultural/regional stereotype here]"
Moron B: "I've seen him. He's utter shite. What the hell are we doing?"
Moron C: "'All I know about him is he's American' 'bout says it all really. We aren't going to challenge for Europe/challenge for the title/survive if we look at rubbish like this."

Repeat ad infinitum.

I mean, do baseball fans take constant cheap shots at the Japanese league? Do hockey fans mock the European leagues whenever a player comes over? It's such a strange situation.