No. No. No. Jesus, these people are among the worst I've ever seen at this. This is the worst league I have ever seen. It's like the Austin Posse was every team in the league and the league office.
$6.4M over five years = $1.28M a year $1.28M a year for 32 franchises = $40,000 per franchise Sounds like they're going to give each franchise $40,000 worth of rubber bands a year. Jesus. Stop these people.
All this left me a little curious as to what the product is and what the patent documents say about it, so I took about 20 minutes to look up the company and any patents it actually holds. (Purely my own personal interest -- in part because I'm registered as a patent attorney, though not actually practicing patent law right now.) It's all a little bizarre, actually. There are some things that one would normally associate with a legit international brand. Iker Casillas is listed as a "brand ambassador," and there was this press release from the National Federation of State High School Associations last December: https://www.nfhs.org/articles/nfhs-announces-soccer-innovator-sockatyes-as-corporate-partner/ And yet... Neither Sockatyes nor its founder, Russell Pointon, hold any US patents at all. A UK-based company called Sockatyes Limited holds patents in a number of European countries as well as Canada and China for a product invented in 2001 and described as a "display device", but the following US patent application was filed in 2002, was eventually rejected, and was suddenly abandoned in the middle of an appeal in 2007: https://www.google.com/patents/US20040255498 Interestingly, it appears that many of the countries that granted the patent subsequently canceled it due to either non-payment of fees or failure to provide a translation of the description in their official language -- including the UK (where the company is or was based) and Spain (where the fact Casillas signed on suggests the company was at least trying to market there). I'm not sure whether non-payment was intentional -- in many European countries fees must be paid annually, so I suppose a business might make a calculated decision to cease paying -- but the fact that the Turkish patent lapsed due to nonpayment, was revived, and then lapsed again two years later seems like a hallmark of a fly-by-night operation. So this all seems a little bush-league to me. Evidently Mr. Pointon later developed a new version using an elastic material, and a Hong Kong based company called Sockatyes Holding Limited filed the following patent application in a long list of countries in 2015: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2016055881 Apparently this is an external strap with some (but limited) elasticity, designed to be able to hold some form of advertising material. I can't find any country where this patent has been issued, though I certainly wouldn't expect one to be issued anywhere in the world less than two years after filing. But it would seem misleading to describe either this product or the earlier one as "patented" in the US -- the earlier US patent application was abandoned, and the present one is still pending (so "patent pending" is the language normally used). And the product that Sockatyes is trying to patent now clearly contains elastic material.
And yes, $40,000 per year is still a whole lot of little elastic straps that go around the top of a sock.
Oh, one more interesting note: Sockatyes announced via Twitter on November 20, 2016 that they had acquired Benidorm CD (see earlier posts in this thread). On November 22, a press release appeared on their website in which they announced having "invested" in Benidorm CD, and further announcing that Russell Pointon had been named in the dual role of technical director and marketing director for the club. The press release on the Sockatyes website has since been deleted, but remains viewable via Google cache, at least for now.
Ha. It started with a quick look into the patents, and then the whole thing started to look a bit funny. And then I was just fascinated by how much this guy seemed to have in common with Matt Driver.
mls is so boring and reason why is because there is no urgency in anything. i am watching nyfc and phila there is no urgency in anything no relegation or first place urgency just plain boring
There was no first-place urgency in this game, even though the winning team boosted itself into first place? I don't follow your reasoning. But Kenn is right. Why are you posting about MLS in this thread (and why am I'm replying)?
and the game sealing goal was scored by the best player in the league on a fantastic 50 yard chip shot
The official reasoning will be due to the goal scorer having much experience in high pressure games that he doesn't know how to turn it off while the keeper wasn't even paying attention due to the recreational mentality of MLS. That is a complete save in a pro/rel game.
Philadelphia Fury @PhillyFuryASL Apr 16 Learn more about the growth of the ASL this Wed at Total Turf in Pitman, NJ from 9:00-11:00. Enjoy breakfast & a meet and greet with players
This story says that professional soccer took its first steps in the United States in 1967. The original American Soccer League of 1921-31 was very definitely a professional league (just ask the Scottish and Austrian first-division teams who it poached players from). There also were two very short-lived attempts at starting pro leagues in 1895.
yeah probably not worth the effort...the thread police will definitely tell us when we have made a mistake