From what I've read it's a three-pronged deal: Inter Miami jerseys and stadium, plus Becks personally. He's apparently good pals with most of the Qatari Royal Family, so it only makes sense that they'd bring him on the payroll at some point as a brand ambassador.
All good. I think most people here like the league (i.e., group of teams) itself, but the rules and management leave a lot to be desired, for sure. And the people that don't like, I'll say the quality of the league, they're Eurosnob crybabies that just like to hate. The league has come so far it's incredible, and all this Qatari and Emirati money will just keep fueling it's growth LOL.
Even if it's $10 million a year for both jersey and stadium sponsorships (which is double Cicny's jersey alone, which I though was really good at $5 million) for 10 years, that's $200 million. That still leaves $35 million on the table, presumably for Beckham. Of course, it looks a lot better to wrap this up in an "MLS deal" than just a personal check from the Qatari royal family to Beckham personally. This sort of 'creative accounting' is what got Man City in trouble, so MLS should either make sure this deal is legit, or cover it up like their lives depend on it lol. Well, I guess FFP isn't really a thing here, so it doesn't matter, the cover up I mean.
I'd suspect, regardless of what the numbers on paper say, most of the money is about Beckham. Now if Qatar really rated MLS, they would probably have joined Beckham's ownership group and bought the MLS TV contract for BeInSport.
According to the Athletic article, they tried to buy a stake in Inter Miami back in 2016, but were shut out by the other MLS owners.
I've also read that Qatar tried to do some F1 stuff with the Miami Dolphins owner a few years back, so obviously they want to invest in the city of Miami it seems. This probably has a part to play as well (similar to the Haslam's investing in the Crew as part of a giant real estate deal in downtown Columbus, just saying).
Well, they did sign a deal to put national broadcast games on UniMas, which also isn't widely available.
One game a week, and they only pick games from about 5 teams (LA, LAFC, SJ, Houston, Dallas). Bit different, since that channel is available to the demographic they are seeking.
Not sure how much I buy of that, since they let City Football Group (Sports holding company for Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi royal family) into the fold. Did they not disguise their holding company enough from public scrutiny? Should they have called it St. Germain Sports Investments rather than Qatar Sports Investments? My memory on what was going on with Miami back in 2016 was more about potential investors expressing interest in joining Beckham's group but then dropping out because Becks and friends couldn't seem to get their stadium deal nailed down, creating a cloud over whether he would actually ever field a team in Miami.
But not in every market. So if you're in a market that doesn't have UniMas over the air and your team is playing on the road in one of the markets MLS likes to showcase on UniMas, do you still get the game on your team's local deal? Not that it matters for Crew fans since we don't get nationally televised games as a rule of thumb. However, I've tried to get UniMas on my TV with an antenna specifically to watch MLS national broadcasts. Although there is an OTA channel that carries it on one of their secondary digital channels, the signal was so bad that it kept tiling and freezing, making it unwatchable.
Not sure about the availability. I used to watch it when I lived in Vegas. Plenty of soccer and telenovellas. Telenovellas are known for their tremendous, um, acting.
I assume this is directed to the speculation there might be consequences for a player? There are plenty of white rap and hip hop fans. If the player who played the song with the n word in the chorus is black, end of story. If the player is white and American, Jans might reasonably feel he's being scapegoated. There's not a lot of difference between singing along to a song with offensive lyrics and playing the song in the first place.
As far as Unimas goes, don’t forgot those games are also streamed in English on Twitter as a simulcast. I’ve watched them many times.
Hey, on the bright side, this might get people talking about something other than their coach: New on #FCCincy: Darren Mattocks is facing felony charges in Pennsylvania: https://t.co/gwweA4cMcn via @Enquirer— Pat Brennan (@PBrennanENQ) February 16, 2020
It will be interesting to see if they can maintain the crowds with all the controversy and the inevitable losing.