By DAN KARELL
Major League Soccer is bringing a little bit of the World Cup to North America
Starting next March, MLS will be using the official 2014 FIFA World Cup ball, the Brazuca, as their official game ball for the 2014 season. According to MLSSoccer.com, MLS will become the first league in the world to use the Brazuca in an official match.
The ball’s colors are supposed to represent a heart, as “the ball is the heart of the soccer and MLS.”
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What do you think of this news? Like the design? Happy to see the league using the Brazuca?
Share your thoughts below.
I think NBA and NHL are much better competition to face than college football. For comparison, the Alabama-Auburn game, which involves two teams from a state without a market as big as Salt Lake City or Kansas City, drew a 8.6/18 share whereas most of the May NBA Playoff games usually only draw a 4-6 share. I’d also argue that NBA and NHL, while more popular than MLS, are both much more niche sports with fans largely but not entirely concentrated in urban markets (the NBA) and the Midwest (NHL). With tv ratings continuing to decline year over year, MLS is going to have to do something drastic.
I haven’t seen it posted anywhere else but a college football blog, in reporting the ratings of college football games on Saturday, reported that the MLS Cup final (the cup is the trophy, the game is a final in my book) only drew a .5/1.0 rating. If so, that is even less than the .7 the game drew last year which was considered awful. I think MLS is going to have to make some drastic changes to become a legitimate television property.
Having a winter final puts in opposition to both college football and the NFL. Having a spring final would probably put you up against the NBA and NHL playoffs. Also, American fans are spoiled with some of the best leagues in the world for their respective sports: the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball. Thus, a casual fan would choose the EPL, Champions League, or some other European league, and then the World Cup and Euros when they come around, to the inferior overall product which is MLS.
MLSzuca
It’s a ball. Woo.
Why won’t you stop….kicking my heart around … for the last time…stop kicking my heart around
– The Black Crowes
This ball can’t possibly be as disastrous as the Jabulnai monstrocity, right?
Between the Jabulani balloon and the vuvuzelas, the South Africa World Cup was the worst WC I’ve seen in my life (have been watching since 1986).
Here’s to hoping…
Source tells me the red colours are apart of an MLS rebrand taking place.. new logo – similar but new colour scheme.
Interesting. MLS should rebrand their schedule. The timing of MLs regular season and playoff games were ridiculous at times this year
When is MLS going to allow different sponsors to sponsor different teams like la liga or the EPL. It’s so dumb that adidas sponsors MLS. NIKE should sponsor the WC honestly ever since the beginning of time adidas’s ball has caused issues. 70% of the world plays with nike balls and you never hear of issues. EX: EPL
Any time a ball is introduced for one specific event it will cause “issues”. It’s just that the players don’t have time to get fully comfortable with it like they do in their leagues, using a certain ball week in and week out.
That heart is going to get kicked around.
Nice!
“The ball’s colors are supposed to represent a heart, as ‘the ball is the heart of the soccer and MLS.”
Well that’s… nice.
So if this is a dismebodied heart, does that make Sepp Blatter Davie Jones?
Looks like a thong
That kind of a Brazilian thing right? 😉
looks like 2002 wc ball. ONLY that ball was nice.
I like thongs
I think it will give the MLS players on the USMNT and the US Team itself a bit of an advantage. Although the physics for all soccer balls are the same, different makes of balls roll, bounce an travel through the air differently. In the case of the “Bazooka”, it has some characteristics that are bit different from preceding WC balls and those used by leagues who do not have Adidas as a equipment sponsor. At lest the MLS USMNT players will have 6 months to get used to it’s characteristics.
+1 … while most of us wouldn’t be able to notice much difference from one soocerball to another, guys at that level can very often describe in great detail several technical differences. Using a ball in live league games that’s exactly like the WC ball (except for the color pattern) will, at a bare minimum, give them a bit more in confidence in believing the ball will do what they’re expecting.
I don’t really care for it, but I’m glad our boys will be using it before the world cup.
Well, it’s ALMOST as nice as the world cup ball. Sharp.