Hopefully if you’re reading this, you are a member of The Business of Sports LinkedIn group… if not, what are you waiting for? A few days ago, Deandra Duggans (a previous guest blogger and author for www.sportsandalatte.com) shared a great article with the LinkedIn group regarding how the Pac-10 has rebranded their image (“Led by savvy commissioner Larry Scott, Pac-10 rebrands its image”, sportsillustrated.cnn.com). She picked a great topic, because a few of the other group members started a nice conversation about the conference’s efforts. I want to share that conversation with you here in case you missed it.

Dallon Christensen CMA, MBA, CPA/CITP:

Larry Scott is an absolute visionary. His idea of how to create a complete brand image of the Pac-10 is a model for any organization (not just sports organizations) looking to create a clear image in the minds of consumers. I’m sure that the Pac 10 will eventually create their own TV network, so building this integrated brand will do wonders for their image. As a Midwest native and a Big 10 fan, I see a lot of similarities between the two conferences in terms of academic and athletic balance as well as geographic spread. Scott’s efforts to capture an image are important.  I love the new logo. It reminds me a lot of the traditional shield logos I see on European soccer jerseys. It’s very catchy.

AJ Maestas:

The Pac-10 is going to have a tough time replicating the revenue generated by the Big 10 through media rights — even after creating its own network — because the Pac-10’s fan base, in terms of both reach and affinity, can’t quite match the Big 10. Our firm’s research suggests the Pac-10 should eventually get about $14.5 million per school per year, which is obviously short of the Big 10’s $21 million per school per year.

However, if Scott can continue generating buzz for his conference, and if he can keep alive the idea that a 16-team super conference is still a future possibility, he could very well generate a bidding war in upcoming media rights negotiations and drive that number up. There are more interested parties than ever (Fox, Turner, Comcast, etc.) and Scott could use that to his advantage.

We still don’t think the Pac-10 can reach Big 10 revenue numbers, but maybe it can approach the SEC’s $17 million per school per year, which would be remarkable considering where the Pac-10 used to be.

Alan LaFleur:

Pac-10 can certainly get there given enough time. They have markets ranging from LA to Denver and then all the way up to Seattle. That is a lot of population. The problem they will face is that their demographics are not as sport-driven as the Big 10 demographics or even the SEC demos. It will be interesting to see what the PAC-10 can do.

Kathy Deboer:

Scott’s ideas for reaching out to Asia are innovative and his conference is perfectly situated to be a leader in this area. Look at all the IMG investment in sports in Asia in the last couple of years. Obviously some of the folks in the business sector think college sports and global expansion is the next growth marketplace. Asia outreach will also be a major boost for volleyball, which the Pac 10 plays pretty well. The sport is huge in China, Japan, and Korea, in terms of both participation and media interest.

Dallon Christensen CMA, MBA, CPA/CITP:

AJ, what kind of population growth projections did you factor into your analysis? I’m curious because the American population continues to move away from the Midwest and Northeast (Big 10 country) and toward the south and west (SEC, ACC, and Pac 10 country). In fact, there were rumors flying about the Big 10 attempting to lure ACC schools like Georgia Tech and Virginia to move toward the southeast. While I agree the Pac 10 probably will not reach Big 10 or SEC revenue levels in this contract, I think the chances are high they could reach those levels in 10 years because of the population shifts in this country (same holds for the SEC).

Soccer and baseball are also very popular in the Asian countries, and the Pac-10 is extremely strong in those sports as well as volleyball. In fact, Scott’s vision in seeing the Olympic sports as a gateway to the Asian sports market is the most remarkable thing I’ve taken from this story.

This is the type of engaging sports business discussion I love to see on the blog and in the LinkedIn group. There are so many great industry professionals that are a part of the group and willing to share their opinions that all of us can benefit from their knowledge and insight. If you haven’t already, join the group today and join the discussions!

After a hectic couple of weeks, I need to ramp up my writing again. So let’s get it started today with some links and recaps of some interesting sports business stories from the past couple of days.

Brits May Challenge Visa’s 2010 Olympics Exclusivity – Marc Perton, The Consumerist (thanks to @khuda1 for the link)

As one the highest level sponsors of the Olympics, Visa has benefited not only from the traditional sponsorship elements, but also complete exclusivity for any credit card purchases made at the Games. The Office of Fair Trading in Great Britain has some issues with this, as it restricts commerce and hinders open competition in the marketplace. This reminds me a bit of beer and beverage sponsorships here in the United States. In order to not restrict competition, the pouring rights for a particular stadium cannot be directly tied to a sponsorship for that company. This is definitely a story to watch for the 2010 (and future) Olympics. If this aspect of the sponsorship is overturned, does the sponsorship hold the same value to Visa? And would they still be required to pay the full cost of their deal?

How Much Will Hayward Cost the Pacers? – Darren Rovell, CNBC

It was almost the “perfect” scenario for the Indiana Pacers. They were one pick away from being able to take their hometown hero Gordon Hayward in the 2010 NBA Draft, until the Jazz swooped in and selected him. This could have been one of those unique opportunities where a team could have made a draft decision (outside of the top 2-3 picks) that fits the team on the court and would provide an immediate lift to ticket sales off the court. Darren Rovell reminds us of other past situations where some teams have made picks with too much focus on the revenue side (the Charlotte Bobcats picking two UNC players in 2005) and where other teams looked past the short-term revenue lift and stuck to their on-field preferences (Houston Texans passing over Vince Young and the same Pacers selecting Reggie Miller over Steve Alford).

Old Navy co-sponsors Coney Island hot-dog contest – Adrianne Pasquarelli, Crain’s New York

Hot dog eating may not be viewed as a sport, but competitive eating has grown in popularity over the past few years, with more media coverage, attendees, and revenue. The Coney Island competition is the biggest event that Major League Eating runs, and through their partnership with Old Navy, they have created two new revenue streams: the sponsorship itself and jersey sales. That’s right, you can buy an official jersey for a hot-dog eating competition. But don’t laugh – as the article points out, over  1 million people tuned in to watch last year’s event, with another 35,000 people attending it live.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Jude Russo Caserta.

Originally every five years and now every ten each NCAA school must complete a self-study of their athletic department followed by an on-site visit from peer institutions to verify they are in compliance with Title IX. This hugely symbolic exercise is one of the largest time suckers known to mankind or because this author is female I should say womankind to satisfy the first prong, proportionality, of Title IX compliance. Here are the three prongs from www.ncaa.org:

The OCR’s three-part test for Title IX compliance involves the following options for providing participation opportunities:

• Male-female athletics participation that is proportional to the institution’s full-time undergraduate enrollment, or
• A history and continuing practice of expansion of athletics opportunities for the under-represented gender, or
• Accommodating the interests and abilities of the under-represented gender (Hosick, 2010)

In 2005 the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) said you only had to do internet or e-mail surveys to determine if you were accommodating interest of the under-represented gender. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy! The odds of this survey actually determining the interest were slim and the NCAA told its folks – not so fast – step away from prong three. As a result, proportionality remained the most quantitative way to comply.

I am here to say that proportionality has absolutely killed college football. Do you think this was an intended consequence when Congresswoman Patsy Mink wrote the law back in 1972? In my job as athletic business manager and as a former Senior Women’s Administrator I think of Title IX all of the time. When I build or manage budgets and work with the daily micro-transactions which support sport programs I am constantly aware of what goes to men and to women. Our athletic director supports a culture of fiscal integrity which I instill every day. We dropped football in 2002 along with Men’s and Women’s Tennis, Track & Field and Rifle. We picked up Men’s Swimming. This made an immediate impact on proportionality. Dropping sports is painful and challenges tradition.

Still, there are schools that do not apply the three prongs appropriately and do not offer the under-represented gender equal opportunity. Just last week OCR announced it is rescinding its 2005 clarification. For prong three, in addition to surveys there must be “1) unmet interest sufficient to sustain a varsity team in the sport(s) 2) sufficient ability to sustain an intercollegiate team in the sport(s) and 3) reasonable expectation of intercollegiate competition for a team in the sport(s) within the school’s normal competitive region.” (Rights, 2010) If a group of champion skiers wants to start a downhill ski team in Florida they would not be successful because of competitive region. You must fulfill all three things to start a sport.

Perhaps I should openly admit I have my job because of Title IX (actually from the 1995 time-robber self study) when it was determined our school did not actually have fiscal integrity. I was asked to write a job description which would cover all of the concerns of the peer review committee, decide how many hours it would take to complete these tasks and determine how much compensation would be appropriate. In other words, I wrote my own job description, determined my hours and decided my pay…good gig if you can get it!

Unspoken in this are the financial resources needed to sustain a sport. Do you drop a male sport to bring on a female sport? I think the greatest moral dilemma remains the balance between opportunity and what I believe are the unintended consequences of dropping sports.

I sincerely hope there is a day when girls are not aware of Title IX and just get to play.

Jude Russo Caserta is the Athletic Business Manager at Canisius College and helped the MAAC Conference create Agreed-Upon Procedures years before the NCAA. She has a B.S. in Accounting and M.S. in Sport Administration and, as president of Athletic Business Systems, wants to help institutional business offices partner with athletic departments to create a culture of fiscal integrity. You can read more from her at www.AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog, follow her on Twitter as @JudeCaserta, or email her at judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com.

Normally I don’t like to just directly publish press releases that I receive (I’m on several lists now), but this one caught my attention, and I think you will all find it quite interesting. It came from Robert Passikoff, Founder and President of Brand Keys, Inc.

“After years in the #2 spot, Major League Baseball is now tied with the National Football League with the “most loyal fans,” according to the 15th annual 2010 Brand Keys Sports Loyalty Index,® a survey which helps professional sports teams increase broadcast, ticket and merchandise revenues by providing loyalty rankings and fan diagnostics in their home and national markets.

2010 League Rankings

1. NFL/MLB
2. NBA
3. NHL

“The Sports Loyalty Engagement Index gives an apples-to-apples comparison of the intensity with which fans support professional sport leagues and their home team vs. the corresponding values for the fans of other teams in the market,” said Robert Passikoff, president of New York-based Brand Keys, Inc. a leading brand and customer loyalty consultancy.

“These insights allow leagues and teams to identify areas that need strategic reinforcement. Done correctly, an increase in broadcast viewership, merchandise purchase, and ticket revenue will follow, and happier fans. Everybody loves a winner, but it’s important to note that win/loss ratios do not entirely govern fan loyalty,” noted Brand Keys’ Passikoff.

Fan loyalty is driven in four ways:

• Pure Entertainment – How well a team does, but more importantly, how exciting is their play?
• Authenticity – How well they play as a team. New stadia can help on this driver. Oftentimes, so can a new Manager.
• Fan Bonding – Are players respected and admired?
• History and Tradition – Is the game and the team part of a fan’s and a community’s rituals, institutions and beliefs?

The top-5 teams in each league in terms of fan loyalty for 2010:

Top Gainers: Teams with the largest growth in fan loyalty include the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA (both up five positions), the New Orleans Saints (+6) and the Minnesota Vikings (+5) in the NFL, and the Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins in MLB, both up 4 positions. In the National Hockey League no team moved up more than one position, although many moved down as many as 4 rankings. A list of the bottom-5 teams with lowest fan loyalty in each league can be found at www.brandkeys.com/awards/sports.cfm

Methodology:  The Brand Keys Sports Fan Loyalty Index is an outgrowth of Brand Keys’ specialization in measuring customer loyalty that began with work for the National Football League in the mid-90’s. Interviews are conducted by telephone and in-person (to account for cell phone-only fans) includes 150+ local fans for each professional sports team in the four major leagues. Participants self- select a preference for a particular league and then indicate an allegiance to the local team being evaluated. The methodology identifies the four drivers of fan loyalty and rates each team on each of the drivers. The respondents are also asked to rate the sports leagues that they’re interested in on an overall basis.

“Since overall league and team rankings correlate very highly with TV viewership and sales of licensed merchandise, rankings can be influenced depending upon how loyalty drivers are addressed and managed,” said Passikoff. “It’s critical that marketers do accurate scouting regarding the strategic game they intend to play with their fans because today, when it comes to loyalty, there are no free-agent fans!”

The most general principal of sports marketing on the team side is finding a way to promote and sell your brand without being dependent on winning, since the on-field results are outside of your control. It seems like along those lines, Canada may have made a mistake with their “Own the Podium” program. I had this thought while reading a recent ESPN.com article about Canada conceding the Olympic medal race.

To provide a quick background, the “Own the Podium” program was an effort by Canada to commit more money to their Olympic athletes that have the best chance of winning medals, with the overall goal of taking home the most medals of any competing nation. Canada currently sits in 5th place with just ten medals, 15 behind current leader, the United States. Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t have committed the money towards their athletes to help them try and succeed in their respective sports. I applaud their efforts to provide extra support to their athletes leading up to and during their host Olympics. However, I think they mis-branded their efforts, and because they are going to fall short in the overall medal count, the program now appears to have failed.

By publicly branding their efforts to “Own the Podium” with a goal of winning the most medals of any country, they created a perception that anything less than perfection would be failure. Canada finished third in the medal count four years ago, and before that, they never finished higher than fourth, so this was quite a goal to set. They could have made the same financial commitment to their athletes with a goal of being in the top 3 (which fits with the general theme of the top 3 athletes receiving medals), and this still would have been a huge (and still achievable) accomplishment. They also could have branded their program with something more related to being the host country than with specific results, something like “The Pride of Canada”. This focuses the rallying cry around supporting the local athletes, not just on their results. By conceding that they will not reach their goal, Canadian athletes and fans alike could easily look back to the 2010 Vancouver Games and think about their nation’s failure instead of pride in their country for hosting the Games and in their athletes for their efforts. Not only that, by making this public concession now, they’ve potentially overshadowed any additional medals that Canadian athletes win during the remainder of the Games.

Of course, the other side of this would be if they did achieve their goal, the Canadian Olympic Committee would look absolutely brilliant. In general, tying any branding or marketing platform to the on-field results is a high risk/high reward proposition, and when you’re dealing with a global stage like the Olympics, I don’t think it was worth the risk.

This week I have been busy finishing up trimester number 5 (out of 6) of my MBA, so I’ve only been intermittently paying attention to the Olympics, and I’ve been leaning heavily on those I follow on Twitter to keep me updated on which sponsors are activating in unique ways and which are practically non-existent.

One quick aside before I delve into specific sponsors… I think some Olympic sponsors will be hurt by NBC’s decision to air the competitions in prime time in MST and PST. I personally know that after I’ve seen a result earlier in the day, I’m less likely to watch the entire broadcast,  if I choose to watch at all. Now that we’re in the twitter age, networks will need to re-think their policy of playing everything in prime time. Also, I enjoyed watching uninterrupted footage of the snowboard halfpipe. Other events have been chopped up, competitors cut out, and drama ‘manufactured.’ I’d rather watch the full competition every time.

Ok, now on to the sponsors. Coke includes an environmentally-friendly aspect to their activation by encouraging Canadians to “adopt sustainable environmental practices.” They will purchase carbon offsets to offset the carbon footprint from their operations at the Games as well as the torch run. This means their carbon emissions will have been reduced 100%. (Courtesy of Cokenews.ca). “Every piece of our Olympic marketing has a social and mobile component,” says Katie Bayne, marketing chief for Coca-Cola North America.

Meanwhile, much has been made of Visa’s decision to put 40% of their activation budget towards digital, quadrupling past spends. Their YouTube channel unveiled their Olympic spots before they were even shown on TV. These spots drive awareness and help reach their objectives, spelled out in this interesting document.

According to a USA Today article, GE is “using the Olympics as a ‘launch pad’ for it’s biggest social media push.” They have created a Twitter hashtag (#GEhealthy) and an account (@gehealthy) with the bio of: A shared commitment to creating better health for more people . Together. With only 184 followers, it remains to be seen if this push will be fruitful for them.

One company who seems to really get it is Red Bull. On Tuesday night, NBC showed a segment about Shaun White and his secret halfpipe. The segment really reinforced why Red Bull is the perfect sponsor for the halfpipe competition. They didn’t just slap their logo on one of White’s boards, they instead found a way to help him achieve his goals, thereby making the partnership valuable from both perspectives.

I thought the remark that best summed up what these Olympic sponsors should strive for was said by Mark Pritchard, CEO of Proctor & Gamble: “So what really makes the difference? The idea. When the idea is good, people flock to it and build on it.”

There is still a significant amount of time left, and many amazing Olympic moments that are sure to occur. What sponsor(s) are you most looking forward to stepping up to the challenge?

I realize that the locations of our sports business networking events (like tomorrow night’s event in New York – there’s still time to RSVP!) don’t work for all of our readers. So when I learn about events in other locations that I think would be just as valuable, I like to share them, and this is a perfect example.

UF Sports Law Symposium to examine legal playbook as Collective Bargaining Agreements expire

On Jan. 29 sports agents, litigators, salary cap analysts and sports law students will huddle up at the University of Florida Levin College of Law to get ready for a whole new ball game.

In the next two years, time will expire on the Collective Bargaining Agreements affecting the negotiation of salaries and playing conditions for professional athletes. The 2010 UF Sports Law Symposium, “Discussion: Bargaining Collectively,” presented by UF’s Entertainment & Sports Law Society, will bring together sports law experts and representatives from the National Football League, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball to discuss why CBA’s exist, how they help players and owners, and to identify contract terms that will likely be argued before the agreement expires. The free event, set to kick off at 11 a.m. at UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom 180, will offer CLE credits.

“The 2010 UF Sports Law Symposium will be an excellent forum for students, athletes, professors and others interested in sports law to network and learn from the brightest minds in sports law,” said Darren Heitner, president of UF Entertainment & Sports Law Society.

The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium will be Harvey W. Schiller, Ph.D., who has served as president of the International Baseball Federation since 2007 and is also chairman of the board and CEO of GlobalOptions Group, a multidisciplinary international risk management and business solutions company located in New York. Prior to joining GlobalOptions in 1994, Schiller held posts at Turner Broadcasting System, served as the executive director/secretary general of the United States Olympic Committee and was the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference.

“It’s an honor to be able to address future sports-business leaders in Gainesville,” Schiller said. “We live in very challenging times where the changes in the way we conduct business occurs in minutes. Adapting and understanding those changes is critical to our success as professionals. It is my hope that forums like the one being held at the University of Florida, provide the framework for the growth of the industry and to inspire further discussion and opportunity.”

Closing the day-long symposium will be Donald Fehr who served as the general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association beginning in 1977, and as its executive director for 26 years from December, 1983. In his role as executive director, Fehr served as the players’ chief negotiator in collective bargaining with major league owners and was responsible for contract administration, grievance arbitration and pension and health care matters. Fehr will address the role of collective bargaining in professional team sports, and discuss his experiences in his role with the players association.

“Interesting things are on the horizon for the four major professional team sports in North America,” Don Fehr said.

To view the symposium agenda, speaker profiles and designated CLE credits, visit http://www.ufsportslaw.com/symposium.html. For more information regarding the symposium, contact Darren Heitner at heitner@gmail.com.

Normally, I don’t like talking about events that take place on the field, but today I’m going to make an exception. On Wednesday night, a World Cup qualifying soccer match was decided by one person who made a mistake that was easily identifiable by a simple video replay. However, because the sport was dependent on an archaic system of in-game governance that was developed decades if not centuries ago, the result of the game and any number of future events has been permanently altered.

This same situation has happened in multiple major sporting events over the past few months, including several prominent errors in the MLB playoffs, but for the most part, the governing bodies for these organizations prefer to stand by and depend on their “traditional” means for making all in-game decisions. This system may have made sense was professional sports was more of a casual pastime, but now it is a multi-billion dollar global industry, and each one of these incorrect decisions can have serious repercussions. A team that misses the next round of playoffs because of a bad call loses out on millions in ticket revenue. A player that is invalidly judged by an official’s decision can lose the chance at significant endorsement money. An entire league can suffer (or benefit) because of an officiating decision that impacts what teams are playing and the television ratings that come with those teams.

Meanwhile, sports organizations have embraced technology in almost every other form, from evaluating the players statistically to refining their business processes. Clearly everyone recognizes the importance of technology as sports have evolved, but yet for some reason, they refuse to let the technology onto the field in the form of instant replay. Would any other industry operate in this manner? Can you imagine if Walmart decided that they needed to use a more “traditional” way to run their checkout lines and made the staff type in each number, because “that’s how they’ve always done it.” The errors that would occur would ultimately have a significant impact on their business, ruining their other technological advantages that they’ve developed in their inventory management processes.

I understand that trying to add instant replay into sports is a complicated process with many potential pitfalls. This is why I give a lot of credit to the NFL for their work in this area. They acknowledged the problem, created a replay system, and constantly work to refine it based on the needs of the sport. I would hope that more sports, like soccer and baseball for example, eventually decide to follow the NFL’s lead and develop their own comparable systems. Putting aside the game for a moment, there is simply too much money riding on what happens on the field for everyone to overlook these issues.

Last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially announce that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil would host the 2016 Summer Olympics. This will be the first time that the Games will take place in South America, and it has been hailed as a tremendous achievement for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, there has been significant disappointment in the United States for Chicago’s failed bid to host 2016, which included the support of President Barack Obama.

I will be honest in that I didn’t follow this story very closely. I let my “U.S. bias” lead me to believe that Chicago was the likely favorite over Rio, Madrid and Tokyo.  However, along that line, Darren Rovell wrote an excellent post on how much additional revenue would be generated through media rights and sponsorships by hosting the games in Chicago.

With that said, my questions to all of you are:

• What city did you except to be named as the 2016 host city and why?
• What do you think hurt Chicago’s bid the most?
• What do you except from Rio as the first South American host city?

This post is completely designed for all of you to provide the content through the comments below. Please share your thoughts and let’s get a nice dialogue going.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Paulo da Silva, Arizona State Sports Business MBA, Class of 2009.

Major League Soccer (MLS) and its Commissioner Don Garber seem to be committed to take the world of sports by surprise. Since 2006, David Beckham’s transfer to the LA Galaxy and the continuous team-expansion announcements to Seattle and Philadelphia (starting 2009 and 2010, respectively) have given the MLS a year-after-year unprecedented growth not only in retail sales, which has more than doubled from $145 million in 2006 to $300 million in 2007, but also in visibility over the South and Central American leagues worldwide, with an increasing regular season stadium attendance registered at 3.27 million people in 2007. 

Don Garber once said “We don’t know how this is going to work, but I’m excited about it, very much so”. However, Garber seemed to have a very good idea of how he wanted the MLS to proceed and, in order to achieve these results, they decided to implement the following five-point strategy:

1. Raising the level of respect and credibility given to MLS in both North America and around the world: David Beckham made the international community take notice of the league. Most importantly, even though the LA Galaxy haven’t won any competitions since, Beckham’s quality of play on the field has convinced the media and won him the respect of fans across the MLS. At the same time, there is an increasing acknowledgment of the talent generated in North America, as the recent sale of New York Red Bulls youth product and MLS star Jozy Altidore to Spanish club Villarreal confirmed last summer.
2. Get all MLS teams playing in team-owned and operated soccer-only stadiums: Garber said that by 2010, 12 of the league’s 16 teams will be in soccer-specific stadiums, including Real Salt Lake’s new home opening next season, New York in late 2009, Philadelphia in 2010 and new stadium projects underway in San Jose and Kansas City.
3. Continued growth in metrics like TV ratings, attendance and corporate support: 2008 was the first season in which every MLS game was broadcast either locally or nationally on ESPN, ABC, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel, HDNet, and in Canada on Rogers Sportsnet and CBC. These games are shown not just in North America, but also in Mexico, Central America, Europe and parts of Asia. League numbers state that TV ratings are up 20 percent from last season on ESPN, and 10 percent on Univision.
4. Turn North American soccer fans into MLS fans: North American soccer fans, used to watch European and Central and South American soccer, need a solid and attractive league in order to transition to MLS fans. The MLS Designated Player Rule is a step towards better quality and to a better identification with the fans’ sporting culture in the US.
5. Continue to improve the quality of play, and come up with innovative ideas to reaching new levels of quality: The main initiative implemented by the MLS on this matter was the MLS Youth Development Rule that provided a League-wide structure for youth development and positioned the MLS as the leader of the sport that now totals nearly 18 million participants in the United States.

This plan was designed following the strong and determined leadership of Don Garber, who has been League Commissioner since 1999. As a senior vice president/managing director of National Football League International (NFL International), Garber was well aware of the needs and challenges regarding the internationalization of the American sports business’s model and, throughout the years, he has been able to build a strong basis for the league to grow and think as global as the sport of soccer itself.

The outstanding measure undertaken by Garber happened in 2001 when he re-structured the MLS and led the formation of Soccer United Marketing (SUM), a company owned by MLS investors that stands as the preeminent commercial soccer entity in North America. SUM represents several prominent soccer properties, including the U.S. Soccer Federation, the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Mexican Soccer Federation for all sponsorship, marketing and game promotion in the United States. In addition, SUM manages American tours for some of the world’s most powerful soccer clubs, including Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Chivas de Guadalajara.

Most recently, Garber was instrumental in the creation of the SuperLiga, the innovative professional tournament between MLS and Mexico’s First Division club that has both helped Central American clubs and audience to change their perception of MLS soccer and improve its teams’ quality of play by interacting with better teams in a consistent basis.

These outcomes were not but the result of the hard work developed by Don Garber, the MLS and its partners and the benefits from it are starting to show in an unquestionable fashion. Nonetheless, some challenges still lie ahead: Are all league partners and members up to the quality of play and business Garber wants to ultimately implement? Can the competition for the US sports fan market smother MLS’s growth? Is this growth sustainable? If so, when is it going to stop? Hopefully not soon, I’d say.