Adidas has long been king in the soccer world. The official partner of FIFA gives the German giant a huge following as perhaps the most popular producer of soccer-related equipment from clothes to cleats. But a look at what soccer players are sponsored by Nike reveals how close the American company is coming to overtaking adidas as the biggest soccer brand.
While England's Premier League may be the most popular, Spain’s LaLiga is the best soccer league in the world. So the league has decided to do what other sports’ best leagues have done: export the product overseas. With LaLiga North America, the U.S. or Canada could host a Spanish league match as soon as this season.
The cost of watching soccer in the U.S. keeps rising. ESPN announced it would make ESPN+ the exclusive home of the FA Cup in the U.S. on Wednesday, adding to the growing list of soccer subscription services fans must pay for in order to watch soccer, most of which used to come with a basic cable subscription.
The Premier League is the promised land for any team dwelling in the Championship. The riches that come with the bumper TV deals is what drives so many owners to do everything they can to get their clubs promoted and to then stay there.
The three promoted clubs — Cardiff City, Fulham and Wolves — have all been spending, and then some. Combined, the three teams have spent over $212 million. That is around 1/5 of the entire Premier League spending this transfer window.
Since Barcelona unveiled its plans to renovate the Camp Nou (including expanding capacity from 99,354 to 105,000 and adding a roof to cover seats around the entirety of the stadium) back in 2016, the club has always maintained that a large portion of the cost (rumored to be around $700 million) would be footed by selling partial naming rights for the new ground.
Cristiano Ronaldo reported for his first day of preseason training with Juventus yesterday, and although the Portuguese legend looked pretty chummy in photographs with fellow striker Gonzalo Higuain, the arrival of The 120 Million Dollar Man obviously spelled the end of the Argentine’s two-year stay in Turin.
So much money has been tossed around already this transfer window, with the five major European leagues combining for over $3 billion worth of transfer fees.
That’s a lot of money.
But, what if we compared the real life transfer prices with everyone’s favorite managerial video game, Football Manager 2018?
This news flew under the radar for many fans, but if you didn’t hear, Aston Villa now has the third richest owners in all of English football. Yes, the Championship side that finished dead last in the 2015-16 Premier League season is now absolutely loaded. But how did this all come about?
We all love new technology and want to know when flying cars and robot servants will arrive like in the Jetsons. But it’s easy to overlook the incremental changes in technology happening right in front of us, right now. The recent Budweiser World Cup campaign gave soccer fans a glimpse into a future where the packaging of everyday objects — beer in this case — could revolutionize how we interact with brands, the world around us and each other.