SUM License by Olivia Rodrigo (feat. Don Garber)
Yep.
The big news breaking in the American soccersphere this week was the break-up of the United States Soccer Federation and Soccer United Marketing, the company that functioned as the marketing arm of the Federation while simultaneously performing the same function for Major League Soccer. SUM has been the bogeyman of choice for U.S. Soccer fans for many years now, and plenty will be happy to see it out of the Federation’s business. I imagine the move comes now for the purposes of the Fed standing to gain a ton of money from World Cup 2026, and wanting to maximize that money by bringing all their marketing and such in-house. SUM will continue to focus on MLS (and I imagine, the Mexican National Team broadcast rights in the United States), which will probably lean hard into the streaming sector in their future plans for broadcast.
But I got to thinking: was this break-up truly all that amicable? Sure, it makes sense for both parties. And surely the Federation and MLS will stand to gain some positive PR for getting rid of a glaring conflict of interest. But something tells me MLS will be looking wistfully back at the National team rights, something which for the longest time has been packaged together with MLS broadcast rights.
And then I stumbled across Don Garber’s Spotify page, and was shocked to discover a song had been uploaded to it. I’ve transcribed the lyrics in full below:
I got the streaming rights last week
Just like we always talked about
'Cause you were so excited for me
To finally broadcast to your house
But today I flipped past FS1
Crying 'cause you weren't around
And you're probably with that network
Who always made me doubt
It’s so much older than me
It’s everything I'm insecure about
Yeah, today I flipped through the networks
'Cause how could I ever love someone else?
And I know we weren't perfect but I've never felt this way for no one
And I just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that I'm gone
Guess that all this money will have to dry all my tears
'Cause you said forever, now Michael Bradley’s the only one here
And all my friends are tired
Of hearing how much I miss you, but
I kinda feel sorry for them
'Cause they'll never sell you the way that I do, yeah
Today I flipped through the networks
And pictured Jozy Altidore scoring two
And I know we weren't perfect but I've never felt this way for no one
And I just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that I'm gone
Guess that all this money will have to dry all my tears
'Cause you said forever, now Michael Bradley’s the only one here
Red stripes, blackouts,
I just can’t replace all your leverage, beverage
Sponsors won’t embrace just the one league we bring
Yeah I still fuckin' love your bank (ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)
Tourneys we’d wing
Sponsored by Frito, now all we have is Sebastian
Pass to Chicharito
God, I'm so blue, know we're through
But I still fuckin' love your bank (ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)
And I know we weren't perfect but I've never felt this way for no one
And I just can't imagine how you could be so okay now that I'm gone
Guess that all this money will have to dry all my tears
'Cause you said forever, now Michael Bradley’s the only one here
Yeah, you said forever, now I have to pronounce “Metanire”
We Have a Show Today!
Jimmy is running through the end of the season across Europe, the drama and the ecstasy, while also taking all of your questions and maybe even injecting a little bit of story time from his days as a player. It’s the full Jimmy Experience, and it goes down at 2:00 EST/11:00 PST, TODAY, May 24th.
Goal of the Day
Yeah, sure, Robert Lewandowski might have broken the Bundesliga single-season scoring record and whatever, but might I interest you some fine, oak barrel-aged free kick action from THE MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER?
Listen, it’s not the finest moment of goalkeeping from Sean Johnson, but if you hit the ball this hard and keep it under the crossbar, you deserve some questionable keeping from time to time.
St Johnstone Knows How to Party
St Johnstone has had themselves quite the season, becoming the first Scottish club not named Celtic or Rangers to win a double since Aberdeen did it in 1990. They did it courtesy of a 1-0 victory over Hibernian in the final of the Scottish Cup (which must sting a little extra for Hibs, considering it was St Johnstone that also knocked them out of the League Cup in the semifinals).
So how do you celebrate if you’ve just accomplished a sporting achievement some expected to never see again? You swan dive shirtless onto a dressing room floor covered in champagne and beer.
The caption says champagne. But it’s Scotland. So I’m working under the assumption that beer and/or other spirits were involved.
When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong
Zero Real Madrid players in Spain’s Euro squad. Zero! Not even Sergio Ramos! I would say it’s the end of an era, but France called Benzema back up, and, like, Busquets is still on here, so it’s really just the end of a Sergio Ramos.
#Tactics
Have a great week, everyone.