A couple weeks ago, I planned to write a post about one of the Minnesota Thunder’s new owners. It wasn’t going to be a terribly original post; I was just going to link to an interesting article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about Dean Johnson and his ambition to do some major (non-soccer) development in sleepy downtown St. Paul.

It seems that city councilman (and strangely-popular jackass), Dave Thune doesn’t care much for Mr. Johnson or his plans. Of course, because the PiPress is, well, the PiPress, they don’t keep stories online for more than about 5 seconds (because, you know, it hurts the environment to keep something online. Update: thanks to uhclem for providing an alternate link. Note to PiPress: It’s too bad that I have to link to a content scraper instead of you). The point is that I didn’t recall the details of the story well enough to write anything about it.

Today, though, there is a bit of Thunder news to report. ThroughBall.com favorite, Brian Quarstad has written a piece on BlueSkySoccer that outlines some of the teams plans for the 2008 season.

The first thing, while disappointing, is not a huge surprise: the team will stay at James Griffin Stadium. That’s kind of a downer but it sounds like they are going to make the best of it:

In making all these improvements [(new scoreboard, new press box, etc)], the Thunder hope to be able to negotiate with St. Paul Public Schools to allow them to upgrade the concessions. The General Manager said he feels that the fans certainly want more than “hot dogs and greasy hamburgers.” All the improvements to the stadium would be a donation to the school district. He hopes the school district will reciprocate and allow the team more control over concessions that are sold at games.

And my favorite part (if you’ve been here awhile, you know why), is that the new owners want to—gasp!—engage in marketing. In fact, they’ve increased the marketing budget from a paltry $20,000 to a more respectable $150,000, which will help cover the cost of a marketing director and a rebranding project:

Along with rebranding will come a new logo. The logo has not been confirmed yet but will most likely be more like the shield the team is currently using on their uniforms. “The logo got changed 6 years ago to what we have currently, and quite frankly, no one in the organization likes it”, Bucholz said. The team has secured a marketing and design firm to give the team several options. They hope to have the new design finished within 6 weeks. He also said, “We are looking for a more European look.”

And would you believe “[t]he team has also partnered with TV, radio and print media organizations”?

My goodness, winter lasts too long…

Back after the new year.

In the meantime, I encourage you to sweep the clouds away.

U.S. Soccer announced yesterday that Steven Goff’s fantastic blog, Soccer Insider, won the title of “Best U.S. Soccer Blog.”

Congratulations to Goff and to first runner-up, Ives Galarcep!

Taking nothing away from these two guys (who I believe are the best of the best soccer writers we have in the U.S), I can’t help but wonder if we need a better definition of the word “blog.” I think that Steven and Ives are great, but they’re also paid to write about soccer. I think blogs written by amateurs, such as those written by other nominees, might deserve their own category.

And before you accuse me of sour grapes, let me make it clear again: Goff and Galarcep deserve the recognition. To make it even more clear: I voted for D on my work computer and Bruce on my home computer because they provide wonderful content for no recompense (as far as I know).

Just one more note: remember when I said that U.S. Soccer’s video production has come a long way in the last couple years? I may have been wrong. The videos announcing all the Best Of winners are abominations. OK, that was way too harsh. This is truly the first time in a couple years that I’ve not been impressed with a U.S. Soccer video production. Neil’s dark coat and the dark background made him look like a floating head. You know what, though? We’re all human. Well, unless you’re just a floating head…

Monday seems as good a time as any to run a special edition of Foto Friday…

Reuters recently unveiled it’s Pictures of the Year 2007. Included in the bunch is this beauty of Thierry Henry during his Arsenal days:

You remember Henry, right? He played for Arsenal before they were good. You remember David Bentley, right? He always looks like that.

U.S. Soccer has a problem.

Read the first and second parts.

Incentives

So, how does U.S. Soccer ensure that soccer bloggers continue writing about their product? Furthermore, how can they convince other bloggers to promote their product? Almost everything in life is an economic decision; as such, it is as simple as providing incentives.

I should mention that I’ve rewritten this post a few times because I think that the federation has started to figure it out.

For instance, I think that giving bloggers the ability to embed videos is a good incentive. Shortly after the first post in this series, encouraging U.S. Soccer to provide embeddable videos, I received a note from a reader, saying that embedding was allowed on some of the videos posted since I wrote it. A quick check of the YouTube channel reveals mixed results.

Another reason I had to reconsider this post is that I was going to argue that, in addition to handing out annual awards for the best players, best goals, etc., the federation should consider giving an award to the best soccer blog. Of course, I soon learned that they added a new category this year, to be given to the best U.S. soccer blog.

Isn’t that enough?

It’s a great start, that’s for sure; but they can do more.

How about offering a T-Shirt for the best article about a recent game? (It doesn’t have to be SWAG for the sake of SWAG. In fact, if I were the recipient, I’d run a contest to give it away to a reader.)

In the second post in this series, I said that bloggers should be given moderated access to what are traditionally media-only areas. I was clear that any blogger participation should be at the blogger’s expense. That said, wouldn’t it be nice to send one blogger per year to a game?

Why not give a blogger an exclusive e-mail/phone interview with one of the players? There are so many simple, creative options.

So, you want a bribe?

No; I want to give readers the best product possible. If we accept the premise that bloggers aren’t constrained by journalistic ethos and that they are uniquely-positioned to reach a diverse audience, it makes sense for U.S. Soccer to provide bloggers with incentives to promote their product. Those bloggers who hold themselves to a different ethical standard can pass on (or pass along) the incentive.

Wrap it up, already

All of these posts are predicated on the idea that bloggers represent a viable way for U.S. Soccer to increase brand awareness (reasonable people can disagree about that). But if U.S. Soccer is waiting for the traditional media to give them exposure, they’ll continue waiting. Leveraging the power and nimbleness of the of the blogosphere is an alternative to that status quo.

photo by andrewb823

• Zurawski is Polish for “Beckham” [WVHooligan]
• How to improve ESPN’s MLS and U.S. Soccer coverage [US SOCCERSPOT]
• The “smart ball” is back [The Offside]
• How do you insult your referees? [Pitch Invasion]
• Remember when everyone liked women’s soccer? [Sideline Views]