Who We're Buying a Beer For...

We took a few weeks off from our beer buying column to work on a few other projects in the pipeline (including a contest we're announcing later this week!). This week we're back with a bang to honor a bunch of soccer-in-America leaders.

We're honored Sir Alex Ferguson in the past with beer, but this week we're loading up the ol' "SS Free Beer Movement" with some brews to make the cross-pond journey for his club, Manchester United. The worst kept secret in American soccer media was that the Red Devils would be showing up stateside to face the Major League Soccer All-Stars in Houston, Texas.

Additionally, United will be scurrying around the continent with games in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Kansas City in the run up to the clash in Houston.

This is obviously great news for all soccer fans in the U.S. and great for our domestic league to attract such a high profile opponent to face the MLS All-Stars. In years past the MLS's best have played games against fellow English Premier League sides Everton and West Ham, which are nice and all, but don't have the draw or the level of competition that Manchester United will bring to the States.

One of the world's most popular clubs their U.S. tour will continue to raise the profile of the sport in America and its especially encouraging that United will face American opposition in the form of MLS's All-Stars and several other domestic clubs. This will continue to increase the exposure of the league and highlight its players to the rest of the nation.

Of course we don't want to ignore the fact that there are many other clubs making U.S. tours this summer (Boca Juniors, Manchester City, AC Milan, etc), but the Red Devils tour and match up in Houston is certainly the highest profile match this summer (besides the obviously World Cup tournament going on!).

Manchester United has been chasing after Asia's money for the last couple of seasons so its a welcome turn to see them back stateside.

Also, great that the Free Beer Movement will be making the journey to H-town to witness such a great event and will be bringing soccer newbies along for the ride.

Beer worthy we say!

England, in general, is awesome. Obviously the U.S. is going to destroy the Three Lions come June 12th, but don't even think about saying anything bad about how they conduct an election. The FBM learned this week that in the British Isles pubs are often used as polling stations and it's not even frowned upon to vote drunk! Fantastic!

Even though this is hardly connected to soccer in America we thought it was worth noting (we'll buy a nice warm one for the new Prime Minister whenever they sort out the power sharing agreement) as a great system that we should emulate. Considering the fact that less than half of the eligible voters in the United States vote why not have polling stations at your local watering hole?

School, churches, and local VFWs are nice and all, but even once you look past the obvious benefits of drinking and voting there's the camaraderie that we'd all feel hanging around the bar celebrating American democracy (actually we're a republic or representative democracy). Plus, the prospect of food and drink deals for voting, we think, would really up the electorate participation.

I guess if we're going to stretch and connect this to soccer we'll try: if we all voted at bars and there happen to be a Champions League match day on a election Tuesday how great would that be to host a voting/free beer match day at your local bar/polling station!?!?!

Not buying it? Hey... we tried.

Lastly we're really loosening the ol' budget belts for another entire team, the Atlanta Beat, for their grand opening of the first Women's Professional Soccer soccer specific stadium

If you were glued to Fox Soccer Channel like we were Sunday night you would have had the chance to view the beautiful 8,300-seat home for women's soccer in the ATL. Quite a site that most men's teams (Austin included) would be jealous of. A great turnout for the stadia's debut as well despite the 1-0 loss.

Every single soccer-specific-stadium that's built in the U.S. is a step in the right direction and its great for the city of Atlanta and the investor-group of the Beat to have decided that there was enough support for American women's soccer in their town to push this endeavor forward. If you build it they will come. These are the sorts of efforts that the growth of American soccer is built upon.



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