The Real "Most Renown Sports Team In The World"

Since I live in New York, I do check out the Yankees games on the YES network from time to time. ("Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," as Vito Corleone once told his son Michael.) And for those of you who do too, you may have seen this commercial that pops up on their broadcasts that just seems to emphasize why many people despise the Yankees so much.

It is usually for the latest promotion date at Yankee Stadium, and it starts out with Michael Kay, that "beloved" of all YES announcers, announcing, "The New York Yankees, the most renown sports franchise in the world..." Every time this commercial comes on, it absolutely makes me cringe.

Talk about big-headed nonsense. Don't these people who run the Yankees realize that just about the entire rest of the world plays and is loony about the sport of soccer? (They should know that, as they signed that cross marketing deal with Manchester United a few years ago. More about them to come.)

Now if the commercial said that the Yankees were "the most renown baseball team in the world" or "the most renown sports franchise in America," I couldn't argue either point. But when they think that the entire world thinks they are the most popular and well-known sports team on earth, they are either deluding themselves or so full of BS. (Probably a bit of both I think.)

"The most renown sports franchise in the world" is Manchester United, the newly-crowned champions of English soccer. No other sports team on earth comes even close to their popularity among fans across the globe. Their games are seen either live or on tape on every continent in the world, every week, and their fans clubs run in the millions. I'm no fan of United (see my post about them from yesterday), but no one can deny that no sports team can match them anywhere for devotion. (You could put the Yankees AND Red Sox fan bases together and they still wouldn't come close to that of ManU.)

It's simply a fact that the good majority of the world is mad for soccer. ManU even has devoted followings in places like Africa and Asia, and in places where the New York Yankees are totally unknown. Only nine nations of the world can call baseball a popular national sport (USA, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Mexico by my count). How many call soccer one? Around 200, I believe.

The Yankees can talk all they want about their championships (and you know they ALWAYS do), but everytime I hear them talk about them being "the most renown sports franchise in the world" it makes me want to throw up. It impresses me as being another example of The Yankee Propaganda Machine at work, and that they want the world to believe such nonsense.

What would you expect from a desperate organization that throws an ungodly amount of money at an aging pitcher to ride in and be their savior?