Updates on news, views and developments of the South Sound soccer scene.
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Don Ruiz joined The News Tribune in 1988 and has been covering sports since 1999. He is a long-time recreational soccer player and has covered the 1999 Women's World Cup championship game and a variety of international, national and local soccer matches. E-mail Don.Jon Billings is the director of communications for the Tacoma Tide. He'll be providing news, notes and updates on the Tide. E-mail Jon.
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As part of coach Sigi Schmid's welcoming ceremonies last week, executive Tod Leiweke also gave a quick checklist of accomplishments for Seattle Sounders FC so far.
I thought it was an interesting list, that kind of got lost in the Schmid coverage. So here's the entire text. So in today's News Tribune we have included our own analysis of each of the moves mentioned below:
Leiweke: “I brought my to-do list, which was sort of put together a year and a half ago. So, I’ll be brief, but I want to recount everything. And in fact, I’m going to go back farther than a year and a half ago.
The citizens of this state built this facility, and there’s a plaque on the wall that says ‘football, soccer.’ There was an unfulfilled promise to bring MLS here, and we’ve done that.
We had to put together an ownership group. I couldn’t be more proud of this guy to my left (Adrian Hanauer), Joe Roth and Drew Carey.
We needed to sell season tickets this past week, and we crossed over 18,000 season tickets. We’re 18,100 season tickets.
We needed to put games on TV. We couldn’t be more proud of our agreement with BELO that’s going to put games on KING and KONG. We needed a voice. As I’ve said often, ‘the Sonics may have gone to Oklahoma City, but that man didn’t,’ and we couldn’t be more proud that Kevin Calabro is going to call our games.
We talk about democracy in sports. Led by Drew Carey, we have a membership association with literally thousands of members now. ... (And) that membership association will have unique privileges in the world of sports.
These teams need title partners, and without them economically it’s very tough. We targeted one company and we couldn’t have found a better partner in Microsoft and Xbox. We’re proud to wear Xbox across our jersey. We have to sell suites.
We’ve sold 67 of those so far with our best days in front of us yet to come.
Kevin (Calabro) talked about players. The dream of bringing Kasey Keller back home, the most decorated U.S. soccer player of all-time. Then there was the opportunity to recruit a designated player. We announced Freddie Ljungberg, and we’re thrilled.
While all of those are powerful announcements, I think (the hiring of Schmid) is truly a defining moment in this franchise and where we want to be.”
