MLS: USA TODAY's Peter Brewington previews the MLS All-
Star Game tomorrow in San Diego and writes, "For every
positive about the 4-year-old league -- there is a
negative." Attendance is "up more than 1,300 a game, but TV
ratings are barely breathing. They're way down on ESPN,
although up 50% [on Spanish language Univision.]"
Brewington: "The league continues to lose money. Net losses
for the first three years are roughly $100 million." The
Bonham Group President Dean Bonham: "My opinion is we're
going to see a league with more ownership control in the
future" (USA TODAY, 7/16). MLS Commissioner Doug Logan, on
the impact of the Women's World Cup on MLS: "Hopefully this
sport has made friends over the course of the last three
weeks. If so, that would be a good thing" (AP, 7/16).
Logan, on MLS: "I like the position we're in. ... We're
extraordinarily stable" (COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 7/16).
NOTES: Blues G Grant Fuhr, asked if the NHL needs to
address the players' escalating salaries: "That's my theory,
but the [NHLPA] probably doesn't want to hear that. I think
salaries are getting to the point where they might have to
be curbed. Guys are making $7-$8 million a year and I don't
know if hockey can support salaries like that or not. I
wish I was 10 years younger" (OTTAWA SUN, 7/16)....In
Baltimore, Jamison Hensley, on the World Cup of Lacrosse:
"Despite much-needed television exposure, the competition
has caused several rifts in US Lacrosse ... which stresses
its separation from the World Cup." Hensley writes that
"both groups have continued talks and said an agreement may
be reached" for next year's World Cup, which is the
"creation" of NJ-based sports marketing firm Gazelle Group
(Balt. SUN, 7/16)....CNN's Gary Tuchman profiled the CPBL,
and said that while "players would have to quit the league
after four years ... the league says it will then pay for
four more years of tuition, room and board" (CNN, 7/15).
