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Soccer United Marketing is the marketing arm of Major League Soccer and is responsible for the US English and Spanish broadcasting rights for the World Cup. This group's goal and role is to be an instrument of MLS that will help it gain the media exposure and credibility of other major US professional sports leagues, like Major League Baseball, the National Football League, or the National Basketball Association. MLS owners all own a portion of Soccer United Marketing, which was purported to have made a profit for the league's owners in the first half of 2006. Since the company is privately owned, the company's private financial details are not disclosed to the public. SUM negotiated the new Major League Soccer TV Rights Deals with ESPN/ABC, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Espanol, Univision, and HDNet. The deals are rumored to be worth around 20 million dollars per year to the company. Thanks to SUM, the MLS has also built close ties to the Mexican first division, which led to the creation of InterLiga, a 8 Mexican team tournament hosted exclusively on US soil and managed by SUM. SUM has also used this relationship to develop SuperLiga, a competition between clubs of MLS and La Primera División of Mexico. It is hoped by the company's founders that this company will one day build soccer into one of America's top sports. The agreement of ESPN/ABC, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel, HDNet, and Fox Soccer Channel to pay the MLS' first TV rights fees was signed by Soccer United Marketing, which previously undertook the responsibility of producing the league's various games. The deals together represent the first time in American history that a professional soccer league was able to command TV rights fees.
From the Official Website
Founded in 2002, Soccer United Marketing (SUM) is the preeminent commercial soccer company in the United States. SUM holds the exclusive rights to the most important soccer properties in the nation, including: all commercial rights to Major League Soccer; the United States Soccer Federation and all men's and women's national teams; promotional and marketing rights to Mexican National Team games on U.S. soil; and marketing, promotional and broadcast rights to the prestigious eight-team Mexican club tournament - InterLiga™. In addition, SUM holds the English-language broadcast rights in the U.S. to the 2006 FIFA World Cup™. SUM managed the marketing and promotion of the CONCACAF Gold Cup™, the region's premier soccer tournament for national teams, and the highly successfully Real Madrid American Tour in July, 2005. This extensive list of holdings is represented by SUM's slogan: One Sport. One Company.
