MLS: Shirts with Logos ('Bout Time)

I'll start by crediting Mike H from My Soccer Blogs for flagging a report about Major League Soccer (MLS) allowing teams to sell advertising space on the fronts of team jerseys. I'll end by quibbling with a single detail of the plan - and from a well of personal hang-up as well.

The substance of the shift can also be found here, where there is far less fronting on MLS than you'll find in the article to which Mike H linked (no discredit to him on that...but on the author, shame, SHAME!!! Do we really need reminding that "Major League Soccer doesn't have the talent, tradition or TV ratings of more storied American sports leagues"? And in the lead, no less?). If you can't tell from the title, I'm fer this particular arrangement and think the details of how the league is handling this hold together well enough...

...until this:

[FC Dallas President Michael] Hitchcock said Dallas will sign on only with a national or international company. Fans won't be embarrassed by something like Crazy Uncle Bob's Used Tires."

And this:

"In addition, the commissioner's office has authority to reject deals, and the league won't allow hard liquor or Internet casinos to buy space on uniforms. 'We don't want the local bail-bonds company on the front of the Columbus Crew jersey,' says MLS commissioner Don Garber."

Get bent, you prudes. With advertisers, I say the more the merrier and the quirkier the better. "Crazy Uncle Bob's Used Tires" would be a fanstastic logo and help out a local business to boot. Why not have a giganimous "FOXWOODS CASINO" blazoned across the front of the Revs uniforms? A tasteful "MD 20/20" on Houston's uniform? After all, what turns a human being into "dynamo" faster than fortified wine? Do kids - and I'm assuming that's the segment of the market the league fears "corrupting" - look at a jersey with a casino on it and turn to their dad and say, "When I grow up, I want to shoot craps just like Amado Guevara!!" Will they hold their breath till mommy buys them a fifth of Smirnoff just because they see their logo on Taylor Twellman's back? (They may need a stiff drink, though, after he pings the post for the third time in one evening.)

It's just money and the only time we should care about the source is if the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan asks to plop a little hooded man on DC United's uniform. Take the local bondsman and the team helps the bits of the local economy that need the bigger boost. Yeah, McDonalds can pay more, but do they really need it?