As part of a deal announced Wednesday between Britain's Manchester United soccer team and the New York Yankees, the British club will stage a tour of the United States in 2003. They have not played in this country since 1960. Their games would presumably be televised by a new international cable channel that the two teams would jointly operate. Aside from expressing unreserved admiration for one another at a New York news conference, executives representing the American and British teams provided few details about how their alliance will function. Today's New York Times reported that executives of Major League Soccer were skeptical of the deal and seemed to imply that they knew nothing about Manchester U's planned U.S. tour. MLS exec Mark Noonan told the Times: "What do the Yankees know about soccer in the U.S.? ... Baseball skews to older people, who don't necessarily understand soccer and don't like it. Younger fans who play soccer don't necessarily like baseball. It's a bit of a mismatch."

Source: Studio Briefing