Blue Notes: KC Current Stadium Renderings, Sporting KC Schedule Coming

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KC Current Stadium Renderings and Timeline

On Monday, the Kansas City Current released two new photos of their new stadium which is coming in 2024. One of the images that was released is above and the other is below.

Kansas City Current

The details in this photo are pretty amazing (it even led to some funny banter on Twitter). From the Kit Bond bridge to the supporter’s section, it’s all pretty cool to see. More so when you realize it’s the first purpose-built stadium for a women’s sports team in the world.

The team also released a timeline of the progress and the upcoming milestones.

Sporting KC Broadcast Updates

In 2023, MLS will move all their content to Apple TV in their new subscription service. With the recent price announcements, one of our community members broke down how much of a value the new service is. One thing we still don’t know is what the linear broadcast portion of the deal will look like. In the past games have appeared on FOX, FS1, ABC, ESPN and Univision. It appears that all of those national platforms are out, except FOX/FS1.

However, just because some games are going to be on Fox Sports, they will still all be on the new Apple TV service. So, if you purchase that (or receive it “free” as a season ticket member), you’ll get access to every single game still. More details are still to come as this likely will move some of the games out of their Wednesday/Saturday 7:30 PM local start time block. It’s also unclear if these are among the six games a week that were going to be in front of the paywall.

One other note, Univision being out of the regular season doesn’t mean they won’t show any games with MLS teams.

“Univision will have linear TV rights to a package of Leagues Cup games for its channels, including over-the-air Univision and cable’s UniMás (which is also over the air in some cities) and TUDN. The highest-profile game in the deal will be the final, for which Univision will have exclusive linear TV rights.”

The number of games that end up on linear television in 2023 and beyond is still yet to be confirmed.

Update 12:14 PM CT: The Athletic has many more details. It’s a four-year deal “with Fox Sports and TelevisaUnivision in the United States and TSN and RDS in Canada.” They go on to say Fox, FS1 and Fox Deportes will have “exclusive linear broadcast rights” in both English and Spanish and an average of 34 regular season games and an additional eight playoff games.

Sporting KC/MLS Schedule Coming

Sporting Kansas City’s new rivals to the East, St. Louis City SC, may have leaked out some details of when we can expect to see the MLS schedule. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the date for the home opener should come this week [for St. Louis], with the full schedule at the end of this week or early next week.”

That likely means they are coming for everyone soon, though it is possible St. Louis’ announcement comes first as an expansion team.

Get ready to book those tickets for your roaddron.

Quick Notes

• Graham Zusi sat down with The Blue Testament contributor and No Other Pod co-host Jimmy Mack.

• Chris Wittyngham does an emotional tribute to deceased soccer writer Grant Wahl.
• Gyasi Zardes signed with Austin FC, reuniting with Josh Wolff.
• Tyler Pasher signs with Birmingham Legion in the USL Championship.
• Free agent Jonathan Osorio re-signed with Toronto FC.
• New Kansas City Current signing, Vanessa DiBernardo, says goodbye to the Chicago Red Stars.

• Syracuse won the College Soccer National Championship over Indiana. Here is the PK shootout to decide it.

• This is a fun bracket visualization.

• This is a pretty good meme. In case it means nothing to you, Cody covered it yesterday.

• So much room for activities.