There will be no jokes about the Sounders having to restart the game every 30 minutes to reboot.  Nor will anyone talk about them having a bloated team of 476 players.  And certainly no one will complain that every MLS team must have 10 players from the Sounders roster included with every installation.

No, we won’t make those jokes because despite getting Microsoft money, the Sounders now have the coolest sponsor in the MLS and the best uniforms in the league.

In fact, I may go as far as to say that the MLS has the coolest sponsor in all of Professional soccer, with the announcement of Xbox 360 deciding to be the face (or chest as it were) of Seattle soccer.

Think about the great teams in Euro soccer and then think about their sponsors:

• Manchester United: AIG Insurance (On a scale of 1 to 100, they score 130 on the boring meter)
• Arsenal: Emirates Air (borrrrring)
• Chelsea: Samsung (boring, but at least they are technology)
• RealMadrid:  BenQ Siemens (more technology, but from Taiwan)
• Bayern Munich: T-Mobile (yawn)
• Inter Milan: Pirelli Tires (ok, that’s pretty cool I guess.)
• AC Milan: Bwin.com (online betting is pretty cool too I suppose)

But until I see Sony, Gucci, Rolex, Ferrari, Gulfstream, Prada, or BMW on the front of a jersey, I’ll take Xbox 360 as the coolest sponsor in soccer.  (How does Apple not get that they need to do this…) 

Even better, the sponsorship and company are here in Seattle.  And tell me it’s not a great looking jersey.  Just tell me how to order and I’m in.

(This photo was taken by Courtney Blethen of the Seattle Times, and I grabbed it from this article. Seattle Times: If you need me to take it down, please just let me know.)