I have never been the world's biggest soccer (football for my European readers) fan. I have attended a Columbus Crew game, that is an American Major League Soccer (MLS) team, in the past. I watch soccer sometimes when it is on ESPN, it is often the Champions League finals, and I will root for the USA during the World Cup. However, that is where my soccer fandom ends -- as far as I am concerned, "football" is the game played with the oblong, pigskin ball featuring two heavily armored teams battling on the gridiron for the ultimate supremacy in either the NFL or NCAA.

One billion people will be watching the Super Bowl, but 5.7 billion others couldn't care less. In the United States, we love football -- the rest of the world, loves futbol (soccer).

Grupo Televisa SA (NYSE: TV) produces television channels that reach subscribers in 60 countries throughout Latin America, the United States (via Univision), Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific.

This company won't be blinded by the Super Bowl hype.

Last year, TV yanked NFL games, including the Super Bowl, off the air in Mexico for the whole season after a 35-year run because they felt they were overpaying for the broadcast rights. The NFL felt the Latin heat and entered into new deal terms for the season that began in September 2008.

TV has shown steady revenue and earnings growth during the past several years and is expected to keep growing through 2010. With its advantageous market position and growth characteristics, it is trading at a P/E of about 12.

Ay, caramba!

Nick Atkeson and Andrew Houghton are contributors to OptionsZone.com.

The New York Times interviewed Don Garber, Commissioner of Major League Soccer. He took over in 1999 after the league lost a quarter of a billion in its first five seasons, but things may be on an upswing. Attendance is up considerably this season, buoyed by the interest that international tabloid star David Beckham has brought. The league has landed some big corporate sponsors, its first long-term TV deal, and is expanding in size.

According to Garber, Beckham has had a huge impact: "We have sold more than 300,000 Beckham Los Angeles Galaxy jerseys, which was 700 times the number of Galaxy jerseys sold in 2006. Merchandise sales over all have gone up two or three times. International TV sales have gone up from next to nothing to distribution in 100 countries, with live games in Asia and Mexico."

But he also points out that, because of injuries, Beckham hasn't yet contributed on the field, but there's always next year. You have to worry about the quality of MLS' growth given that -- a 700-fold increase in sales of Galaxy jerseys for a tabloid-star who hasn't played much so far.

But it sounds like MLS is doing things right on a lot of other fronts so maybe the league will find success -- it may not become the fifth major sport, but it is developing a nice niche following.

Nike (NYSE: NKE) is buying British shoe company Umbro for just under $600 million. It does not seem to be a very big deal for the world's largest athletic apparel company, but Nike may be running out of new markets to attack.

Umbro soccer-related apparel, footwear and equipment is sold in more than 90 countries, according to CNNMoney. The news site indicates that the deal was backed by the Football Association, the governing body for English soccer.

A look at the Nike product line may provide a glimpse into the value of the deal.

Nike has a big footprint in running and basketball shoes. It also has a number of products for track, tennis, and golf along with its own line of soccer footwear. The company has diversified into clothing and equipment including watches, glasses, and golf balls.

To put it simply, Nike, with $4.7 billion in revenue last quarter, may be running out of markets for easy growth. Buying a company with an established niche in a market may be a faster way to get in than trying to go it alone.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

I guess it's kind of good news, bad news for Major League Soccer. The Brit who defines the word metrosexual made his stateside debut with the Los Angeles Galaxy but, because of an ankle injury, played for a total of just 16 minutes. But according to the Associated Press, the exhibition match was the highest-rated ESPN broadcast of the MLS in history, scoring a rating of 1, meaning that 1% of U.S. households with ESPN tuned in to watch Beckham. I mean soccer.

Bringing in David Beckham has the potential to be absolutely disastrous for the sport. While the MLS has failed to connect with a broad audience, it does have a fairly strong core following of die-hard soccer fans. I have several friends in that category, and they are none too pleased with the signing of Beckham. He's an old soccer player on the downside of his career, and everyone knows he was hired for his celebrity and face rather than his feet. The MLS is making a big bold move to try to appeal to a broader demographic, but it may well be alienating its fan base in the process.

If anything, this move is reminiscent of the publicity stunts Major League Baseball teams pulled in the first part of the 20th century -- bringing in a midget to bat when the team was out of contention and the like.

The MLS will probably continue to score higher ratings because of Beckham. But if their goal is to turn soccer into anything other than a fringe sport of paparazzi spectacle, they will need to think of something better. For now, the MLS has more in common with the WWE than with baseball or football.

It seems like it happens every couple years. The promoters of major league soccer have finally found the secret ingredient needed to give soccer mass appeal as a spectator sport in the United States -- some advertising promotion, strategic partnership, or, in this case, the high-profile signing pf real Madrid soccer star/Posh Spice's Hubby/The Original Metrosexual, David Beckham. At 31 years of age, the British midfielder is already on the downside of his playing career, and there are a bunch of reasons this gimmick won't work:

1. The only people in the United States (other than die-hard soccer fans who, presumably, already watch MLS) who care about David Beckham are celebrity gossip followers -- and these people are unlikely to become MLS fans because of David Beckham. Sure, they might go to one game out of curiosity, or buy a poster of him -- but this will not translate into success for Major League Soccer as a whole.

2. The 18- to 35-year-old football, hockey, and baseball fans that soccer really would need to attract to become a viable spectator sport just don't care about professional soccer, or David Beckham. They might buy a copy of Maxim with Victoria Beckham on the cover, but they don't really care about David. If anything, a lot of men hate him for being so classy and good-looking.

3, This blatant PR gimmick runs the risk of alienating the few core soccer fans MLS can count on by turning their sport into a media circus. Think of Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore.

The Wall Street Journal points out numerous endorsement deals and media buzz that the league has generated in the wake of the Beckham signing. But I'll be surprised if anyone cares in a few years. Wasn't Freddy Adu supposed to generate lasting interest in soccer?