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- Real Madrid are now the world's most valuable sports franchise, topping Manchester United in Forbes annual ranking of the globe's most valuable teams. Los Blancos are valued at a mere $3.3 billion. United, Barcelona, the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys round out the top-five. What a list!
- As a sidebar to that article, check out Forbes examination of Real and Barca's domination of Social Media, particularly with regards to the advantage it gives them over NFL teams. To give perspective on what I mean--Barcelona has 61 million Twitter followers, which is more than all 32 NFL teams combined! That's a staggering statistic. No one can seriously argue that the NFL has the level of global reach that top EPL or La Liga teams have, but seeing it laid out so starkly in numbers like that is rather stunning.
- Rafa Benitez and Aurielio De Laurentiis continue to confuse Real Madrid with Costco or a mail-order catalog or something. Not content with already prying Callejon and Raul Albiol away from the Spanish capital, De Laurentiis confirmed that Napoli are interested in signing Gonzalo Higuain. More on this as it develops. Also, from what we can gather Napoli paid somewhere in the region 12 million Euros for Albiol.
- Tickets for Madrid's friendly against AFC Bournemouth this upcoming Sunday are scarce.
- As and other outlets are reporting that assistant coach Aitor Karanka has had the balance of his contract terminated by the club. A long-time Madridista, Managing Madrid wishes Karanka well in his future endeavors.
Alright. Let's talk.