Before the season gets started, get caught up with the league, its teams and players, and what happened this year. Then get yourself up bright and early tomorrow morning and watch as the big season kicks off.

• Here’s the season schedule, for every team in the Premier League
• In case you missed it, last season was pretty epic
• ESPN previews the upcoming season, in four parts — The really bad teams, the kind of bad teams, the good teams, and the great teams.
• Grantland goes deep on Liverpool — can the team become a powerhouse?
• Bleacher Report has 50 players to watch and 50 storylines to follow this season
• Sportige runs down the biggest offseason moves this summer, and why they might matter
• The New York Times sets the stage for this season, and what it means
• SBNation breaks down Robin Van Persie’s move to Manchester United, one of the last (and biggest) moves of the offseason

For starters, Rays batters hit a grand total of five balls into the air. Typically there’s a moment in every perfect game where a fielder makes a remarkable throw, or catch, or dive, to get a guy out who probably shouldn’t have been. But Felix didn’t need luck or help: he threw 113 pitches, 77 for strikes. He never needed more than 16 pitches in an inning, and had 12 strikeouts. It’s as dominant a performance as you’ll ever see from a pitcher.

On the flip side, this is becoming way too normal for the Rays. They’ve been the victims of three perfect games in the last four years, and given that there have only been 23 perfect games in the hundred-plus-year history of baseball, that definitely qualifies as a rough streak. It’s particularly odd for it to be such a good team, too — no one would be surprised if the Astros were dominated like that, but the Rays are perennial contenders.

You could make the case that a perfect game doesn’t mean what it used to — sure, there have only been 23 all-time, but there have been three just this season and it does seem like the frequency is rising. But for now, it’s still a heck of an achievement, and I’ve never seen it done in such dominating fashion.

It won’t be like the Premier League or the MLS, where players have logos and brand names across their chest where the team’s logo would be. Instead, the current iteration of the plan is that NBA players will have two-inch square patches on the shoulders of their jerseys. That’s not a huge change, and yet will still apparently bring $100 million in new revenue to the league. The top 20 English soccer clubs, by comparison, made $178 million from the giant ads on their jerseys.

Kevin Arnovitz points out that there are some thorny issues to be worked out with how the sponsorships will work, largely because the NBA already has sponsorship deals and agreements with a huge number of companies. And as Freakonomics noted when this same sponsorship discussion came up in the NFL, there’s more to it even than that. If Kobe Bryant is sponsored by Adidas, can he wear an Under Armor-sponsored jersey if they buy space on the Lakers’ shoulders?

The move comes in an off-season filled with changes in how the NBA works. Instant replay is going to be expanded to cover goaltending calls, blocks vs. charges, flagrant fouls, and more. The league is changing, modernizing in some ways and exploring new capitalistic ways in others — the challenge is going to be doing all these things without changing what happens on the court.

(Image via HoopSpeak)

Couple of interesting factoids: the music is from the band Elbow, and apparently they were so excited to be involved that they didn’t ask to be paid or given royalties. Also, that BBC is promoting the Olympics in general rather than its own coverage isn’t all that surprising, because the BBC basically is the Olympics this year. 24 live HD streams. 2,5000 hours of coverage. A page for every sport, country, athlete, and venue on the BBC’s website. And oh so much more. Basically, if you watch the Olympics this summer, there’s virtually no way you can miss the BBC.

(Via Drew Vigal)

When Manchester City topped Manchester United on goal difference to win England’s Premiership title in May, it was a case of equity triumphing over debt. City, long the poorer and less successful soccer team, has soared since being bought in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, and has been buying players as if money were free (which in the sheikh’s case it nearly is). United, by contrast, has found its ability to buy the best players constrained by debts of nearly $700m, nervous bankers and pending European “fair play” rules designed to ensure teams do not prosper by taking excessive financial risks.

The team seeks to raise $100 million in the offering, and at first blush it seems like a really good investment: Man U is insanely popular, consistently one of the best handful of teams in the world playing the world’s most popular sport, and they have Wayne Rooney and his non-hair. But in the US, where people care considerably less about soccer, the team might have trouble finding supporters for what’s not obviously a good investment anyway. It certainly won’t be like the Green Bay Packers’ recent decision to go public — when that happened, you couldn’t buy shares of the beloved team if you wanted to, but getting a piece of Man U shouldn’t be too hard.

So yes, you can buy shares of Manchester United (just don’t buy Class A shares, which come with less voting rights, so you probably don’t get a say in whether Fabio gets any more playing time), but it may not be a good decision. Plus, tickets get you a lot more fun.

Crazy Mario is the guy who sets his house on fire by launching fireworks out of his bathroom. He’s the guy who’s had famous spats with coach Jose Mourinho, has fought a number of  times on the pitch, has sword-fought with rolling pins, and is generally considered some combination of dumb, immature, and dumb. He’s the guy who had £5,000 in his pocket when he crashed his car, and when cops asked why he was carrying so much money, his answer was “because I am rich.”

Super Mario, on the other hand, is a budding superstar in the soccer world. He’s a striker for Manchester City, scored 17 goals for the team, and played an important role in the club’s Premier League championship. He’s now a critical piece of Italy’s national team, a dangerous and versatile striker who is a rare mix of big, fast, and strong.

Super Mario showed up today. In the 20th minute, Super Mario flicked his mohawked head at a curling cross from fellow striker Antonio Cassano, and buried the ball behind Manuel Neuer’s outstretched arms. 16 minutes later, he took of running for a long, lingering ball from Riccardo Montolivo. The ball flew over nearly everyone else on the field, and Balotelli took a two-step lead before the ball reached him, about 20 yards out. A quick touch across his body later, he buried the ball in the back of the net with a shot so hard it’s sort of surprising the net didn’t tear. (Actually, that would be awesome: make it so that really hard shots will rip the net, the way thunderous dunks can shatter the backboard. That would be epic.)

Of course, Crazy Mario’s never far away: Balotelli got a yellow card about five seconds later, when he ripped his shirt off and stood flexing inside the Germany penalty box, looking vaguely as if he was going to murder someone.

Italy’s next opponent is Spain, on Sunday in the Euro finals. Spain’s looking to become the first team to ever repeat as Euro champions; Balotelli’s going to be critically important if Italy wants to stop that. If Super Mario shows up on Sunday, we should have a hell of a game on our hands.

The latest GQ has a fantastic oral history of the Dream Team, compiled from interviews with everyone from the players to the coaches to David Stern himself. It’s an awesome read, especially about the intra-squad scrimmages. First the team played against a Penny Hardaway-led team of college stars, and lost. The first time, anyway. But then in Monte Carlo, the team broke into two squads and scrimmaged, and according to everyone involved it was one of the greatest games ever played:

Carlesimo: Those practices in Monte Carlo were legendary. There was no college team, so that was actually the first time we went against each other.

Malone: The coaches always kept Magic and Michael on different teams.

Hubbard: There was one moment where Krzyzewski claps his hands and says, “Okay, plenty of time.” And Michael is at the other end of the court, and he shouts out: “Fuck that! We’re going to win this game. Fuck that.” You gotta figure Coach K never heard that at a Duke practice.

Krzyzewski: That’s why he’s the greatest player ever. That afternoon, the intensity of it was just beautiful to witness.

Johnson: Oh man, the best basketball I ever played was during those practices. Because everybody said, “Let’s strap up.”

Wilkens: Our last scrimmage, Magic’s team was dominating Michael’s team. And the guys were teasing Michael, because he was playing golf every morning. Well, that did it. The whole thing turned around.

Thorn: He got upset, so he started to score every time down the floor. One time he drove, and the refs called, like, a real tick-tack foul. So Magic booted the ball up to the ceiling: “This is ridiculous! Just like the NBA! He gets every call!”

Hubbard: Magic was saying, “This must be what it’s like playing in Chicago Stadium,” because Michael was getting the calls. And Michael said, “Well, this is the ’90s, not the ’80s.”

Johnson: Michael was going at Clyde; Clyde was going at Michael. David Robinson was going at Patrick Ewing; Patrick was going after him. Karl Malone was going after Barkley, Barkley after Malone. We were just going at it, man.

Wilkens: It got so heated we had to stop it.

At least, unless you play in the MLS. The league just released its salaries for 2011, and having personally never seen them before (the league does this every year, but I’d never noticed) it blew my mind. You’ll never, ever see a five-figure salary in any of the other professional sports leagues, because it’s not allowed. The NHL’s current minimum salary is $525,000; the MLB’s is $480,000. If you play in the NBA, you’re guaranteed at least $473,604, and NFL football players collect at least $390,000. But for MLS players? You’re guaranteed to take home all of $33,750.

Really seems like there’s a zero missing there.

The obvious reason would be that, well, soccer’s just not very popular in the US. But as the New York Times’ John Godfrey points out, that’s not really true. The average attendance at a Major League Soccer game is higher than that of either the NBA or the NHL, both of which pay their players a whole lot more than the MLS. The real difference, it seems, comes down to TV money:

According to Forbes, the N.B.A.’s current TV contracts pay the league more than $1 billion per year, and will be increasing by at least 30 percent when the next contract is signed. The N.F.L. receives some $7 billion in annual TV rights. And some baseball clubs, including the Texas Rangers and the Los Angeles Angels, have agreed to multibillion-dollar TV contracts of their very own.

M.L.S., by comparison, currently generates somewhere in the neighborhood of $27 million in annual TV revenue. Yes, million with an “m.” Those other leagues? Billion with a “b.” A few extra zeros go a long way toward explaining the salary discrepancies between M.L.S. and other major American professional leagues.

Godfrey points to some compelling evidence that the numbers are trending upward for the MLS — more players are making over $1 million than ever, and the same goes for players making over $100,000. The bigger problem, though, is that given the current financial conditions there’s absolutely no incentive for a talented soccer play to come and play in the US, or even for American natives to stay here.

While MLS payrolls remain anemic, salaries for soccer players around the world continue to grow. At the extreme are teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid, who pay more per player than any other team in professional sports — the average salary for a Barcelona player is nearly $9 million annually. Seven of the top ten teams in terms of salary per player per week are European soccer teams. But again, those are the best of the best, the Yankees of their respective leagues and sports (oh, and the Yankees are number 6 on that salary list). The highest MLS team, the LA Galaxy is #219 on the list, below a handful of mediocre European teams and a few teams from Japan’s baseball league. The Galaxy, by the way, have three of the five highest-paid players in Major League Soccer in David Beckham, Robbie Keane, and Landon Donovan. The rest of the MLS is crowded at the very bottom of the list.

For a good soccer player — good enough to play in Europe, but not necessarily a superstar or even on the roster of a great team — there’s absolutely no debate on where you should play. You rarely find a salary in Europe below $20,000 / week, which works out to just over $1 million a year. Only nine MLS players make more than $1 million per year.

It’s a classic chicken-and-egg problem: there’s not a lot of money because there’s no lucrative TV deal. There’s no lucrative TV deal because there are no marquee players. There are no marquee players because there’s not a lot of money. There’s not a lot of money… and on and on it goes. The MLS desperately needs to bend its system enough to allow a Manchester City-like situation: a rich owner with a love for soccer and a penchant for spending money shows up, spends his way to victory, and raises the excitement for both team and sport in one fell swoop. The MLS needs a Yankees — then and only then will the rest of the league, the media, and the fanbase be forced to take American soccer and the MLS seriously.

So how ’bout it, Mark Cuban?

Sadly, the tug-of-war (likely also known as “the sport of kings” and “the best and most important Olympic event ever”) isn’t an Olympic sport. But it was, at least until 1920 (Great Britain totally dominated). As part of a piece on other lost Olympic sports, in which he waxes nostalgic about the two-handed javelin and sixteen-man naval rowing boats with cox, Victor Mather proposes a way to bring it back:

Here’s an idea. Hold the tug on the final day and require that all members of the team be participants in other sports. An interdisciplinary tug team of weight lifters, shot putters and heavyweight boxers would be a grand example of the spirit of the Olympics. And more entertaining than a lot of current Olympic sports.

I love this idea, because it’s the exact spirit of the Olympics. The Games aren’t the World Cup, where soccer’s best is on display; it’s also not supposed to be a way for athletes to make a lot of money or become super famous. The Olympics are more about the spirit of competition than the competitions themselves. We don’t root for a different country in different sports, we root blindly for our country because that’s what you do. The games we play don’t matter; the endless war of bragging rights and smug superiority does.

So bring back the tug of war. Bring back dueling pistols — actually, maybe skip that one. But bring out some Americans, pit them against some Russians, and may the best country win by pulling the other into a kiddie pool filled with mud.

(Photo via Joseph A Ferriss III / Flickr)

With Chris Bosh out, the Indiana Pacers are a better team on paper than the Miami Heat.  It’s not too big a disparity.  But there’s no doubt.  LeBron and Wade are wonderful players.  LeBron earned that MVP this year.  I think for the first time, unequivocally at least, LeBron put in the all around effort required, on and off the court, of a true NBA champion.  He’s not clowning around anymore.  Wade always got it.

But Chris Bosh is an All-Star loss.  He was also the only other starting-quality player to, well, start for the Miami Heat.  Or play on it’s roster.  And he was their best big man on both ends of the floor.  He could shoot from the 4 and the 5, rebound and even defend from the 4 and the 5.  He hits his free throws.  He took a mini-leap of his own in regards to approach this year, although Bosh has always been subject to giving us moments like this.  But he’s good, and the collection of names you’d expect better play from (Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem and .. I guess if you were stupid, Joel Anthony) have not been stepping up even a little bit for their superstar teammates.

I won’t flesh out the statistical evidence here for what I just wrote, but it’s out there.  Check it out.  Think about all the teams that have ever won an NBA title, or even the more recent champions.  How many teams had a guy just like Bosh, in terms of role? A lot.  The Lakers, Celtics and Spurs all built contenders around versatile, two-way hybrid forward centers.

They may still beat Indiana on pedigree and grit alone.  You have to expect that one of the aforementioned under-achievers will slap together a few made baskets by accident.  But it may be more merciful to go out now and end the suspense.  Because this team is not beating a healthy Boston Celtics squad without Chris Bosh.

People can laud the death of the true center, and Shaquille O’Neal is indeed the one man who can enter this converation and say “except for me, bitches!” with no shame, but the one consistent feature of each contending team over the past decade plus is what I will affectionately refer to as the Kevin Garnett Prototype.

Don’t twist that, either.  KG represents the last real quantum leap this league took back in 1995.  Against all popular conception, the Wolves committed to an 18 year old Kevin Garnett with the 5th overall pick, making him the first player to be drafted out of high school since the great Bill Willoughby back in 1975. Why did a struggling Minnesota expansion team go for this seemingly outrageously risky move, especially when popular opinion said high school players were too immature for the NBA (And then proceeded to, you know, draft Rasheed “Mature” Wallace right ahead of Garnett.  Go figure.)?

Well, we know now that they obviously saw a guy with tremendous work ethic and loyalty in addition to the skills.  But it always comes down to the skills.  Garnett broke the mold because he was just that good.  It’s fun to imagine what he would have done with a Kevin Durant-esque one and done college basketball career.

It’s almost a cliche at this point what Garnett represents, but despite having won just won championship his career has been a wild success in two regards.

1.  He is pretty unequivocally a top 5 PF of all time.  He has accomplished it all as an individual and teammate.  And no one ever, ever questioned his work ethic or dedication, perhaps his sanity, but not the other stuff.  So there’s that.

2. He broke the door open for all of these other dudes to truly dominate, and be sought after as franchise cornerstones.  With Jordan in full effect, every team was trying to snag high flying guards.  And they were saying “let this guy shoot all day like Jordan, hopefully we’ll win and if we don’t at least the fans will pay”.  Sometimes this worked (Kobe, T-Mac) sometimes it didn’t (Vince Carter, Steve Francis, I would argue Allen Iverson).  But the truth no one wanted to accept was that Shooting Guard Hero Ball was a Championship blueprint that would be born and die with Michael Jordan, a man for whom the usual rules simply do not apply.

You could argue Duncan finally ended this silliness with his epic 1999 rookie season where he should have frankly won every individual accolade the league has to offer.  It blows the mind to think about today.  Imagine Blake Griffin stats, with all the stuff he doesn’t do.  And winning.  Lots of winning.  It’s one of the best rookie seasons ever.

But KG came first and you gotta give him that.  Since then, with one Shaq-sized exception, their kind has dominated the highest levels of NBA play.  Duncan has watched “contenders” rise and fall around him since that rookie season.  The Clippers have “rebuilt” like 5 times during this one stretch by the Spurs!  But let’s go back year by year…

2011 – Dirk.  He finally won when Tyson Chandler provided the defense/rebounding part of the Prototype that Dirk never could.  Immediately wins ring.  Not a coincidence.

2010 – Pau. Kobe as well, providing lots of good things, but this about the 7 footers and one could make the case that Pau should have been Finals MVP in 2010.

2009 – Pau again.

2008 – KG. After a career of playing with the Ervin Johnson’s and Trenton Hassell’s of the world, he gets professional help and immediately wins a ring.

2007 – Timmy Dunks and the Boys

2006 – Our Shaq-ception in action, with D. Wade playing Jordan. Beat Dirk as an incomplete prototype pre Chandler.

2005 – Timmy Dunks and the Boys

2004 – Pistons.  A strange, strange year.  But the rules still apply. What put the Pistons over the top, that season?  Ha! A midseason trade for Rasheed Wallace.  Guess what kind of player he was, besides one that was probably high a lot? You got it.

2003 – TDatB

2002 – Shaq-ception

2001 – Shaq-ception

2000 – Shaq-ception.

1999 – TDatB.

We can argue circumstance all day.  The point is this.  Besides the most freakishly dominant physical specimen this game has ever seen, the great teams in our league have had one blaringly obvious correlation.  Besides good defense, depth and coaching, the one GUY that all those teams have is the Kevin Garnett Prototype.

It’s only fitting that Garnett and Duncan are enjoying a career renaissance in this years playoffs, with really nothing else besides health, rest and age to blame for recent dips in play.  Everyone has been waiting on LeBron since 2003.  He and a certain Mr. Kevin Durant are probably going to have a similar article written about them in 10 years, with multiple championships abound for each guy.  Their amalgamation of skills (really just a smaller, quicker, better shooting offspring of the Kevin Garnett Prototype) is simply a reflection of rule changes and what they make more fun and effective on the court.

For now, the Spurs and the Celtics have earned our respect and are back on top until further notice.  They have the resume and the “what have you done for me lately” results that denote a contender.  They have also stayed healthier than most of the other contenders still alive and kicking.  But maybe, just maybe, they’ve been hanging around this whole time because of the Kevin Garnett Prototype, the blueprint for a decade of NBA dominance.

 (Photo via Flickr/themikelee)