English sports network forgets English MLS star is English

Sky Sports is a British TV channel that has bought the rights to air Premier League Games.

This is really cool! MLS as a #brand is growing, which is good, I think. Unless you are the players who won't see any of this money, but gosh darnit Aaron this article is not about that.

This article is about Sky Sports' lovely new promotional image for the television deal. Spoiler alert it contains three very popular stars of English and Irish soccer in MLS.

I will now give our lovely readers here at Once A Metro a few seconds to guess, which MLS superstars Sky Sports touted out to celebrate this massive branding agreement.

....

Do you have your guesses written down? Well here we go (image courtesy of Sky Sports:)

If you had Robbie Keane, Frank Lampard, and Steven Gerrard collect your prize! (There is no prize.)

Wait...what?

Two of these players aren't even in MLS. Lampard made an utter mockery of the league by forcing his way into staying at Manchester City for longer than he was supposed to, and exposed that he never actually signed an MLS contract. Meanwhile, Gerrard bolted Liverpool the second they revealed in contract negotiations he may not get regular starting minutes and ran to the LA Galaxy.

Also, its worth noting the awful photoshop that they did to Gerrard on this photo. Keane is clearly wearing the 2014 Galaxy kit, referenced by the old MLS logo on it, and they just placed it over Gerrard. Nice American flag patch, Sky. They probably wouldn't know that they've changed uniforms since Gerrard is still playing for Liverpool.

Somehow, despite doing everything wrong in his move to MLS, Sky Sports got the new NYCFC jersey right. Since there's only one there was no way to mess it up, I guess.

Sky Sports had a clear opportunity here to showcase a very talented English soccer star that is tearing up MLS.

No, not Dom Dwyer (well I guess they could have used him), but Bradley Wright-Phillips!

BWP set MLS on :fire emojis: last year by tying the league record for goals in a season (27). He scored 31 total goals over the course of 2014, something very few top flight strikers achieve in their career. Wright-Phillips has a brother playing for Queens Park Rangers in the Premier League, and is the son of former Arsenal star Ian Wright.

Now I'm sure BWP doesn't have as big a #brand as Lampard and Gerrard do (BWP, if you read this, I love your #brand), but he at least plays currently in MLS.

The three players Sky Sports chose are all former/current Premier League stars, (BWP only played 32 Premier League games for Manchester City) and obviously fit in with Sky Sports' #brand over someone like BWP.

That doesn't mean it is not a shame that one of the best goal scorers in MLS, and need I remind you again current player in MLS, couldn't be featured in this deal for MLS television rights.

I'll leave you all with some boilerplate from club-legend Thierry Henry on the deal:

"I will never forget my time playing in MLS - it gave me some great memories and I was proud to play a role in growing the game.

I saw the passion of the fans in the US. They have always had it for other sports but they also have it for football now and it’s going to be huge in years to come. Sky Sports is the best place for the game, to bring it closer to fans in the UK and build MLS even more."