Business

When a normal person wakes up, there's a process to be gone through before one gets enough energy to go outside and be a person. Generally there's some combination of a shower, breakfast, coffee and maybe exercise before one is ready to meet the day. Humans are ike diesel engines. It takes us a while to get properly revved up.

Except for Cristiano Ronaldo, who may not even be a human, just a 6'2" bundle of pure energy, hair gel and abs, and who gets out of bed like no human being before him.

Jurgen Klinsmann is no longer the head coach of the United States Men's National Team. Most USMNT fans wanted Klinsmann out even before the debacle against Costa Rica, but most assumed Klinsmann's large buyout would keep him employed at least a little while longer.

Apparently the buyout wasn't big enough to keep Klinsmann around, but it was still a massive amount of money. No one seems to know the exact amount, but most, if not all, outlets feel safe in saying it was quite large.

A new study from Deloitte, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms in the world by revenue, has offered up some pretty obvious conclusions with regards to implementing a system of promotion and relegation in the American soccer pyramid, but it’s also provided one of the more realistic takes on the possible benefits and risks involved.

Barcelona have signed a new shirt sponsorship deal with Rakuten, an electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo. The deal will pay Barca almost $60 million per year for four years, with the option of a one-year extension and even more money should certain bonus criteria be met.

Barcelona’s current deal with Qatar Airways, a partnership which began back in 2011, currently nets them around $35 million per year, but the Catalan side are now set to nearly double that yearly income with Rakuten as the primary sponsor.

A little over a week after Neymar put pen to paper on a new five-year deal with Barcelona, Real Madrid have announced that Gareth Bale has committed his future to the club by signing an extension running until June 30, 2022.

The post-Sir Alex Ferguson era has hit an all-time low point with the team’s play becoming so boring that it's putting their fans to sleep, sparking a new demand for mattresses and pillows.

St. Louis and Sacramento are both making moves to secure an MLS expansion team, but the future for each city is still unclear.

Back in April 2016, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber had said that he wanted to decide on Sacramento’s bid for an expansion team before Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson left office. That is only a few weeks away, and nothing has happened.

Barcelona fans, it's going to be OK. Neymar signed a new contract, keeping him (theoretically) in blue and red at least until 2021, or until Manchester United prepare that mega-bid we;ve all been hearing so much about.

Lionel Messi and his Barcelona teammates, including Gerard Pique and Ivan Rakitic, took a moment to read tweets about themselves in an ad campaign for the new 2017 Audi Q2. Fortunately for the Barca players, this was nothing like Jimmy Kimmel’s “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” segment.

The players read tweets containing strange tags that ultimately praised them as footballers and individuals. The highlight of the two-minute video is watching Messi awkwardly praise himself.