Major League Soccer brings the stupid

I'm sure you all know this, but this year's MLS Cup, the championship of Major League Soccer, is the best showcase that the league has ever had in its history. The game features the L.A. Galaxy and the league's bona fide superstars, import David "Bend It Like" Beckham and homegrown Landon Donovan, against upstart Real Salt Lake before a big crowd in soccer-mad Seattle.

So of course, to ensure that the match gets a big audience and helps further the growth of the sport here, the MLS Cup starts...at exactly the same time as NBC's "Sunday Night Football," only the most popular sporting event on regular U.S. television. What's more (as you actually do know), this week's SNF features the Eagles, ensuring no audience whatsoever in Philadelphia, the city where the MLS is allegedly trying to build support for our new team, the Philadelphia Union, launching next March.

How could people sit in a room and consciously make a decision that stupid? Admittedly, November is one of the most crowded times in the sports year, thanks to college and high school football on top of everything else, but sometime like Friday night at 9 (Happy Hour in Seattle!) would have worked a lot better. Are MLS executives on the same intelligence level as the kind of people who also think that ACORN stole the 2008 election?

Now that that's off my chest, laugh at this. It proves that sometimes a pretty obvious joke can still be funny if it's executed well.