Tonight, I went to the bar to have a beer with one of my lovely co-bloggers. When I came home, I decided to check some of the soccer sites I check multiple times a day. Well, imagine my surprise when I typed in the url MLSSoccer.com, the url for the official website of Major League Soccer, and I was greeted by a full page advertisement for the National Journal, complete with an animation that claimed I would be re-directed to NationalJournal.com. I was, instead, re-directed to the site I originally intended to visit. As of the time of this posting, MLSSoccer.com still has this problem. Here’s a small screenshot..
MLSSoccer.com Has Lost The Plot Or Been Hacked
For a full screenshot, click here. I left everything in that one to make it really obvious that this is a real thing that really happened.
So, the obvious question. How does this happen? This is a serious professional sports league...supposedly. Lots of people would argue that they’re Mickey Mouse, but they at least take themselves seriously. Then again, this is the league that had the greatest website launch debacle ever.
When MLS changed over from the new MLSnet to the new site just before the start of last season, lots of things went horribly wrong. Months later, lots of stats pages were still not there or not accurate. The functionality of the website in general was horrid, which was laid out in stunning detail by Fake Sigi.
Everyone makes mistakes, but for a major sports league with a history of absolute disasters regarding their website, this is a pretty awful one.
Edit: Someone from MLSSoccer.com sent me an e-mail informing me that the error was one made by a third party advertising partner. Once they noticed the issue, they worked to fix it. As of the posting of this edit (2:30 pm ET, March 15th), MLSSoccer.com has removed the ad and their site is working properly.
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