Manchester United Manager Louis van Gaal brought up the commercial importance of the Man United summer tour in the United States during his press conference at Michigan Stadium. He even mentioned the shirt sponsor, Chevrolet, by name. When United came to the city where Chevrolet was founded they injected a huge amount of money into the local economy, supposedly.
Obviously, the draw of Real Madrid and Cristiano Ronaldo had a lot to do with that too. According to notes that were handed to me and other media members in the press box on Saturday, “the estimated economic impact for Washtenaw County could reach $15-20 million.”
Of course, consider the source. Which I believe in this case is either the Guinness International Champions Cup, or the University of Michigan Sports Information Department, or both. Both UM President Mark Schlissel and the Governor of the state Rick Snyder attended Man United versus Real Madrid.
Here you can see that Michigan Wolverines QB Devin Gardner met both Man United Assistant Manager Ryan Giggs and living legend Cristiano Ronaldo. In addition to meeting Man United personnel, Gardner also threw and caught passes with
Real Madrid trains for match at The Big House; Devin Gardner strikes a pose with Ronaldo. https://t.co/ib8TYQ3Si0 pic.twitter.com/Dus0ipydMT
— theScore (@theScore) August 2, 2014
“That was a great experience, nothing like it,” said Michigan CB Blake Countess.
“I had never been to a soccer game, I’ve watched the World Cup a little bit, things like that growing up, but to actually be there and witness that soccer game, it was crazy, it was crazy. What an experience.”
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. He’s also a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, CBS, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)