All Three Portland Matches Among 13 National Telecasts
RENTON, WASH.– Major League Soccer announced the entire 34-game 2013 regular season schedule for Seattle Sounders FC today, including 13 matches that have been selected to be televised nationally on either ESPN or NBC Sports Network.
Sounders FC will play the first two matches at home, beginning on Saturday, March 2 versus the Montreal Impact. This marks the earliest start to a season in club history and the fifth-straight year that Seattle has opened at home.
Seattle, Houston and the L.A. Galaxy received byes from MLS on the second weekend of the season. All three clubs are participating in the quarterfinal round of the CONCACAF Champions League.
Sounders FC will visit Mexico’s Tigres in the first leg of their Champions League series on March 6 in Monterrey, Mexico. The second leg is March 12 on the Xbox Pitch at CenturyLink Field in Seattle.
All three matches against the Portland Timbers will be nationally televised, and Sounders FC will host four Cascadia Cup fixtures at CenturyLink Field. The first of eight matches on the NBC Sports Network will be on March 16 versus the Portland Timbers. Click here to download the schedule to your calendar.
Seattle will face fellow Western Conference opponents three times and Eastern Conference clubs once. Sounders FC will visit MLS Cup champion LA Galaxy twice with the lone home meeting in the regular season finale. Seattle will host D.C. United and the New York Red Bulls, who both qualified for the MLS Cup Playoffs last season.
Fourteen of the 17 home matches will be played at night. Nine home dates are on Saturdays, five on Sundays, two on Wednesdays and one on Friday.
After kicking off the regular season with two home matches, Sounders FC makes its first road trip to San Jose on March 23. There are three-consecutive road matches from April 20 to May 8. The team will travel just twice to the Eastern Time Zone (Philadelphia and Toronto), and three of five road matches against Eastern Conference opponents occur over a three-week span in August.
Sounders FC will travel an estimated 39,420 miles in 2013 regular-season play, roughly 1,800 fewer miles than in 2012.
Aside from two home matches each against Portland and Vancouver, Seattle will also host Chivas USA and FC Dallas twice. The San Jose Earthquakes, Colorado Rapids and Real Salt Lake will join the LA Galaxy as the West teams who will visit CenturyLink Field just once this season.
All Sounders FC MLS league matches not aired nationally will be carried live in high definition on KING-5 or KONG-6/16. All locally broadcast matches will also be aired either live outside of Seattle or on a delayed basis throughout the Northwest on ROOT SPORTS™. Each match will also be aired live on the radio home of Sounders FC, News Talk 97.3 KIRO FM.
Sounders FC season tickets can be purchased by clicking here or phoning 1-877-MLS-GOAL
