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It must have been 1994 and the World Cup was in the United States. I was 15 and my soccer team was excited to get together throughout the Summer and watch the games and hang out. I can't say we didn't get bored at times and go out to kick the ball around, but we also watched quite a bit of soccer that Summer.

For those too young to remember, it was a huge deal in 1994 that the World Cup would be broadcast commercial free. Being able to watch an entire half of soccer without commercials was actually news. You kids today don't realize how good you have it. I'll be right back. I need to go yell at some kids to get off my lawn.

There'd be five or six sponsors who would have their logo on the screen next to the scorebug for 12 minutes or so each half and because we were a bunch of nerds, we made a game of trying to guess what the next sponsor would be for the next segment of the broadcast. It was a different time in 1994.

That was all fun until I figured out the system to tell the order of the sponsors. The announcers would read off the full list of sponsors at the start each half and I realized they were reading them in the order they'd show up in the game. I had a good little run before my teammates made me tell them how I knew what was next. Like I said, we were nerds. 

That leads me to my last couple of weeks where I have grown fascinated by the sponsors of corner kicks for USL League One. So I spent my free time reviewing corner kicks from each team's most recent home game to find out what company sponsors each team's corners.

That's right. With my limited time on this planet, I willingly spent time reviewing corner kicks of every USL1 team in the league. All 17 teams. Sometimes multiple games to verify the corner kick sponsor, or in one case, multiple sponsors. We'll get to that. Compiling that list seems like a good use of my time on Earth.

But for whatever reason (boredom) I did it. And not content to just waste my time, I set out to waste other people's time as well. I asked various people around the league who either cover USL1 or a specific team and sent them a list of five teams to see how they'd do in identifying the corner kick sponsors. For those who cover a particular team, I included their team in the list of five that I sent them. For the others, I just randomly mixed up the teams 

So how'd they do. Well, to be honest, not great. Part of it may have been the teams I sent them. Or maybe they hadn't seen that team play yet. Or, and this is my theory, people are inundated with advertising all the time and at some point it just washes over you and you don't consciously notice it.

On the plus side, I couldn't find a comprehensive list of the sponsors of corner kicks for USL League One. Granted, I only did a little bit of googling before giving up and finding them myself. So, as of this posting, it's possible this is the only publicly available  list of corner kick sponsors for USL1 on the internet. So there's that. To be clear, I did not watch every corner of every team so it's possible I may have missed something, but I did my best to make sure I got all of these correct.

(Feel free to play along. I'll post the answers at the end of this post.)

David Adams, proprietor of Tumbleweed Times covering AV Alta, instantly knew that Toyota of Lancaster was the sponsor for the Alta corner kicks This shouldn't be too surprising, but then again, Adams is presumably at the games and not necessarily seeing the sponsor flash across the screen as he watches from the comfort of his home. As we'll see a little later, no everyone knew their home team's sponsor. 

Adams had less luck with his guesses on Portland, Charlotte (not a Dodge dealership), Fort Wayne (not Kroger) and threw in a stray shot at Corpus Christi by saying he hasn't watched one of their games yet, but to be fair, neither have the residents of Corpus Christi before incorrectly guessing a Mexican restaurant.

I messed up and gave Rob Chappell, host of the terrific 608 Soccer Show covering Forward Madison, six teams.  (Thankfully, they renamed from Talkin' Flock to its current name when Madison added a USL-W team they also cover, since everyone knows a group of flamingos is known as a flamboyance.) Chappell nailed Madison's sponsor of Canopy Wealth Management and Union Omaha's Modelo sponsorship, saying he only knew that one because Omaha's supporters get into it and it's not just something the play-by-play guy reads off that gets ignored.

Chappell also said he didn't know how many Madison fans would know their sponsor since they're all, you know, at the game and not watching on television. He said, and I agree, that the visiting team should run ads during the games since their fans are at home or at watch parties while the home fans are actually in the stadium. 

Tim Howerton, better known as Ranting Blue Penguin Media on Bluesky, covers Omaha and, predictably, got the Owl's sponsor correct. He said he had no clue on the others and guessed, ultimately incorrectly, that Naples and/or Sarasota had some kind of health company for their corner sponsors. 

Ian Anderson of the fantastic Forza Naples podcast (available at fine podcast stores everywhere) came out on fire. He knew Naples is sponsored by Andersen's Windows and Doors was the company for their home squad. He correctly knew that Richmond was unsponsored and for Spokane he said "I think it was a bank but like from Idaho? Something was sponsored by the Idaho Credit Union and I think it was corners" so we're giving him full credit for Idaho Central Credit Union.

He drew a blank on Portland and incorrectly guessed Boise was also a bank of some kind. Still, three out of five is quite the impressive performance. Before I started this, I couldn't have gotten there out of the entire league.

But those are local reporters covering their local teams. How did some of the national reporters who cover the entire league do?

Alex Ashton runs the recently relaunched League One Updater website as well as contributing to RiverCity93 covering Richmond and co-host of The USL Show. Surely someone covering the league as he does would do well at this, right?

He didn't know any of the five I sent to him, but did say he knew Omaha was the only one he knew. As Chappell pointed out earlier in this post, Ashton is always at City Stadium and never actually watches a Richmond match on television. He also said the public address announcer in Richmond only ever announces goal scorers, substitutes, and stoppage time so there wasn't really a way for him to know.

To be fair to Ashton, the Kickers are one of three teams that, at least in the games I watched, didn't have a sponsor for their corner kicks. Anyone want to contribute to make this blog the official sponsor of Richmond corner kicks? (Don't do that!)

Let's check with one of Ashton's co-hosts on The USL Show. Kaylor Hodges missed on Richmond (not Publix, as he guessed), Greenville, (not GE Verona) and AV Alta (he guessed Chic-Fil-A), but did get two correct. He nailed Madison and we're going to give him full credit for AC Boise and his guess of Sun Cruiser. In Boise's most recent USL Cup match against Monterrey Bay, Sun Cruiser was, indeed the sponsor of Boise's corner kicks. In Boise's May 2nd game against Chattanooga, their first corner kick was sponsor was Guinness, but after that, Athletic Brewing Company took over corner kick sponsorship duties. Kudos to Boise for getting multiple sponsorships for their corner kicks. 

Joshua Duder, writer and podcaster for Protagonist Soccer, gave a completely honest assessment when I sent him five teams to identify by saying he didn't know them "off the top of my head. I absolutely do not pay attention to that while watching."

Dan Creel, who runs Soccer Almanac and has an article that'll be published soon in Protagonist Magazine, meanwhile, also struggled to remember any of the five I sent him. Let's give him partial credit for remembering that Portland's was a bank of some kind, but he also thought Greenville was a bank or a health care company.

Finally, John Morrissey, writer for Backheeled.com, co-host of The USL Show, admitted the thought he'd be better at picking out the sponsors than he ended up doing. He had no idea for Boise, giving Hodges bragging rights, Richmond or the New York Cosmos. He wasn't sure about Greenville, but ultimately guessed they were unsponsored (they're actually sponsored by Bridgeway Brewing Company), but he did get Sarasota Paradise correct when he identified Sara Mana as their sponsor. 

"They've got a ton of weird sponsors and it sticks in my head," he told me, which seems like the ideal plan for a sponsorship really.

Of all the people I talked to for this post, Omaha was by far the most mentioned sponsorship that people remembered. Even unprompted, people would say the only one they really remembered was Modelo.

Before I give you all the right answers, I want to give credit to Chattanooga for their Pepsi sponsorship. Not so much because they got a big, national brand, but because Coke is also a sponsor. When I was reviewing the Red Wovles' game to find a corner kick, I noticed the Coca-Cola logo during the run of play. But when they won a corner, the big Pepsi logo appeared. Good on you, Chattanooga.

I'm not going to link to them because, well, they're not sponsoring this blog, but here's what I have. Please feel free to send me any additions or corrections to this.

AV Alta - Toyota of Lancaster

AC Boise - Guinness/Athletic Brewing/Sun Cruiser

Charlotte - No sponsor in their May 6th home game

Chattanooga - Pepsi

Corpus Christi - Corpus Christi Athletic Club

Fort Wayne - Moore Wealth Management

Forward Madison - Canopy Wealth Management

Greenville - Bridgeway Brewing Company

Omaha - Modelo

One Knox - No sponsor of their April 18th and May 13th games

FC Naples -  Andersen Windows and Doors

New York Cosmos - No sponsor for their April 19th and 25th games

Portland - The County Federal Credit Union

Richmond - No sponsor in their May 1 game

Sarasota - Sara Mana

Spokane - Idaho Central Credit Union

 Westchester - Ice Air

Now that you've also wasted some of your precious time of your one and only life, please now go outside, enjoy some fresh air and text that friend you've been meaning to get together with and contemplate the series of choices in our life that have resulted in you reading a post about corner kick sponsors. Also, thank you for reading.