The 2007 season is four months away and already Colorado has a huge advantage over most of the teams that have moved into new stadiums.

Unlike the laborious road streaks undertaken by Columbus (1999), Los Angeles (2003), and Chicago (2006), Colorado opens its new stadium with the season opener April 7 against D.C. United at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

The game will be televised live on ABC and marks the first time a team moving into its own stadium will do so earlier than mid-May.

Columbus Crew Stadium opened on May 15, 1999 after the Crew opened the season with seven games on the road. Los Angeles played away eight games – and didn't win any of them – prior to the June 6, 2003 opener at Home Depot Center. Chicago played nine matches, and went 2-3-4, before unveiling Toyota Park last June 11 with a 3-3 tie against New England.

Dallas moved into Pizza Hut Park on Aug. 6, 2005, and had yet to finish renovations when the team hosted MLS Cup the following November. Its first six home games were played at the Cotton Bowl.

Incidentally, the Rapids are already showing some sensitivity to its stadium's sponsor, which has reportedly paid more than $1 million per year to attach its name to the 18,000-seat facility. Club press releases state: ''please refer to it by its official designation, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, without using any shortened or altered versions of this name. The Colorado Rapids appreciate your cooperation.''

As a compromise, DSG Park works. Or DSG Park and Complex, if a reference to the 24 lighted fields adjacent to the stadium is needed.

It's up to Dick's Sporting Goods and the team to get the word out if it's name is shortened by newspaper headline writers and smarmy sportscasters.

OPEN SEASON. The ESPN2 lineup of Thursday night games begins April 12 at Home Depot with a showdown of the superclubs, the New York Red Bulls and Los Angeles Galaxy.

Alexi Lalas proclaimed the former as aspiring to become a superclub prior to leaving Red Bull to assume the posts of president and general manager of the Galaxy, whose operator-investor Anschutz Entertainment Group is the only ownership group more powerful than Red Bull.

Neither team was super last season: The Red Bulls snuck into the playoffs on the final day of the season and fell to D.C United in the first round; Los Angeles fell short of postseason play.

The matchup of the head coaches is an intriguing one: Red Bull boss Bruce Arena won MLS titles during the first two seasons of MLS, and Galaxy head coach Frank Yallop, a former D.C. assistant coach in the post-Arena era, won two crowns as well in San Jose.

Yet fans don't flock to see coaches, and unless at least one of the teams registers a major player signing in the next few months, filling Home Depot for this Thursday night affair will require either a massive marketing push or liberal distribution of free tickets.

The telecast will surely receive liberal promotion by its broadcast partners; local ad time by the networks, the league and the team may help boost the gate. David Beckham's pronouncement this week that he's not likely to be changing teams and leagues this January may or may not prove to be true, but it's a pointed reminder to AEG that he won't come cheap at this point in his career.

Since its inception in 1996, MLS has failed to successfully market its midweek games. One of the most poorly attended games in Galaxy history was a 1999 match against Columbus at the Rose Bowl on a cold, rainy Thursday night in early April. The official attendance was 4,825; perhaps a thousand people were actually present. And, yes, that game was televised by ESPN2.